The Trip Home

The Trip Home:

According to my navigation system, I would have to travel 1,829 miles and 25 hours/23 minutes to reach home…I started out with great weather and not sure how far I’d go before stopping for the night so today would be handled much more “off the cuff” than my fairly carefully planned trip when heading west!.

As I said, the weather started out very nice and included a nice drive to and then across the Hoover Dam on my way to picking up I-40. From what I could see, it looks as if they are close to finishing a new four-lane road to replace the current two-lane and although I haven’t checked into it, I suspect they will eventually stop all traffic from actually driving “over” the top of the dam as they are building a big, new suspension bridge to handle the new four-lane and crossing the river.

The weather got very “odd” as I neared Flagstaff…I had been running into/out of rain for while and stopped for gasoline just before entering Flagstaff. Within a couple of minutes of getting back onto the road I had to stop and wait under a bridge as it was hailing so much it looked like snow (giving about as much traction)…temps dropped from the 80’s down to 49 degrees in just a couple of minutes. I was probably held-up for at least 20 minutes before continuing out of the mountains of Flagstaff and back to the high desert east of Flagstaff!

Rain would prove to be the “main story” for much of my trip home. I decided to eat dinner in Gallup, New Mexico and got a couple of good “rainbow” pictures while heading out of town. I also decided to stop for the night at the same hotel I used in Albuquerque at the end of Day Three.

For the day; I had traveled 586.6 miles in 8 Hours/56 minutes.

Today’s Pictures

The Trip Home – Continued:

I tried to get an early start on the day after a full night’s sleep and headed out by 8AM after a very light breakfast at the hotel.

There was one predominant word for today – rain!

It rained on me for the vast majority of the way from Albuquerque until I stopped in Amarillo at the Big Texan Steak House for lunch. The Big Texan is quite a place to say the least. One of the things it’s known for is its 72oz. steak which is free IF you can eat it all in less than one hour. While I was there, one fellow actually tried to do it and actually ate the whole thing in a lot less than an hour!

The weather in Amarillo was about the only respite from the rain I was to see that day as I ran right back into rain almost as soon as I was out of town and boy did it rain…it rained for almost 900 miles and in some cases it rained as hard as I had ever seen it rain anywhere. I kept going for the whole day but finally stopped about an hour west of Memphis at about 1AM and decided to sleep for about five hours. A lot of people apparently had the same idea and I think folks were simply tired of driving in the rain.

After a quick fill-up and a McDonald’s breakfast, I started my final 300 or so miles home and got back just about 10:30 AM.

From the time I left Albuquerque I had 1,257 miles/16 Hours 56 Minutes to go before reaching home; I accomplished that averaging 25.1MPG and an average speed of 71.8MPH. It actually took me 17 Hours and 37 Minutes (not counting the five hours of sleep) and 1,256.6 miles (I think the rain slowed me down quite a bit).

Total mileage for the trip – 4,237.4 Miles!

A Few Ending Pictures

I may have some more thoughts to add later but for now, I wanted to mention some of the books and such that I had as references. As I mentioned in my initial post, U.S. Route 66 doesn’t officially exist anymore and generally won’t be reflected on any modern map. So; anyone considering a trip down Route 66 needs help to know how to find the route as well as interesting facts to know alone the way…below are some of the ones I relied on and definitely recommend to anyone considering a trip of their own:

First; check out the Historic Route 66 website which includes a forum I belong to (Robert_TN).

You may also want to check out the Legends Of America site for a lot of interesting reading!

As for books, I highly recommend the following:

EZ66 Guide For Travelers (ISBN 0-9709951-4-8)

Route 66 Traveler’s Guide and Roadside Companion (ISBN 0-312-25417-2)

Route 66 Dining & Lodging Guide (ISBN 0-9709951-5-6)

Traveling Route 66 (ISBN 0-8061-3326-0)

Let me also say that a lot of what I’ve written in this blog, while my own thoughts and observations, include facts and bits of information I gathered from a variety of places including the internet, people I spoke with along the way and some facts/figures taken from some of the references above…I didn’t intentionally copy anyone else’s work but I do want to acknowledge the help offered by the above references.

