881 miles so far. In 3 days – pretty good going, right? This morning saw the usual faffing and readying for departure from Gallup. I took the old 66 where it exists, but much of today was on the I40, which runs over a bunch of the old road. I road 100 miles to Holbrook, and had the obligatory diner breakfast.
I don’t do many rules, but one I hold myself to while on the road is “No chain restaurants”. I try find a breakfast diner about an hour or so away from my overnight location, so I can get a few miles under my belt to start the day. I also like to eat a bit later to that I can get through the day without needing a lunch. Anyway, todays breakfast was standard diner fare, and it suited me fine.
Very soon post-breakfast I stopped at the Wigwam motel. There is a square of wigwams, and each is an actual motel room you can sleep in. They are obviously not made of wood and canvas, but I think they are popular with 66 travelers. They enclose a large collection of rusting cars from days bygone. A few folk stopped to join me in taking pictures during the ten minutes I was there. Apparently there are 6 Wigwam motels dotted around the US – I think I visit another one tomorrow in California.
Every trip brings you to “the worlds oldest xyz” or “the country’s highest apple tree” or something noteworthy. My next stop was the worlds largest petrified tree. This was broken in chunks, but nonetheless impressive, and the biggest pieces were at least 3 metres high. The tree was removed from the nearby National Park – a petrified forest – in days gone by, when one did this type of thing.
Next in the itinerary was Jack Rabbits Gift shop – a veritable warren of goods and chachkes. I bumped into a bona fide Brit, a chap from Derbyshire, who was also traveling Route 66, and we had a good chat about the old days.
Parked outside Jack Rabbits was a truck, from Texas of course, with probably the coolest license plate I have ever seen:
At some point, I crossed into Arizona. It is in a different timezone to the one I had been operating in, so suddenly I had an extra hour in my day.
I won’t describe every stop of the day, but in Winslow, I stopped at their 9-11 memorial. This little town had somehow persuaded New York to give them 2 melted girders from the World Trade Center and there is a touching (though overly patriotic in a way that only ‘Merica can do) memorial in a park just at the city limit.
I am not one much prone to excitement, but Winslow also held a Route 66 attraction that I was agog about. The Eagles launched their first song, co-written by a a member of the band and Jackson Browne – called “Take it Easy”. It is a well know and much loved rock/pop song, and has stood the test of time. Anyway, the famous 2nd verse starts with the following line: “I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona” – and the enterprising folk of Winslow had put up statues of the writers and created a “Standing on the corner” park. There was endless Eagles music pumping out of a speak in the street, and many folk stopped to take pictures.
I took the obligatory few pics, then went and sat in a nice cafe (that had once been a bank) on the opposite corner to the memorial, and enjoyed a chocolate shake. It was very good, and I relished the cool cafe and cold drink – it was 29C.
The next noteworthy stop was Meteor Crater Natural Landmark. Created by a meteor impact about 50,000 years ago, the crater is 3/4 mile wide, and 550 feet deep. It was deeper at the time, but the desert has eroded the rim and surrounds. It is very impressive, and they have a good visitor center too.
Apollo astronauts trained in the crater, as apparently it resembles many lunar craters. They must have been bloody hot while training, I can tell you. The meteor itself was 45 meters in diameter, and was traveling around 64,000 kilometers an hour. That means it was traveling at 18km or 11 miles per second. That is fast. No wonder it made such a big hole.
Someone there had a good sense of humour. The crater is about 5 miles off the main road. There are various signs along the route that made me smile. “5 miles to impact”. “Speed Limit: Vehicles, 50 mph, Meteors, 28,000 mph”. And the final sign as you got to the crater “Prepare for impact”. Nice work, people. Though one thing rankled a bit – they charge $28 to go look at a hole in the ground! It was worth it, though.
Winona, Flagstaff and others passed by, til I took the old road into Williams. This is the town from which the southern entrance route to the Grand Canyon is found, and there is a lovely train that takes a ride from here to the canyon and back. The old town is cute, and full of jewelers, souvenir shops, diners and other tourist-type establishments. I bought a baseball cap and a badge – I can’t fit much on the bike but needed a hat for the sun.
The final hour ride took me off the main highway for about 20 miles on old 66, and deposited me in Seligman, AZ. A sweet little town that has retained it 50’s style. It isn’t much but what there is retains the spirit of the old Mother road (at least in my imagination it does).
My motel is certainly from the 1950’s. A tiny room, no aircon (the temp hit 30C as I got here), and there isn’t even a desk. I am currently sweating my bits off in their shared space, a quite nice area for guests, that was unfortunately built out of metal, so it retains the days heat very well. I bet it is still fucking hot come midwinter. Anyway, mustn’t grumble.
I had my dinner in a lovely little place directly across the road from the hotel. Burgers, shakes, chips and beer, plus snow cones (I think those would be ice creams, but I didn’t try) are on offer. You order in the place – a shack – then sit outside so that there is no chance you will miss out on the delights of the local sandstorms that deposit bits of grit in your food. At least my beer was unadulterated, so I enjoyed that.
I am struggling with the upload of photo’s to my blog, so bear with me as I get that smoothed out. Meanwhile, another hot and sunny day on the road. Tomorrow morning I will break through the 1,000 mile mark for the trip -though I have only done 540 miles on Route 66 – so I guess there are about 460 ish miles left to go, mostly in California. I cross into Cali tomorrow morning. I have visited northern California a number of times, but this will be my first SoCal visit. I have managed to avoid LA for almost 60 years, so I guess that is pretty good going, but by the time Tuesday is over, I will have sullied my otherwise perfect record. Oh well, I guess that is what this road does to you.
Evenin’ all……