The Road Goes On…

Category: Route 66

Lincoln, NE to Bourbonnais, IL

It was supposed to be a pure driving day again today, but as usual it didn’t turn out this way. Despite the fact that the highway driving was a bit labour intense due to high winds and lots of trucks we made good progress – 848kms. One good thing about the mid-west states is that there are no mountains and everything goes a bit faster.

Iowa, as we found out, has great ribs. In Des Moines at Famous Dave’s we were looked after really well by wonderful future globetrotter Chelsie (aka Brittany if the service is bad) who explained the different kinds of ribs and sauce options to us in detail. We tried quite a number of them and they were all really good. We let Kevin, the manager, who came by our table know that Famous Dave’s is now our favourite rib place.

After chatting inside and outside for two hours we were back on route to try and still make it to the Polk-A-Dot Drive-In for another of the great strawberry milkshakes we had had at the beginning of our Route 66 adventure. We made it there at 8PM, the posted closing time, but the restaurant was still in full swing and the large milkshake dinner was at least as good as it had been 3 weeks ago.

No RV park was open by the time were were done, so Walmart parking lot is was, yet again.

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June 20, 2013
San Bernardino, CA to Malibu, CA

It was indeed the last day on Route 66 and we are still not sure whether this is a good or a sad thing. On the one hand we are free to choose our paths now, on the other hand we do not necessarily meet people all over the place with the same interest to share. But today was a great finale, meeting great people, seeing familiar sites and finally getting into lush scenery and at the end the grand Pacific Ocean in beautiful early evening sunlight.

We started the day by visiting the first McDonald’s Restaurant, founded by the McDonald’s Brothers and opened as the McDonald’s Barbeque Restaurant at 14th and E St. in San Bernardino in 1940.

1954 Ray Kroc received the permission to franchise McDonald’s and eventually bought the rights to McDonald’s in 1961. The original place remained in the hands of the McDonald’s brothers up to their retirement in 1968. Today the location houses the unofficial McDonald’s Museum, a section on Route 66 and one of the offices of Juan Pollo owner Albert Okura, who is the owner of the town of Amboy with its Roy’s Motel and Gas Station.

We had a chance to enjoy a great tour of the place with curator and artist Rory Murray and got a lot of inside information from Route 66 CA Board Member, collector, owner of Route 66 museum San Bernardino and star in many movies and documentations on Route 66, Danny Castro.

After so much info it was time for lunch -a big one since we skipped breakfast- and it was only fitting to visit Juan Pollo for the first time, since owner Albert Okura bought the McDonald’s location a couple of years ago to preserve it. Chicken was great and a lot of memorabilia in the restaurant and the connected Museum Route 66.

Off we went to see the California Theater.

Next was the beautifully restored Wigwam Motel, owned by Kumar Patel and his mother. Kumar gave us a tour and next time we definitely will spend a night in one of these Wigwams with its cozy rooms.

Finally we left San Bernardino, saw on our way towards Santa Monica “Bono’s Historic Orange” in Fontana, since we are after all in Citrus and Wine Country. We saw the barrel at Rancho Cucamonga but we didn’t have a chance to stop. Traffic was becoming a bit too busy to make frequent unprepared stops. Therefore, I took the image of the 12th and final Madonna of the Trail (our first though) from the car driving through Upland.

We did make two stops in Monrovia. One was for the famed but not so great gasoline station on Shamrock Ave.

The other for the Aztec Hotel, which seemed closed, but maybe only for the day. The outside is interesting because of its “Mayan Revival” architecture. Inside in the bar the fans in the ceiling are connected via belts.

Unfortunately we only drove through very busy Pasadena, but it is definitely a city we would like to stay in for a couple of days next time! And then, out of nowhere, we were in Los Angeles, Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.

There was no stop possible and therefore the photographic impressions were made out of the driving or better snailing car. Then we came to the intersection of Lincoln and Olympic and with this to the official end of Route 66.

A couple of minutes later we drove along the beautiful Pacific on Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, where we were lucky enough to get a spot at their RV Park. Even more lucky, we had a very nice young couple, Samantha and Chad, as neighbours and we spent a great evening with conversation and wine. They own a textile business and we can’t wait to try out their jeans: CRATE of California!

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June 15, 2013
Fenner, CA to San Bernardino, CA

Could it be that last night was the last night we spent with the big boys at a gas station? Just in case I ventured out this morning to take a couple of pictures of the scenery.

We then we hit the road for a full day of desert sites in California. In Cadiz area we photographed graffiti on the remaining walls of a former tourist complex.

In Chambless the beautiful huge sign of a former restaurant called The Roadrunner.

In Amboy we visited Roy’s store and gas station and took a look at the small cottages under reconstruction. A man in the chicken business had bought the entire town and is trying now to revive the business.

