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!
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
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
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
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