Flagstaff and Northern Arizona

 The first half of the day today was characterized by driving Interstate 40 for 10 miles, getting off at an exit and driving through a small town who’s glory days revolved around the railroads and rt 66 only to collapse once Interstate 40 bypassed them, then getting back on 40 to the next town.

Let's hear it for the Winslow High School Bulldogs!

A really nice carving at a park in Winslow, one of the nicest we've seen on this trip

"Meteor City" an old tourist trap that takes advantage of nearby Meteor Crater (which we did not visit), is in real disrepair. Supposedly par of the movie Starman was filmed in or at this dome?  My favorite part is a sign on the broken-down teepee that says "pardon our dust while we renovate."

A giant arrow at the site of the now gone Two Arrows Trading Post.  The exit on US 40 is even named "Two Arrows". One of the arrows apparently burnt down. They haven't bothered to rename the exit.

an impassable bridge from Old 66

I'm growing to like the abandoned motel and gas stations along the way, and there are a LOT of them.  You can get an idea of how long ago they were abandoned from some of the signage.  The gas stations that advertise 39 cents a gallon, and the empty lots with signs that say "Newly Renovated! Color TVs in every room! $29.99 per night!"

One thing I’ve had to get used to on this trip is 4-way stops. We have a few of them back home, but there’s all over in the south west. But everyone here is so used to them that they’re very organized.  You go in the order that you arrived at the stop, and no one goes out of turn. Very civilized.

Since about mid day yesterday, we could see the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks in the distance.  They got closer and closer throughout the day today until we passed right under her peak on the outskirts of Flagstaff.

We drove through Flagstaff and tried to go to the Lowell Observatory, only to be disappointed to find it closed until 12:00, two hours from when we were there.  So we sought out Rt66 photo ops instead.

Classic hotel in downtown Flagstaff

Downtown Flagstaff

Lowell Observatory where among other things, Pluto was discovered. Unfortunately closed

Lumberjack Muffler Man on the campus of University of Northern Arizona

We stopped in Williams AZ for lunch.  Williams is a small town the grew when the railroads came through and put a junction there.  The passenger train to the Grand Canyon started from there, which is why their PR department branded them “The Gateway to the Grand Canyon”.  They also have an alpine slide and a zip line right in the middle of town. It must work, because the parking lots and streets were full of tourists.

Williams Arizona, Gateway to the Grand Canyon

We stopped in Seligman AZ and got an ice cream at the RT66-famous Delgadillo’s Snow Cap. Seligman had a number of kitschy RT66 themed attractions and businesses.

Why doe everyone have a thing about putting cars on roofs or poles? Seligman AZ

Delgadillo's Snow Cap

"You Kill it, We Grill it"

After Seligman, RT66 diverges from US40 for over a hundred miles, the longest uninterrupted stretch of old 66, they say.  It was very cool cruising long, arrow-straight stretches of 2-lane highway through small towns and over small mountains, getting a view of expansive high alpine desert plains coming back down. At one point we could ever see the Grand Canyon off to the north.

We paralleled this freight train up through the mountains probably for the better part of an hour

Sue did a great job capturing this dust devil from the moving car as we came down out of the mountains into Kingman

We made our target of the Ramblin’ Rose Motel in Kingman by around 3:30.

Starting tomorrow we’ll be taking a few days off to visit Las Vegas with some friends, so this will be the last blog post until April 27.  Stay tuned, we’ll be back to finish up this journey!