We missed Bagdad, if it still exists, which gave the name for the German movie from the 80’s “Bagdad Café” or “Out of Rosenheim” but we did see the location where it was filmed after our lunch break. We had lunch in Ludlow at the Café with the former mining company town’s name.

Newberry Springs is the place where the movie “Bagdad Café” was filmed. The restaurant was the former “Sidewinder” but changed its name because of the movie to “Bagdad Café” in the 90s. We had a chance to talk to the very nice owner of the café, Andrea Pruett, who had bought the place together with her husband in the 90s. She is a screenplay writer herself but has little time to pursue this line of work because of her ostrich ranch and the café.

We continued through Barstow where we visited an antique market and stood in front of the already closed Route 66 museum. But we were tired anyway and proceeded to an RV park right in the city of San Bernardino. Since this part of the city is not one of the safest we decided to stay at the gated park, have a home cooked dinner in our RV and go for a walk. Tomorrow the trip from San Bernardino to Santa Monica will be our last day on Route 66. We are not sure whether this will be cause for celebration or whether it will be a sad farewell to a dear friend of 3 weeks.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

June 14, 2013
Williams, AZ to Fenner, CA

We left the RV park, drove one more time through Williams without stopping and went right on to Seligman with only one short halt to photograph a neat hair salon.

Seligman is as much alive as Williams but without the Grand Canyon action. It’s claim of fame is the fact that it is situated on one end of a 150km stretch of old Route 66 Mother Road from Seligman to Topock. Furthermore it is home to yet another Harvey House -now the Black Cat Bar- and to two iconic brothers, Angel and Juan Delgadillo.

Angel had a barber shop and is well respected for all his efforts to keep Route 66 alive.

Juan, who died a couple of years ago owned the Snow Cap Drive-In, which is still open, now run by his son who has a great talent to make people laugh, just ask for some mustard and you think you will be wearing it … and it was only some string popping out of the mustard bottle.

Well fed and happy with our little purchases we went on, passing through some remnants of villages, laughing foolishly about signs declaring these dusty valleys as flood zones and began climbing into mountain areas. At Cool Springs Camp, a neat store next to a camper with fake palm trees on its roof, we met George who is the distributer for Arizona of our favourite Route 66 Soda. Besides this job he is the man behind the counter of the Cool Springs Store with the pink cap.

The building was rebuilt for a movie set at one point and is now a great place for a chat, some ice cream but -at least when we were there- not for Route 66 Soda.

Off we went to climb the steep and narrow road through beautiful mountains to Sitgreaves Pass. What a beautiful view.

We then saw our first real former Gold Rush town, Oatman, or so we thought. There were buildings like in a Western movie, some for sale, the others open for tourists. Donkeys were walking through the street. The reason for this was, that once the Gold Rush was over, the working donkeys were let go and they took to the desert to live but come to town to be fed. The people who stayed after the gold mine closed tried their luck with catering to tourists. But at 6pm the bustling town became quiet. Donkeys and people left the place to go home and now it really was a movie set after the lights went out.

The gold mine is back in business though. We saw the operation and the warning signs that tresspassing was strictly forbidden when we came down the mountain on the other side.

We couldn’t believe it, we did make it to California, the land of milk and honey after all. But we really can feel for the Okies (refugees from Oklahoma, seeking work in California after the Dust Storms in the 19th century) who found yet another desert, the Mojave desert, after crossing the Colorado River. Their track through heat and desert would continue for a long time.

Needles, the first city we reached, is one of the hottest cities in the United States with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit frequently. When we drove through in the afternoon it was 42 degrees Celsius. Gas, which had been in the $3.59 to $3.89 range throughout our trip, was $4.99 in Needles.

We had enough for today. With no RV park in sight we stayed at the gas station of Fenner -the only thing left of this town- and even this gas station, close to the Interstate 40 but still on Route 66 is fighting for its life, as their signs made very clear to their customers. Gas was over $5.00 here.

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June 13, 2013
Meteor Crater, AZ to Williams, AZ

Thank God for free coffee at the RV Park! We left in good time and at first it really looked like we would make great progress, California seemed so close but…

Flagstaff went still without mayor delays. We had a nice brunch at The Crown Railroad Café since the neighbouring vintage roadhouse Museum Club was still closed. The railway motif at our restaurant was not bad though and the omelettes delicious.

Off we went to Williams. Wow, what a place, gateway to the Grand Canyon, a hub for the railroad and Route 66 in full swing!

From there we should have gone West, but 60 miles to the Grand Canyon seemed like a short distance. OK, we spent the rest of the day at the Grand Canyon, watched a presentation and a movie at the visitor centre and took the 25 mile route along the south rim.

We’re very happy that this excursion cost us another day! We had dinner at a Steak House and went back to Williams to stay at the privately owned Canyon Motel & RV Park with yet another railroad theme. You can even get a room at a train car.

