Day 8 Route 66
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| Route 66 |
After checking out if our room at the Grand Canyon we headed south to Williams. It’s only about an hour from the canyon and
the winery Hubby wanted to visit didn’t open until Noon.
Looking for something to do I suggested we head up to Slagman by way of
Route 66. I wanted to get a picture of a
Route 66 road shield out in the middle of nowhere and knew there was one just
before Slagman. To get to this portion
of Route 66 we had to take I40 for a few miles and exit at Crookston. Route 66
is just off the exit ramp and to my surprise there was a road shield not too
far from the ramp with a pull out to stop and take pictures. Hubby pulled over so I could jump out and snap
a quick pic. I wanted to get one with
our car and us in front of the shield, but Hubby said we couldn’t block the
road. If we were quick about it we probably
could of, since we drove all the way to Slagman without seeing another
vehicle. Just before reaching Slagman, we
stopped at the other the road shield for another quick pic.
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| Roadkill Cafe, Slagman, AZ |
We drove through town to see what was there
first. We found a few interesting stores
to stop and look around, bought a few souvenirs and had lunch at the Roadkill
Café. I always thought this place was
made up, I had no idea it was a real restaurant. The menu was interesting. They served the usual café foods, hamburgers,
chicken fingers, typical things you’d find at
any roadside café, but everything had funny names. The burrito was called a Rolled-up Skunk,
there was a chicken sandwich called the High Speed Special and was described as
something about this was one chicken that didn’t make it across the road. I took a pic of the menu front cover, but now I
wish I had taken a few of the menu choices too, they were funny. The most unusual item on the menu (maybe not
for the locals since this is buffalo and elk country) was the buffalo and elk
burgers. I tried the elk burger, it had
a little different taste to it but was good.
Over lunch we debated going farther west on 66. Hubby was getting tired of driving but was willing to go as far as Kingman.
There’s not much along this stretch of road anymore. We passed though Peach Springs and Truxton
which were pretty much ghost towns, and stopped in Hackberry at an old service
station turned Route
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| Hackberry General Store |
66 shrine. This place looked like it wasn't suppose to be open for business. They had
several old cars sitting in the yard and 2 old gas pumps. The inside was filled with Route 66 memorabilia
and merchandise. We didn’t need any more stuff, we bought a bunch of it in Slagman, but they had Route 66 soda, so we each bought a bottle of Root Beer.
In Valle View we thought it was strange that out in the middle of the
dessert there were large plots of green that could be seen at the base of the mountains. After driving a little farther, we saw a sign
for a golf course and figured all that green must have been the gulf course or
they were raising sod for the gulf course.
We arrived in
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| Growing sod in the desert? |
Kingman and had planned on spending the night there, but
since it was only about an hour and half back to Williams on I40 we just headed
back. I was fine with that, I just wanted
to say I had traveled Route 66 even if it was just a short distance, actually it was
close to 120 miles.
Back in Williams we stopped at Grand Canyon Wine
Company and sampled the whole list. I
wasn’t a fan of the reds but I found a few whites that I liked. Hubby wanted to stop there because he like the novelty of wine in a can and was planning on buying a pack whither he liked it or not; luckily,
he did.
We got a room in Williams for the night. The next morning, we were planning on heading
to Walnut Canyon near Flagstaff and spending the night in Holbrook at the Wigwam
Motel before heading home; but there was a major snow storm heading our
way. They were talking up to a foot of
snow or more; so we decided not to push our luck. We knew if we stayed any
longer we would be stuck there for a few days. We came in to Arizona on the tail end of a
large storm and were leaving just as a new one was blowing in.
When I was researching places along Route 66, I found a
few I knew we would pass on I40. Outside
Flagstaff we passed Twin Arrows trading post.
The building has long since been abandoned and vandalized but the twin
arrows were still there and viewable even at 75 mph. The next one I was looking for was Two Guns just
outside of Winslow. From the freeway, I
could see the stone gate that reads Mountain Lions and a few of the old
buildings that were now in ruins. This
is one spot I kind of wanted to stop, but then again didn’t because it’s supposedly
cursed. It has a very volatile history,
starting with the murder of 42 Apache Indians in 1878, the cold-blooded
murder of a land owner in the 20’s, financial ruin of anybody who owned the
property and a suicide in the early 2000's. You can't tell me a place can hold that much tragedy and misfortune and not have them related somehow. You can read more about it here.
In Lupon we stopped at Chief Yellowhorse Trading on
the Arizona / New Mexico border. I remember stopping there on our first trip
when I bought a wedding vase which broke several years ago, I was hoping to get
another one this trip but everywhere I saw them, they were well out of my price
range. I thought Chief Yellowhorse would
have them but the store was pretty bare with a clearance sign out front. I did pick up a nice woven blanket though.
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| Blue Swallow Motel, Tumcumcari, MN |
We stopped for the night in Tumcumcari. Hubby wanted to get a hotel room off of the
interstate but I talked him into staying at the Blue Swallow Motel off Route
66. Since I didn’t get to stay at the
Wigwam, I figured the Blue Swallow was then next best thing. When we first pulled into town I began to
wonder if this was such a good idea. The
whole west side of town was run down with abandoned businesses. We started to wonder if this was really a
good place to stop. As we got farther
into town things improved a little, but still many of the old Route 66 hotels
were out of business or in a state of disrepair. We had called ahead and was lucky enough to
get one of the last rooms available. The
Blue Swallow is one of the few thriving businesses in this little town. The owners really love their little motel and
it shows. For a 75 year old motel it was
very well maintained. The rooms were all
restored to look like they did in the 50’s complete with a working rotary phone,
vintage tv, and a 1957 copy of National Geographic. That’s not to say there wasn’t modern creature
comforts. We had Wi-Fi access and a flat
screen tv with cable and a community area with an ice machine and laundry
facilities. Each room had a little
garage attached between the rooms. We
didn’t look in our garage but others had theirs open and they were painted with
50’s themes. Each unit had a couple lawn
chairs outside the door for sitting outside to visit with your neighbors and
there was a community picnic table and what looked like a giant fire pit with grill. I could imagine Route 66 travelers gathering
here to relax after a long day on the road, sharing conversation and cooking
dinner. It was fun to be able to stay
there and feel like we had stepped back in time.
We drove from Tucumcari to El Dorado, Kanas, and from
El Dorado to home. We got home around 8:30
pm and I wasn’t happy to see the condition of the house. It was a disaster, the sink was full
of dishes (I don’t think they washed any dishes the whole time we were gone),
nobody bothered to do laundry so the hampers were over flowing. Alison told me she went grocery shopping and
was so proud of herself for buying healthy foods. That included 3 cases of pop, pudding cups,
and lots of cheese. She thinks she’s a vegetarian,
but she really doesn’t like vegetables so she eats mostly cheese. She bought a 2-lb. brick of cheese, a 2-lb.
bag of shredded cheese, two tubs of cottage cheese, two tubs of cream cheese
and a box of frozen mozzarella cheese sticks.
She’s 19 and planning on moving out in a few months, I think we need to
have a little lesson on Adulting 101.
Thanks for sharing, Brenda.
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