Day Seven - Las Vegas, Nevada

Day Seven:

I’m not really a gambler and that’s not why I come to ‘Vegas…for me, it’s simply an exiting and interesting place to be. However, for this trip it was also a place to rest/re-charge before starting my trip back home.

I think it was about 9PM on Thursday night when I arrived at my hotel on the North-East side of Las Vegas (not far from Nellis Air Force Base)…I hadn’t eaten dinner yet so I wound out at a Denny’s (always open you know!) for dinner.

The next day (Friday) I slept in and then went to give my 370 a good bath and get it ready for the trip home (putting the front end bra on, etc)…after the car washing and a good brunch, I went back to my hotel for a nap (planning on being up late that night).

I had decided to take in a late evening movie (Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen) and then spend some time in downtown Las Vegas…the movie was quite good and the drive into and in Las Vegas was great. I know business is supposed to be down in ‘Vegas but you couldn’t tell it from the amount of traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard at 1AM!

I tried to take some decent “night” pictures…I’ll let you be the judge of how they turned out. Anyway; got back to my hotel about 3AM and slept in until about 8AM the next morning and heading for home!

Las Vegas Pictures

Day Six - Flagstaff to Oatman (then on to Las Vegas)

Day Six:

What can I say about my last day on Route 66? It's been a great trip but today proved to be the best I think as both the weather and the road were near perfect today. This part of Arizona offers the longest section of uninterrupted Route 66 still in existence with almost 159 miles of real Route 66; most of which leaving I-40 completely out of sight (although you do cross the I-40 a couple of times).

Some good photo opportunities presented themselves but the first big treat of the day was when I reached Seligman. Seligman is called the birthplace of Route 66 (or rather, the effort to bring the old highway back to life). I spent some considerable time talking with Angel Delgadillo's son (actually I never truly clarified if it was Angel's son I was speaking with but I'm fairly certain that's who it was!) who related the story to me. It seems that Angel, who ran the local barber shop/pool hall, didn’t want to see his town die…for nearly ten years after I-40 bypassed Seligman, Angel lived with essentially no income – he used to say that you could lie down in the middle of the street and never have to worry about being run over. So, refusing to listen to all the “nay-sayers” he set out to bring Route 66 back to life. That gave birth to the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona (http://www.azrt66.com/ ) which was run from a small wooden desk in Angel’s shop.

That was in the mid 80’s…Angel is pretty much retired now (he is in his 80’s) but he’ll still give a haircut or a shave to “out of towners” only! His barbershop/pool hall is now filled with Route 66 memorabilia. I had a chance to meet and talk with Angel for a few minutes and his son took a picture of us together!

Next up was Kingman, Arizona - an interesting town with a lot of Route 66 businesses left including “Mr. D’s” diner where I had lunch (Datsun/Nissan aficionados will appreciate one of today’s pictures). I have to say, I had one of the best hamburgers I’ve had in many years and the inside of the diner was really a treat to see.

However, the highlight of the day had to be Otaman…called the ghost town that refused to die, Oatman is truly a step back into time. Billions of dollars worth of gold was taken out of the mines in Oatman but that changed when it became illegal to own gold (however that's changing again as they are preparing to begin mining operations again given the current price of gold!).

One of Oatman’s trademarks is it’s wild burrows…when the mines closed, the burrows were released into the wild and now, every day, they come out of the hills to get food from the nearly one million tourists that come through Oatman every year. Each burrow has a name and the few residents of Oatman know them all by their names and look out for them. Two colts had just been born about three weeks ago (see pictures). The burrows are friendly and don’t seem to know they are wild at all!

Oatman not only has a history of being quite a successful gold mining town but it's also been used for movies including "How The West Was Won"...one of the buildings (see pictures) boasted that Debbie Renyolds and George Peppard had "walked through these doors"...unfortunately the building, now used as a museum, was closed while I was there (only open on weekends).

