Under $10,000 Each: Blake & Craig’s Route 66 Road Trip

Blake and Craig didn’t set out to do Route 66. They set out to buy cheap old cars somewhere on the East Coast or Midwest — Chicago was on the table — and drive them home to California. Somewhere in the planning, Craig suggested they just follow Route 66 instead, since the route was already lining up that way. Then they realized 2026 marked the Centennial, and that settled it.

The project is called The Long Way Home, kept by Blake Brisbois, with Craig and a third crew member, Ron — “the hitcher,” who by the project’s own account tried to buy a ‘64 Thunderbird that failed inspection before he ended up along for the ride a different way.

The rules are simple and a little punishing: each guy had to find and buy a car for under $10,000, then drive it home — a one-way plane ticket out, with the car as the only way back.

Blake picked up a 1965 Chrysler Newport in Johnson City, Tennessee, bought from a man he called Fred. Craig’s is a 1965 Buick Electra 225, sourced out of Minneapolis — the “225,” he noted, refers to the car’s length in inches.

They pointed to an old UK show, Top Gear, as the spark — the two had talked for years about doing something in that spirit before Route 66 gave them the shape for it.

The trip runs St. Louis to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, twelve days, September 25 through October 6, 2026, and it’s a certified Route 66 Centennial project.

By the time they rolled into the Hometown of Route 66, also known as Galena, Kansas, they were three days in.

They’d started Route 66 at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, then stopped at the Wagon Wheel in Cuba, Missouri, the Rockwood Motor Lounge in Springfield, and Boots Court in Carthage.

From Galena, they were headed to Oklahoma that night.

Craig, who works as a psychologist with youth in California, described the trip less as a stunt and more as permission to be a kid again with his friends — and as a chance to see small Route 66 businesses up close after years of traveling internationally without paying much attention to towns like Galena.

Springfield was, by Blake and Craig’s account, the project’s first official city partner; they said they’d taken photos for the city as part of that relationship. Two photographers are riding legs of the convoy — Ben Geier covering St. Louis through Stroud, Brandon Faith picking it up at Tucumcari and carrying it to the finish at the Petersen Auto Museum in Los Angeles.

This trip is as much about the stories as it is the road. Photos, essays, field notes — and today, they added a chapter at the Galena Mining & Historic Museum, along the 13.2 miles of Mother Road that run through Kansas.

Click here for The Long Way Home website

The Pier to Pier Podcast can be heard on Route 66 Americana Archive and Frequency 66

Jason Spiess is the host of the Pier to Pier Podcast and a documentarian with the Route 66 Americana Archive, currently producing a county-by-county audio and written record of life along the Mother Road.

The Crude Life is a sponsor and supporter of the Route 66 Americana Archive and Frequency 66.