Wyatt Cruising 66 In A Custom Packard Plus Porfirio Diaz Gets Muy Ironic

 January 9, 2026

   I know for some it's hard to imagine a legendary gunfighter from the Old West cruising down Route 66 looking for kicks, but here you go. . .

Spiffy Dresser Wyatt Earp With Spiffy Car

   While many Old West history buffs know that the "Kansas Lawdog" lived until 1929, it's still kind of jarring to think of him driving a car, all over LA and out into the desert towards his winter camp near Vidal, California. And, from there, all over Mohave County, which includes the original stretch of Route 66. Now, this image of Wyatt—probably taken in LA in 1926 or '27, is most likely not his car, but that of the Western movie star William S. Hart. Earp was friends with Hart and Tom Mix (both were honorary pall bearers at his funeral).

   My car friends tell me the car is a custom 1926 Packard Model 326 “Opera Coupe.” Still, the image of Wyatt Earp driving, or riding around in this is still a bit of a jarring image, although here is an even more jarring image, that Michael Martin Murphy turned into a classic song:

"Geronimo's Cadillac," a PR shot

for the 101 Ranch

   This year, 2026 is the centennial of Route 66 and most of us think of the Mother Road in terms of the mid-twentieth century when Detroit Iron ruled the roadways. One of my most proud achievements during this era is knowing how to find all the hidden gas caps!

Mexico: A Zany 500 Year History

   Just got a new book on Mexico history by Paul Gillingham and it is a very zany read. Get this: "General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, a brilliant strategist who lost Texas because he took a nap in 1836." ( On April 22, 1836, the day after the Battle of San Jacinto, Santa Anna was asleep when he was captured by Texian soldiers), "by 1908, 65 mines were operational in Chihuahua, 208 in Sonora, the majority American owned." (Some believe that is the tipping point for the revolution that followed.) And "the governor of Veracruz's claim that his state produced forty-one different beers, provided the verifier had a decent liver." And, my favorite snippet, so far, "Porfirio Diaz lost three elections in a row, those of 1867, 1871 and 1876. The fourth however, was his after he rebelled in Oaxaca, promising radical term limits for everyone from mayor to president under the slogan no reeleccion, no re-election. That said, he re-elected himself seven times." Ain't that just zany ironic?

   Of course, not everyone in our house is as enthusiastic as I am about reading a 700 page history book on the history of Mexico:

Uno reads the cover flap to see

if it passes muster.

"History is nothing more than a dream. Those who made it dream things that never happened; those who study it dream of things past; those who teach it dream that they own the truth."

—Rodolfo Usigli, El Gesticulador