Also while in Oatman, I had a chance to meet up with Brian (aka “TheEditor” on http://www.historic66.com/forum/ ....he was traveling the route from Albuquerque and going to end in ‘Vegas.

Essentially, this ends the “Route 66” part of my vacation – it’s been a great trip with mostly great weather (and even a couple of days that were quite mild) alone with some great sights; great people, and some great driving.

After spending about three hours in Oatman, I headed out for a couple of hours drive to Las Vegas…more about ‘Vegas in my next installment.

Perhaps more than anything, Route 66 represents what most of us take for granted – the ability to just get in our car and travel from one end of the country to the other without anyone’s permission…it’s about freedom…about the ability to see just how large and diverse our country is. In the midst of all the Walgreens and McDonalds and the dozens of other cookie-cutter franchise businesses; it’s nice to know that there are still businesses that exist in only one place!

I didn’t keep track of the exact driving time from Oatman to Las Vegas but it wasn’t a long trip; I’d guess about two hours. I averaged exactly 27 MPG today at an average speed of 46.4 MPH…total distance traveled today was about 396 miles.

Today’s Pictures

Day Five - Gallup, New Mexico to Flagstaff, Arizona

Day Five:

It’s hard to believe I’ve been on the road five days already and for the most part, my last real day on Route 66 ends tomorrow but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I had breakfast at the same place I had dinner last night, Earls Family Restaurant which is less than a mile from the El Rancho. Breakfast was good and the weather was beautiful and sunny although it felt as if summer was returning!

Heading out of town, I took the original route for Route 66 through Gallup and happened to pass Gurley Ford – quite a surprise when I saw a dark blue Ford GT sitting on the sidewalk at the front door to the showroom…I stopped for a few pictures and Mr. Gurley walked out…he owns the car personally but occasionally takes kids for rides while his sales people work with the parents…funny that never happened to me when I was a kid!!!

Continuing out of town I pass a large decorated vase and also an old trading post with some interesting murals advertising the business; now out of business…a lot of today was spent passing now silent trading posts and tourist attractions including a trading post tucked inside the protection of a cliff face. The same site had a old fake fort and the the hole in the cliff was used in a Kirk Douglas movie "Ace in the Hole".

I also passed a faux fort called Fort Courage – the purported home of the campy 60’s TV show “F-Troop” as some of the ‘fort’ was used for filming the series…more entertaining, however, were the horses roaming free on the property including several hanging around the gas pumps of the forever-closed gas station!

A major part of the day was spent in the Petrified Forest National Park which includes the southern part of the Painted Desert…my pictures simply can’t do justice to the varying colors of the landscape or the beauty of the crystal structured inside the petrified wood…the drive through the park was great including a stop paying homage to Route 66 complete with an old wreck of a car on concrete blocks…the Route did pass through the park the Painted Desert Inn, now park property, served Route 66 travelers and was at one time a Harvey hotel and was originally built of petrified logs.

Other sites today included the giant jack-rabbit and also Winslow, AZ made famous by the Eagles in “Take It Easy”...the only girl in a flat-bed Ford I saw was in the mural painted on the wall behind the statue which now identifies the “corner in Winslow, AZ.

As I left Winslow, the San Francisco Peaks were rising up form the high desert and as I got closer to Flagstaff, my stopping point for tonight, the desolate desert land gave way to tall pine forests and grass framing the road.

Flagstaff is a beautiful town with lots of shops and a rich Route 66 history…dinner tonight was at the Grand Canyon Cafe; a Route 66 staple.

Tomorrow it’s on to Oatman, AZ, hopefully in time to see the wild burrows and then on to Las Vegas for a couple of days before heading back to Tennessee!

Distance covered today was 249 miles; total mileage for the trip so far is 1,888.0

Today’s Pictures

Day Four - Albuquerque to Gallup, New Mexico

Day Four:

This morning started at a reasonable time; 8:30 AM. Beautiful sunshine and temps in the upper 60s to start with although closer to normal temps along with the chance of scattered showers were promised today.

