Knew you weren't that much older than me. :smile: As for route 66, yes much of it parallels I-40. But areas in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas absorbed parts of it for the freeway. I've traveled the original and the "scenic" routes and you enter and exit I-40 in several places to take the entire trip, at least until Oklahoma where route 66 turns more northerly and I-40 continues west.
Yes it does in fact on a trip a while back the 40 was blocked west of Oklahoma city so I dove off onto the old 66 and by passed a heap of delays... (stupid Mexicans in center articulated end loaders kept flipping them over during road construction)...