Get your kicks on Route 66

0:00To see Mount Rushmore in 3D, you travel to the Black Hills of South Dakota for the U.S. economy in 3D, I hit the open road. I'm David Brancaccio. First, the price of crude oil is down 1% at $110.50 a barrel now. The oil producers, Cartel, OPEC Plus, did agree Sunday to slightly increase pumping to perhaps calm prices yet. Many countries can't increase because of the U.S. Iran War. Stocks, Dow Futures, are flat at this hour, S&P Futures up 3-10s percent. We get a revised economic growth figure, GDP, covering late last year this Thursday, but let's go beyond flat statistics here. On this 100th anniversary year of what's called the Mother Road, I wonder more immersive updated view of the U.S. economy by traveling a length of historic Route 66, linking Chicago and Southern California where I started.

1:02For road tripping 66 in 2026, we go for a variety of vehicles, starting in a Waymo robot taxi at the pier in Santa Monica, California, myself and two friends. So this is Route 66 right here, right? Yep. Route 66. The robot turns onto a stretch of 66 called Santa Monica Boulevard in a city at the sharp end of the coming economic transformation. Headquartered here are some of the entertainment companies soon to be amped up or wiped out by artificial intelligence, Skydance, which just bought Paramount. Also the gaming company Activision Blizzard is here, but Santa Monica, with its elevated coefficient of economic inequality, is not all fancy studios. We limit our drive to just 25 miles in a carbon-intensive 1966 Oldsmobile 442, followed by a stint in my plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt, but the bulk of the 900 mile journey with two

2:03buddies will be in a spiffy 2026 all-electric Rivian SUV, which is so darn quiet even at speed that we need to add a playlist, which version stones now Chuck Berry. That song shapes the oldies vibe of so much of modern 66, a mix of kitchen nostalgia and t-shirts, on full display starting two hours east in San Bernardino, California. The race from that company's official history is 66 as the root of the 1930s mass migration, carrying desperate families fleeing the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl, who collected in camps here. In a moment, two root 66 towns where the artificial intelligence revolution is nowhere in sight.

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4:06Upgrade your workflow with QuickBooks Payroll today, and get ready for the brand new tools coming soon. More at QuickBooks.com slash workforce, that's QuickBooks.com slash workforce. After a night in one of the concrete cones for rooms at the Wigwam Motel on Route 66, it's back to the recharged Rivian for a rapid climb into the economy of the high desert, where I find this man up a ladder. The patina on this building is for real, it's earned, it's not painted on, it's not fake. Matt Parker, Jack of All Trades, including photographers working on the weathered wooden sign at the Baghdad Cafe in Newberry Springs, California, Matt says there are so few jobs along this sandy stretch of 66 that unemployment is not even a topic of friendly conversation. When I give rides home from church or something like that, a passenger will get out, I've never said these words, so what do you do for a living? Those are just words I've never put together. You can buy T-shirts and cold drinks at the cafe, they're trying to sort out permission

5:10to cook food again. Who would come here when the amazing Peggy Sue's 50s diner is just 17 miles west? Answer. The French. With the French taste in movies. Mrs. Jasmine, you got to carry your suitcase yourself. We ain't no grand hotel. My name is Mrs. Munchetna. Baghdad Cafe, 1988. German actress Mariana Sega Brescht, dressed for the Bavarian Alps, ends up here. German movie, but it's the French who come to relive the magic. If you buy the tourist package from in France to come here to America, the states, this is on it. While the sand, long ago, reclaimed a famed water park here, multiple artificial lakes survive, and Matt's plan is to tap his deep well to refill his lake, to be the centerpiece of what he'll brand the Sweet Haven campground. Also. The railroad's talking about coming here and making this a hub to store here rather than

6:13down in Long Beach. The BNSF railways now building along 66 east of here, the biggest railway to truck freight facility in the country. It promises thousands of direct jobs if world trade still calls for such a complex in this era of tariff-induced reverse globalization. Closer to the Arizona border, we spot the restored neon sign for Roy's motel and cafe. The motel's abandoned. The cafe has no hot food, but it has misnacole, selling an eclectic range of sodas. I try pumpkin. Again, cash flow is driven by cross-border commerce. Nicole says here it's busloads of Italians. So many that the soda bottle recycling bin out front warns in Italian, no spazetura, no garbage. People come to Amboida, bask in the weirdness of a place where the motel,

7:15school, and church are deserted, and there's a half-corporate jet left out back for added post-apocalyptic vibes. So it boomed until about 1972 when the interstate came through. I said a drop-down to about 2% of the traffic overnight. Tomorrow it's on to a piece of Route 66 more forward looking, a campus that calls this the year of AI empowerment. And I want to let you know that I'm moving to a new beat here at Marketplace. And after more than 13 years, this is my last week as host of the Marketplace Morning Report. Again, old Dave Roncacho is still around, different capacity. From APM American Public Media