Route 66 Video

During my Route 66 trip in 2008, I shot about five hours of video and edited it into this five-minute film, which won second place at the First Person Impressions national film competition.  See how many sights you can name!

End of the Road

And as quickly as it started, my tour of Route 66 ends.  Tomorrow morning I leave LA for Philly.  We’ll not have time to make it from Rialto to Santa Monica, unfortunately, but I’ll probably drag my cousin Mike on that leg of the trip sometime.

A few people have asked about Illinois, which I didn’t have time to cover – perhaps next year I’ll resurrect this blog for that leg of the trip.

Thanks, to all of you loyal readers out there.  I hope you had as much fun reading as I did writing.  My journal got 88 hits on July 12, which is something of a new record for what I thought would be a pretty much overlooked blog.

One final note:  Lots of European and Australian  travelers on 66!  Probably more than American, honestly (thank God for a weak US Dollar, eh?).

Just remember – 15-20% is the standard Diner tip, and always leave a buck or two for your bartender!

Do it in a teepee

Wigwam Motels were found throughout the US in the 40’s and 50’s.  I believe that two remain, both along 66 and one in Rialto where we’re spending the evening. 

Each “wigwam” is an individual concrete cabin shaped like a teepee with a round room.  They’re surprisingly fun.

The faded advertising slogan around our camp-like motel reads “do it in a teepee” – though I also believe that previous owners were much kinder to prostitutes than the current administration, and wonder if this was the slogan for the chain.

Highly recommended if you’re ever traveling through Rialto – ultra clean and well-manicured grounds.

More Mojave, Slow Diner

I mentioned last post about the abundance of lava rock through the Mojave along 66 – I wanted to post a picture of as much near Ludlow, where we stopped at a diner for lunch.

A word about the diner in Ludlow:  I’m not sure what happened on our visit, but service was really, really slow.  It seemed that there was only one, overwhelmed waitress who took back my iceberg lettuce salad when she realized that it didn’t come with my dinner.

Why it took forever to have our orders taken, forever for our food to arrive, and forever to be noticed thereafter (I skipped out on some AMAZING looking homemade pie in the cooler because service was so slow), I do not know… but that my mistaken iceberg salad was INSTANTLY removed within 20 seconds of being placed in front of me absolutely shocks the conscience.

Much more to my utter delight was a great little ruin in Newberry Springs – a fairly well preserved Whiting Brothers Gas Station, complete with vintage pumps!  I squeal with delight!

Mojave Desert and Amboy

66 Seems to stretch on to infinity in the Mojave Desert between Cadiz Summit and Amboy.  At 102 degrees, I couldn’t go barefoot for a picture (I tried for about four seconds)

Amboy is home to Roy’s, a defunct motel, cafe and service station full of great Raygun Gothic architecture.  But wait!  The wealthy owner of the Juan Pollo restaurant chain has purchased it and is restoring it! 

What were ruins a few years ago that I would have picked through is once more looking good, and selling gas and tee shirts! 

Even if the motel is not operating, it’s clear that money has been invested in curb appeal.

Amboy is also home to the Amboy Crater, a large volcanic crater that is responsible for the black lava flows throughout parts of the desert.  I never knew the Mojave to be an area of volcanic activity, but the abundance of lava rock everywhere along 66 seems to make it the case.

Cadiz Summit

In the 1940’s, the steep grade of the east- bound lanes on Route 66 left many-a-motorist with an overheated engine in California. 

Cadiz Summit sprang up as part of the solution, at the top of the hill. 

The vintage picture of the summit, which I’ve used as my blog header for the past seven days, shows tourist cabins and a service station. 

Cadiz Summit now exists as graffiti-infested ruins, as seen in my picture taken today from about the same location.  There is a Century 21 sign at the Summit, though I don’t know whether it is for sale.

Are you kidding me?

Route 66 follows a perilous, twisty mountain path along the Oatman Highway just before the California Border.  It’s narrow.  There are blind, hairpin curves.  There’s no guard rail.  It’s great!

Notice the road behind me… I wonder how many motorists went off into the ravine at too high a speed?

East of Seligman, somebody has restored a variety of vintage Burma Shave signs.  It really adds a nice touch to the drive. 

For those unfamiliar, Burma Shave was a shaving cream from the 1920’s, and their advertisements were tiny roadside one-liners that formed a jingle as you passed down the highway.

Oatman Highway reminded me of one in particular:

Angels that guard you
While you drive
Often Retire
At Sixty-Five

The Oatman Highway is better navigated at 15-20 miles per hour, co-incidentally.

Tiki Head

Why there is a large Easter Island Tiki Head west of Seligman, AZ on 66 I do not know. 

Was it commissioned by the owner of the now defunct Kozy Corner?  Did it arrive on a flatbed truck?  We’ll never know.

Loose Ends

We’re spending the evening in Seligman, Arizona, where nobody knows where I can find a wireless connection.  If this post is late, it’s because I was unable to post until Monday morning.  If it’s on time, great.

