Route 66 Tour, Day 13 – In California
Yesterday was a pretty tough day driving. We had to travel from Williams, Arizona (about 1/3 of Arizona left to traverse) to Victorville, California (most of which is across desert). As we traveled through the day, the temperature kept climbing – I believe it topped out at 127 degrees at one point.
We stopped off in Seligman, Arizona and met Angel Delgadillo, one of the icons of Route 66. Angel has owned a Barbershop on Route 66 for decades, nearby is the Snowcap restaurant that his brother Juan owned. The town of Seligman is one of the first to start to preserve the history of Route 66, which is why in western Arizona, the Mother Road is meticulously taken care of and well marked.
We made a couple more stops at some old gas stations – one in Hackberry, which is basically a ghost town now except for a General Store, and one in “Cool Springs” that was anything but “cool” – this is where we really started noticing how seriously hot the weather was and the VWs were noting the exterior temperature of over 110 degrees. Cool Springs was an important stop for early Route 66 travelers before the next leg of their trip. For many years, it was a ruin, but has now been restored.
The Oatman Highway and Sitgreaves Pass through the Black Mountains from Kingman into California – what can I possibily say about it? Oh, a lot.
First read a bit about it:
There are two Route 66 alignments from Kingman southwest to the California border. The pre-1952 alignment along the Oatman Highway is by far the most beautiful, providing numerous photographic opportunities, legendary Route 66 icons, and a peek at the wild old west in historic Oatman, Arizona.
However, this old route travels through notorious Sitgreaves Pass, the most intimidating portion of Route 66, with its steep grades, narrow road, and sharp hairpin curves. In addition, the highway does not allow vehicles over 40 feet, so, if this is you, think about coming into Oatman from the south through Topock, an easier route.
This is the section of road featured in the Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz movie called “The Long, Long Trailer” – where they drive over it in an RV, ironically, that’s illegal to do.
Update: after googling, this isn’t road from the movie – someone told us that along the way, but it was actually another road in California.
I had no idea what we were going to drive through. Nine miles of winding road up the Black Mountains and back down, with sheer cliff drops on the right side of the road. Gorgeous, and very very difficult to get through, even at 15 miles an hour. The rest of the caravan was ecstatic to be on it; we were terrified. I’ll try to do a google map image of it from above if I can do it through my cell phone internet connection (still no wireless at the Motel 6, even near L.A.) ; it is pretty amazing. Here’s a pretty good image of part of it, from this link.
And something I will never, ever be doing again. Between the Grand Canyon and this, I believe I’m also finished with rollercoasters, too. What was I saying the other day – I grew up in Iowa, where it’s nice and flat, and you can’t fall off things?
At the bottom is the little town of Oatman, Arizona – a tourist spot that still resembles the Old West mining town that it once was. Back in 1939, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent one of their honeymoon nights in the 1902 historic Oatman Hotel. They are also famous for the burros that hang out in the streets (And follow you around, hoping you have carrots.)
After a few minutes shopping and recovering from the Sitgreaves Pass experience, we headed out towards Needles, California.
Just as we were getting into Needles, California, Earl’s car started to have serious problems. We pulled into a 76/Conoco station so the guys could try to figure out what was wrong, and the manager ran us off because he thought we were interferring with his business. So we moved to the snow cone shop across the street, and they were kinda crabby with us, too. Eventually some of us had to park our cars at the Jack-In-The-Box across the street and get in out of the heat.
After an hour and a half, the guys got the car fixed, and we got back on the road – we still had about 2 and a half hours of driving to get to Victorville, and we were a bit behind. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, but tiring. Once the sun went down it was a bit easier to travel, but the beginnings of L.A. traffic driving into Victorville – we’re really nervous about getting around today.
California Sunset
Two more hours before we stop in Victorville, CA.
Gassing up in Needles, California
Palm trees 4 Mike Packer
Seligman, Az
Angel Delgadillo, owner of Angel’s Barbershop and Route 66 icon, is on the left, Jerry and Kathy are showing him Homer the baseball beetle. He was tickled pink with it. Homer got lots of attention everywhere we went.
Grand Canyon Railroad: Train Entertainment
Col. Jim Garvey
Train Robbers!
Dangerous Varmints!
Route 66, Day 11: Morning in Williams, Arizona, near the Grand Canyon
Yesterday was a long drive from Albuquerque to Williams, Arizona, and the timezone changes haven’t helped too much, because we keep staying up an hour later. But we had a lot of fun and a bit of trouble yesterday. We headed out in the morning with a couple of pitstops along the way. We really had to take I-40 most of the way, because Route 66 doesn’t go all the way through anymore, and we had to cover a lot of miles.
Luke had to stay behind to go back to the VW dealer in Albuquerque; he was having some trouble with his cooling fans, I think. I guess the VW dealers really helped him out and helped him back on the road, so I take back when I said about them being disappointing yesterday. He caught up with us later on the road.
We stopped off at a small fireworks trading post just to use the restroom, shopped for turquoise, and goggled at the wagon wheel sized roll of firecrackers you could buy for $130 bucks that would go off for an hour and a half. We hopped off I-40 and went in to Gallup to stop at the Sonic Burger for lunch, and we took photos at the El Rancho Hotel, where lots of movie stars stayed while filming westerns in Gallup.
We got back on the road and set out looking for the Jackrabbit Trading Post, which was an iconic place back on old Route 66 due to the bright yellow signs with a black rabbit silhouette, placed for over 50 miles on either side of the tourist trap. We found it, and a few of the signs are left, but the Jackrabbit Trading Post is sort of smaller than I expected. We got pictures seated on a giant jackrabbit, and we got t-shirts and good souvenirs.
Just a few miles down the road is Winslow, Arizona, the town name-checked in the Eagles song, so we stopped there at the “Standing on the corner” park where there’s a photo opportunity at 2nd and Kinsley to stand in front of large “Winslow, Arizona” sign. I did not have seven women on my mind, however. Happily, just one, a car, and a stuffed monkey. I believe I have it much easier than the Eagles.
There’s also a Route 66 museum in Winslow, and we were turned around headed that direction when someone spotted Bob Waldmire’s van in the parking lot of the old El Posado Hotel, another spot where the westerns were filmed. As Stephanie and I tried to turn into the parking lot, she hit the curb, and flattened her right front tire.
Jerry and John were to the rescue immediately, and put the spare tire on, but Stephanie was pretty upset at hurting Phoebe, even accidentally. We’re going to run out this morning to find a new tire before we get on the train to the Grand Canyon, so we’ll have all we need and a spare.
After the tire problem, we went over to meet and talk to Bob Waldmire again. He has solar energy panels on his van, and Stephanie and I told him about our plan to put them on our house, along with micro wind turbines. He showed us a picture of the wind turbine he built himself on his property out here. You can also seek the help of https://oglepropertysolutions.com/ to guide you in property related matters . He’s completely off the electrician grid, which is cool.
After taking off from Winslow we drove on through Flagstaff and into Williams to check in for the evening. We ate dinner at a family restaurant, and watched the staged shootout the enact in the streets every evening; I got video of part of it before my camera battery ran out.
Today we’re taking the Grand Canyon Railway up to the Grand Canyon, where we’ll get a tour and eat and take a million pictures, I’m sure. I took 280 yesterday, just on the drive. I was pretty trigger happy, but the last time I was in New Mexico and Arizona, it was dark and I never really saw the landscape. I’ll have to sort out what’s good and what’s redundant. I wish I had a panoramic camera; that would be awesome. We don’t have wireless here, so I’ll have to upload photos to flickr, and add photos to this post later.