Route 66 Part 2 - Tucson - Flagstaff - Needles

Elfrida restocking the hummingbird feeder.

Last October, we drove the Ford down to Tucson, we being my sister Elfrida, her husband Terry, and myself.  We started in Chicago and drove Route 66 all the way to Flagstaff, Arizona, where we broke off to drive down to Tucson.

Well, Elfrida is back in Tucson (without Terry this particular time) and the plan is to drive the rest of Route 66 from Flagstaff to Santa Monica, CA.  

A nice sunrise over the Catalinas in Oro Valley before heading out on Saturday.

Picking up where we left off, in downtown Flagstaff, at the intersection of Beaver Street and Route 66.  It is 26F out, on its way up to 68F.

An interesting general store in Parks, in pine country.  At 7000 feet, the weather is sunny but cool.
The store is heated by a potbelly stove in the center of the building.  Elfrida wonders how many customers have accidentally backed into it while shopping.

The restaurants along '66 in Williams need to compete for your attention.  The name of this one caught mine.  They offer "home cooking."  Really?

The Snow Cap is an institution in Seligman, AZ.  The guy behind the counter is a practical joker.  For example, the door has knobs on both left and right side.  Only one is real.  The other has you ineffectually trying to pull open the door from the hinged side.  If you order a chicken sandwich, you are likely to get a rubber chicken between two slabs of bread.  The group in front of us ordered 3 medium Cokes and one small; he served the small in a 1-ounce condiment cup.  It took a good minute of animated discussion in German before they decided to return to the counter and complain.

 Once you leave Selgman, you have about 150 uninterrupted miles of original Route 66 without I-40 anywhere in sight.

Yet another Route 66 attraction, this one in Hackberry, AZ.  Recipe for Route 66 roadside attraction: 1. Buy a rundown building (previously used for any purpose) on the highway.  2. Gather as much 1950's and 1960's Americana as necessary to decorate every square foot of the exterior facing the road.  (The classic '61 Corvette convertible sure helps!)  3. Stock it with giftware.  Best choice is millenial humour using 1950's images.

This Easter Island tiki is about 3500 miles off course.

A nice old steam train in Kingman, AZ.

This stone gas station in Cool Springs had fallen to rubble years ago.  The ruin was bought for a song by a movie director, who had it reconstructed so that it could be cinematically destroyed again by Claude Van Damme in the movie "Universal Soldier".  A local entrepreneur then bought the re-rubbled property for a song and reconstituted it yet again, with added celebrity as a former movie set.

Elfrida and the Ford, near the top of Sitgreaves Pass.

The road down to Oatman has a lot of hairpin turns.  Guardrails range from nominal to non-existent.

Oatman is known for its wild burros that wander at will around town, oblivious to traffic, trying to cadge food from visitors.  Now I know what cities and towns smelled like before the automobile came along.

Mother and child.  Is the young burro a burrito?

Looking back to the east to the hills as the sun sets (and a full moon rises.)  We are now in California, approaching Needles.