A few thoughts on Arizona: Much of 66, like New Mexico, is interstate driving because the final, paved alignment was covered by the interstate.  What remains of older 66  is mostly dirt from earlier alignments – but those dirt passages are fun and many times passable (though many times, not.)

Like New Mexico, small towns like Winslow and Ash Fork all have remnants of the original highway – TONS of old motels and diners, most of them closed or converted to apartments, and many with their old signage advertising such things as “clean rooms.”

One stretch, through a conifer forest, was so relaxing I wanted to pull over for the evening.  Nice.

We forgot Winona.

Winona, Arizona is by all accounts sparse with very few, if any, 66 remains.  It seems ironic, as the town is included in the Route 66 Song (“Don’t forget Winona”).  Winona was bypassed in 1947.

Meteor Crater

In the middle of the Arizona desert, there’s an ENORMOUS crater carved when a 150-foot meteor impacted a few thousand years back.  One would think that Meteor Crater is a national park, with it’s “rangers” dressed in brown uniforms, it’s sparkling clean visitor center, and it’s auditorium with movie every half-hour.

National parks don’t have Subway restaurants in the visitor center, however, nor are there $15 per person admission fees in most national parks.  Meteor Crater Enterprises, Inc. (according to the brochure) impacted my wallet – though the crater IS spectacular.

If ever George Bush wanted to give a speech about how “privatization of national treasures works” he should deliver his speech at Meteor Crater.  Nice, yet somehow unfair.

Arizona Trading Posts

Two stories of two trading posts – one operating, and one defunct.

The Jackrabbit Trading Post for years had billboards all over Route 66 in either direction, advertising how far it was.  One final billboard existed just in front of the trading post itself announcing “Here it Is.”  That billboard still exists, as does the trading post, which is more of a souvenir stand and mini-mart.  I bought a tee-shirt.

Quick note about souvenirs along 66:  Junk.  All of it.  Overpriced and always disappointing – and everything is always on sale, though marked up by an equal amount.

The Twin Arrows Trading Post, famous for its two large wooden arrows sticking up from the dirt, is now defunct.  There’s a small Valentine Diner connected to the trading post itself.  Gas prices remain frozen at $1.39.  It’s separated from a dead-end alignment of 66 by a Jersey Barrier.  It was raining when I arrived, so I didn’t get a chance to take great pictures.

Valentine Diners

Valentine Diners began their nearly forty-year career in Wichita, Kansas during the Great Depression. Invented by Arthur Valentine, they were prefabricated eight-to-ten-seat diners that one or two people could operate. Valentine diners could be found along roadsides to attract travelers, in industrial areas to attract workers, and in small towns.

Though the buildings were prefab, the menu was not – it was up to the owner of the diner to make it successful with his or her cooking.

Unless the diner was purchased in full, each (early) unit had a wall safe inside the door, where the owners would put a certain percentage of their profits for a Valentine Representative to collect on his rounds. 

Because the diner was delivered on a flatbed truck, if a diner owner stopped making payments, the flatbed would return and take the diner away.

A few genuine Valentine diners exist on 66, though hardly in their original forms.  We tried to eat at one in Sanders, AZ, but it was closed on a Sunday morning.  A Valentine Diner in Winona is closed and likely up for sale.  The diner at the Twin Arrows Trading Post (picture later) is boarded up.  I’m not sure that any others are currently up and running as restaurants – I believe that there’s one in Santa Rosa, NM, used as a construction company office.

Painted Desert/Petrified Forest

Plans to spend a half hour at the Painted Desert & Petrified Forest National Park were thwarted when we arrived.  It was absolutely incredible, and we spent two hours.  The vistas of Arizona are of postcard quality.

I complained to the ranger about the locked gate on old 66 into the park.  She was unsympathetic, probably because I would have bypassed the admission booth.  “We have a display of where 66 cut through the park on the north loop.  There’s an old truck and some telegraph cables where the Route used to run.” 

The display – which carefully prevented ANYBODY from trying to drive through -  didn’t touch the barbed wire display that I had seen earlier in the middle of nowhere (see Painted Desert Trading Post entry).

If the Painted Desert was awesome, the Petrified Forest was equally grand.  It’s amazing just how quartz took the form of the trees washed to the valley and buried – I’ve never seen quartz look so much like bark.  The surrounding landscape was phenomenal.

Painted Desert Trading Post

Oliver and I had a misadventure in our trek to the Painted Desert Trading Post.  Getting to this ruin involves exiting the interstate, traveling one mile on dirt road and then about three miles on un-maintained pavement, the likes of which is chipped to hell and has shrubs growing out of the middle.

The trading post was built for travelers in the 20’s and 30’s on a dirt alignment of the road that’s not used by anybody, for anything, anymore.

Why isn’t it used?  Because about three miles past the trading post, the road is closed by the national park service as it enters the Petrified Forest National Park.  Unfortunately, there’s no sign saying as much until you are upon it.

So… in the middle of the desert, six to nine miles from the interstate, surrounded by huge ant hills and large desert shrubs, I could be seen using the F word a lot as I realized that I could not go straight through to the National Park.

Oliver checked the lock on the gate and carefully inspected the barbed wire for any sign of ingress before we turned around.