I rolled out to eat breakfast at a Route 66 landmark restaurant called Lindy’s which is on Central Avenue in Albuquerque. Central is the alignment for Route 66 through Albuquerque. It was a great breakfast and I think my least expensive so far. I decided to start out today by doing a bit of backtracking and I headed over to Sandia Crest; a high point in the Sandia mountain range…it’s a fabulous drive; the approach road called the Turquoise Trail Scenic Byway which climbs to an elevation of over 10,000 feet – temperatures at this elevation was in the upper 50s!

There is an observation platform at the top along with a snack bar and gift shop. After a couple of pictures and a walk though the gift shop I headed back down; into Albuquerque and Central Avenue all the way through town. On the far west side of town, Albuquerque is putting up some nice “Route 66” signs at street corners and in one case, an arch across the street with what looked like neon spelling out “66” (I’m sure it looks great at night). Leaving Albuquerque you cross the Rio Grand River and out into some very sparsely populated country.

Overall, this has been the best “driving” day so far. Along with the perfect weather the scenery only got better as the miles passed heading through towns like Mesita, Laguna, Budville, Cubero (Hemingway wrote part of “the Old Man And The Sea” here), San Fidel, Grants and Prewitt as I made my way toward Gallup. I had planned to eat lunch in Grants which sports a couple of well known Route 66 diners but unfortunately, my backtracking this morning caused me to get to town too late as those places close about 2PM…so, I ended up at the local McDonald’s for lunch!

There are lot’s and lot’s of old motels along today’s route; most of which aren’t in operation any more and in many cases, the buildings are almost gone or heading that way quickly. However, it was obvious where they had been as there were hints of old signage and motel offices.

By and large, there were miles of almost nothing in the way of civilization broken only by the occasional gathering of small adobe homes or trailers…this is Pueblo country and unfortunately, obviously not well-off financially. With or without money, living in this part of the country couldn’t be easy and it makes you think of what it was like for early settlers and those traveling to California before there were roads at all; let alone GPS navigation and A/C! Nor would it have been easy for the dust bowlers in the 30’s and 40’s traveling across country in vehicles that managed each mile likely as much on prayer as on gasoline.

There was an old alignment (pre 1937) available today but with a warning of rough pavement in some places and no pavement at all in others but I bypassed that but did take an alignment that was full of surprises including “Owl Rock” which seems as if it simply lifts up out of the road.

The thunderstorms never materialized for me while I was driving but it was evident that they had deposited some substantial amounts earlier in the day as I passed through areas that still had some standing water (including one very narrow underpass that’s barely wide enough for one vehicle at a time)!

Other highlights of the day included crossing the Continental Divide shortly before getting to Gallup which is my stopping place for the day. I’m staying at a Route 66 icon called the “El Rancho” hotel built in 1936 mostly to cater to movie stars coming to this part of the country to film great western movies...some of the biggest stars Hollywood ever gave us have stayed here and even if you aren’t staying; just looking around the hotel lobby is worth a stop.

Today’s driving time was just over 6 hours and covered 231 miles which included about 50 miles of backtracking to see Sandia Crest!

Links:
El Rancho Hotel

Today’s Pictures

Day Three - Tucumcari to Albuquerque, New Mexico

Day Three:

Day three started with a big surprise…60 degrees! Through most of my travels today the temps stayed under 70 and only near the very end of the day did they rise into the mid 70s…quite a change form 100+ temp I had on day one and upper 90s on day two…this was windows down weather for the most part although today did see some fairly significant showers here and there.

My first hour of driving was perfect, cool and relaxing…I headed out about 8:30 AM (I’m now in Mountain time) and headed to Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Breakfast was today was at the Silver Moon Cafe in Santa Rosa; a Route 66 original. While in Santa Rosa I also stopped by the Route 66 Auto Museum – for $5 I saw some spectacular cars including an extremely impressive Lincoln Mark 2.