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June 12, 2013
Navajo, AZ to Meteor Crater, AZ

Despite truck fumes – some of the big guys let their trucks run all night- we had a good or maybe even better sleep. Breakfast was on a bench at a little park at the truck stop and a very peculiar man dropped by with not too clean clothes but one gold tooth and very white teeth. He had a lot of questions and some insightful comments, but we still did not exchange e-mail addresses.

Instead we took off for Petrified Forest National Park, now no longer accessible via Route 66 but in the 50s and 60s on the route. Our quick excursion took half a day! Painted Dessert, beautiful rock formations, petrified wood and the Painted Desert Inn at Kachina Point were of great interest.

The Inn was built in the 1920s and restored by the Civilian Conservation Corps (a make work program for young unemployed people) in the 30′. Later it became a Harvey House http://harvey-house.info/arizona, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Harvey_Company. The architect for the reconstruction in the 30’s was a woman, Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter. We will meet her again in Winslow, AZ where she designed the beautiful La Posada Hotel. Her aim was to integrate her buildings into the landscape through shape and colour. Fred Kabotie, a very well known Hopi artist painted the storytelling murals.

Not quite as fancy as the Inn but nevertheless attractive was the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook and the old cars in front of each of them made it look even more authentic Route66.

The Jackrabbit Trading Post, no longer an attraction any more, was not that fascinating but Winslow definitely made up for it.

A railway town with connections to “The Eagles” and their song “Take it Easy” because one line in this song places them right into Winslow “Well, I’m standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona and such a fine sight to see”. We visited the corner, saw a statue in honour of the Eagles, listened to the song a dozen times because it was played over and over again at all stores.

We met three very dedicated people: Patrick the cyclist, Morgan the support cyclist and Mike the driver and organizer of this little outfit with a big heart. These three people are raising money for cancer research and help make a wish come true for some people with cancer, for example, a bicycle for a little girl in hospital.

Dinner was at a former trading post turned restaurant run by a young man and his former school teacher mother. Mexican food it was and it was delicious.

With renewed energy all three of us marched to the famous La Posada Hotel, another Harvey Hotel designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter. Absolutely great, a bit of nature, a bit of Monastery and museum where dogs are allowed in. The prices for rooms are not even that bad and we wouldn’t mind spending some time there at our next visit.

Last but not least we visited the Meteor Crater. Quite impressive and the museum gives it a vast context, which makes this even more complex.

We limped very tired to the Meteor Crater RV Park.

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June 11, 2013
Grants, NM to Navajo, AZ

Hurray, we made it to Arizona! —-well, not until the evening and just past the State Border (ca. 20-30 miles in)

But first we visited the New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants. They even had a reconstructed Uranium Mine and a very knowledgable retired mining expert as guide.

Now we really booted it towards Arizona, or that’s what we thought. We stopped 10 minutes later for some pictures of breathtaking scenery which Martin captured in one of his panoramas.

The we reached the Continental Divide and no, we didn’t pour water on both sides to see that it runs to the Atlantic on the Eastern side and to the Pacific on the Western side.

But we started our shopping spree of Navajo arts and we couldn’t stop the shopping accidents for quite some time. Even during our lunch break at Earl’s Family Restaurant at Gallup, where local craftspeople offered their art right at the table. A lot of deciding was done and some pretty items purchased, but the delicious burritos were still enjoyed very much.

Gallup is an interesting town with theatre, city hall, etc. but most prominent are the many, many stores of native art and western accessories. And yes, we had to purchase some of these … a cowboy hat for Martin and boots for both of us.

After a quick stop at Walmart, our favourite “watering hole” we finally left the state and entered Arizona at a time when the Visiter Centre was closed already. Now we are sitting at a gas station/truck stop with the big boys but we don’t dare to wear our cowboy boots yet!

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June 10, 2013
Albuquerque, NM to Grants, NM

We were still unable, despite all our good intentions, to leave New Mexico! The motto of the State really seems to haunt us: Land of Enchantment, although some of the locals call it Land of Entrapment. But we are still enchanted and don’t feel the danger of being trapped yet, the RV was still moving west.

Driving through beautiful red rock formations, visiting a couple more abandoned gas stations and motels i.e. in Budville we made it to El Malpais National Monument where we crawled through a lava tube, not easy with two cameras and a scared dog that needed to be lifted down off some of the larger rocks by Martin.

After this sweat inducing endeavour we first climbed up the Bandera Volcano and looked into the immense crater and then had a chance to cool down at a nearby ice cave which has 20 feet thick ice all year round. Gusty wither winds and snow replenish the water which forms into ice and remains this way because of the rule, warm air rises, cold air falls. Summer heat never enters the cave. Ice cream time was to follow, which we really deserved since we were dusty, sweaty, tired and hungry.

