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.