Just as I was leaving the museum some significant rain started but the rain today was very hit or miss. One thing I’ve noticed about this part of the country is that you can see storms from fairly great distances and it’s quite a site to see heavy rain miles away while you have none or to see clouds hanging around the hill tops…one thing New Mexico has not failed to do is impress with it’s stark yet beautiful scenery.

A great deal of what was Route 66 is completely covered over by I-40 so a lot of the driving today was on I-40. However; the alignments of actual Route 66 that was available were great stretches of roadway. Just of I-40 is another Route 66 original (in fact it predates the founding of Route 66) called Clines Corners.

Shortly after lunch I left the interstate for an actual alignment of Route 66 including a nice stretch of road called Sedillo Hill Road; an alignment from 1937-1949) which is a beautiful two lane road.

Overall, it was a fairly short day of travel as I arrived in Albuquerque by 4PM…after cleaning the car and eating dinner I’m ready for a good book and some sleep as I head for Gallup, New Mexico tomorrow.

Stats for the day: 4 hours/3 minutes of actual driving and 204.6 miles total. Average MPG/MPH were 26.1/50.6.

My Day Three Pictures

Day Two - Oklahoma City to Tucumcari, New Mexico

Day Two:

Today started even earlier than yesterday; up by 6 and out of the room by 7 to go to breakfast…ate at an original Route 66 diner on the outskirts of Oklahoma City near the Canadian River.

As with yesterday, this was a pretty heavy day of travel although not as far as yesterday's undertaking…my plan was to travel over to Amarillo and pick up the route at exactly where we left off in 2007 at the "Cadillac Ranch"…now in case any of you are wondering, this is not a house if ill-repute; it's 10 Cadillac automobiles buried to their dashboards "pointing' West…an art experiment in the middle of a Texas field!

Before getting to Amarillo, I couldn't help but make a couple of excursions off I-40 to stop in Clinton, Ok and then Elk City, Ok to revisit a couple of Route 66 icons.

It seems slightly cooler today although temps were still in the low 90's and it was bright and sunny although it looked as if there were some heavy rains south of the interstate.

I made it to the Cadillac Ranch just to the West of Amarillo and then picked up Route 66 from that point…along much of Texas, Route 66 is frontage road mostly following the I-40; that's because, in part, much of I-40 in Texas sits right on top of what was Route 66. However, there are some old alignments of the route with original pavement (and sometimes, original dirt of sections that were never paved)!

I stopped for a late lunch at the "Mid-Point Cafe" in Adrian, TX…the exact mid-point on Route 66 between Chicago and Santa Monica. The food was good but the home-made Coconut Cream pie was the real highlight - this was the real deal; nothing machine processed when it comes to their pies! The Mid-Point Cafe best point however are the people who own it/run it…extremely friendly and truly happy to have you as a customer; exactly the way good roadside diners were before the McDonald's Burger Kings and Wendy's took over! By the way, the Mid-Point Cafe was the inspiration for "Flo's V8 Cafe" in the Disney Pixar movie "Cars".

A lot of the Texas panhandle is somewhat uninteresting as far as landscapes go although there are exceptions…things get noticeably more interesting when you cross the border into New Mexico…it's easy to see why so many "Western" movies have been filmed in New Mexico…wind chiseled ridges and towering pieces of land seem to sprout up out of flat land.

Today's destination was the Blue Swallow Motel; a Route 66 original - each room comes with a garage and inside the garage are murals (and murals on much of the outside walls of the building as well. The Blue Swallow neon sign alone is worth the cost of the room. The room is definitely "old fashioned"…small but completely refurbished…everything works including the A/C and the 1938 rotary phone on the desk by the bed.

This is not a place for those who like modern comfort but if you want to see how it was back in the day, this is the place to be.

Stats for today - 7 hrs/16 minutes of driving for a total of 420.9 miles. Average MPG/MPH for today was 23.9/57.1 respectively.

Tomorrow it's on to Albuquerque, New Mexico!

Midpoint Cafe: http://www.midpointroute66cafe.com/

Blue Swallow Motel: http://blueswallowmotel.com/

My Day Two Pictures