The only flop of this great day, driving through forests in the 7.000 feet range in brilliant weather with great sights was the fact that we arrived at 5:15 pm at El Morro National Monument for 1/2 a mile hike to the petroglyphs depicting 700 years of human activity when the trail closed at 5 pm. We were so disappointed that we even refused to watch the movie. We retraced our steps back to Grants and stayed at a lovely KOA RV site with free breakfast and optional home cooked dinner delivered to the camp site at a reasonable price, what a treat!!! Turkey Dinner with all the fixings, HMMM!

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June 9, 2013
Tucumcari, NM to Albuquerque, NM

The night was still a bit young and after writing last night’s blog we stopped by the campfire where we met up with Tom, one of the owners of the campsite, and a couple from England and had our first moonshine from Georgia. We talked about local politics, car racing and rich people in Bermuda who have to cut their cars in half in order to be allowed to buy a new one. There was some discussion of the benefits of having a BMW or Mercedes on an island that has a speed limit of 20 miles per hour.

The next morning we visited Tee Pee Curios and bought some interesting Mexican items.

The owner, Mike Callens, is an accomplished photographer and sells some of his prints in the store.

We drove on, mostly on I-40 since Route 66 is fragmented or dirt road in many parts of New Mexico. Just outside of Newkirk we came across remains of an old gas station and restaurant.

In Santa Rosa we visited the Route 66 Auto Museum.

Lunch was at a Mexican and American cuisine restaurant called the Silver Moon which was established in 1959. The food was great and the souvenir shop wasn’t bad either.

Santa Rosa is a very special city in that it has a collection of artesian springs in the area. The most famous is the Blue Hole which is more than 80 ft deep and 60 ft wide.

Back on our route, we were very happy we had decided not to go to Santa Fe when we saw the smoke from the forest fires. In the picture below, the you can see the smoke cloud caused by the fire.

We made it to Albuquerque and stopped at Absolutely Neon, only because it was one of the waypoints that we had on Route 66.

This was a good thing because we met Robert Randazzo, the owner of the store/gallery.

After talking for four hours about neon signs, politics and everything else under the sun, we decided to buy a small neon sign and then the three of us headed out for dinner at around 9PM. The Vietnamese restaurants we had intended to go to were closed by now so we ended up in an Italian restaurant in a very trendy area.

After pizza and beer we headed off to a nearby Walmart parking lot for a good night sleep. Those of you who watch Breaking Bad on TV (which is filmed in Albuquerque) might recognize our RV neighbour.

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June 5, 2013
Amarillo, TX to Tucumcari, NM

It was a dark and stormy night….

The thunderstorm that started at around midnight and lasted until about 1:30AM was so strong that it shook our 4 ton truck. Fortunately no damage done. Needless to say, everything started a bit later this morning. Add to that the discussion about whether to take the Santa Fe loop or not.

Our first stop of interest was Vega. We stopped, not for a museum, but for a visit to the Boot Hill Saloon and Grill. Two ice teas were our ticket to have a closer look inside.

The words of wisdom for today: “Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.”

After seeing a couple more abandoned gas stations and motels we arrived at the Midpoint Cafe which is coincidentally located at the midpoint of Route 66. Dennis is the current owner, having bought it two years ago to fulfill his dream of owning a cafe on Route 66.

The burgers were the best on the trip so far, but the “Midpoint ugly pies” which he makes himself were the highlight.

The story behind the name is that the recipe was that of the former owner’s baker’s grandmother. The granddaughter, while learning to bake as a child, wasn’t able to make as nice a crust as her grandmother, so they got the name “Ugly Crust Pies” which became “Midpoint Ugly Pies” with the current owner.

A little further down the road is the virtual ghost town of Glenrio, Texas. We stopped to take some pictures of a completely deserted four lane road (part of Route 66), which our GPS cheerfully announced as I-40 Business Loop.

A fine opportunity to give the tilt-shift lens a go.

We said goodbye to Texas and the Central timezone and headed into New Mexico, headed back to Texas after missing the visitor center and then back to New Mexico and its visitor center. Loads of brochures and great plans to visit Santa Fe and Los Alamos only to have our plans altered because of forest fires in that region. We slowly feel that we’re constantly weaving our way through natural disasters on this trip!

Near Endee, at the Russell service center we stopped to visit a vintage car museum and Ruth again feel in love with a turquoise Bel-Air. There just happened to be one for sale at a good price in the miniature edition.

Our last stop was in Tucumcari (Two-Come-Cari) where we spent some time talking to Kevin and Nancy, the owners of the beautiful Blue Swallow Motel. The motel was built in 1939 and Kevin and Nancy have lovingly restored it in a 1950s style, with original furniture and decor. It may be the only motel that still has garages for the guests next to their rooms. Unfortunately they were all booked for the night.

On the side of the motel are beautiful murals of Route 66 which we will leave you with tonight.

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June 4, 2013