Thurs. Sept. 6 Rte. the Sequel

We left Pasadena this morning and headed back to I15 to get to Victorville Ca. to visit the Route 66 museum that was closed earlier in the week.  When we arrived at the museum we were glad to see that it was open.  It was a great museum but the most interesting thing that happened was that when I looked at the other people in the museum they looked very familiar to me.  It turned out the 13 Norwegians that we had seen almost two weeks earlier in Miami Oklahoma in the Coleman Theater were now crossing our path again.   We all had a good laugh about running into each other after all the time that had elaspsed.  It turns out they had spent some time on side trips to the Grand Canyon and to New York New York in Las Vegas.

This hula girl was rescued from a dump.  It had once been part of a restaurant along Route 66.

After leaving Victorville we followed Route 66 back to Barstow CA.  Along the way we came across the Bottle Tree Ranch.  I am having trouble getting pictures into my blog again but when I figure it out I will add some interesting photos of this most unusual place.   Obviously the person who created this place was a welder with a great imagination.

 

 

 

 

Our original plan was to stay in Barstow before heading for Las Vegas tomorrow.  We wanted to eat lunch at Peggy Sue's diner in Yermo which is east of Barstow and after lunch we decided that may be going to Primm on the Neveda side of the California/Nevada border would be more fun. 

 There are three casinos in Primm.  The Whiskey Jack casino had the car that Bonnie and Clyde were killed in plus quite a display of artifacts and a great video of how they become outlaws and how they were tracked down.  The other two casinos were interesting as well and allowed us to practice our video poker skills for Las Vegas.

Wed. Sept 05 THE END OF THE ADVENTURE ON ROUTE 66

We finally have finished our trip on Route 66

The sign says it all.  This sign is on the Santa Monica Pier.  A young couple from Denmark took our picture.

Here we are in the parking lot by the Santa Monica Pier.  Mr. Smurf is happy to be here and the corvette is proud that it got us all the way here.

This is the entry to the Santa Monica Pier

Some of the Route 66 books say this is actually the official marker for the end of Route 66.

It has been a great trip and we met lots of interesting people and saw some incredible scenery.  We spent the whole day at the Santa Monica Pier and the Promenade in downtown Santa Monica which is a few blocks from the Pier.  The weather was very good today with lots of cloud cover which kept the temperature tolerable. 

We had lunch at Bubba Gump's on the Pier.  While we ate lunch we watched an unusual couple by the side of the Pier in the sand.  After lunch we noticed another couple watching this couple and went to see what they thought of the "happenings"  The couple were from Western Australia and we spent about 10 minutes watching the "sand couple" and trying to figure out what they were doing.  If want to know what we were watching----ask us to explain when you see us.

We returned to Pasadena to stay for the night and tomorrow we will head back to Barstow to see some parts of the Mother Road that we missed along the way.  We'll stay in Barstow tomorrow and on Friday head for the Grandview Resort in Las Vegas for a week of rest and relaxation before returning to Calgary.

We hope you have enjoyed following our trip on our blog.  We will continue to add to the blog tomorrow as well.  Thanks for following our blog.  It was fun and hopefully you enjoyed seeing where we were spending our time.

Ross and Vicky

Tue.Sept. 4

We didn't go very far today but we saw lots of Route 66.  We started our day in Victorville Ca. We saw in our Route 66 guide that there was a good Route 66 museum in the old town area of Victorville.  We arrived and found that the museum was closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  I'm sure they have statistics to prove that very few people show up on those days of the week.

We now headed to San Bernardino and our book told  us to go to the first McDonald's restaurant.  Rick Rappel--eat your heart out.  We know how much you love fast food and the history of the great golden arches.

It turned out to be a very good museum.  It told how the McDonald brothers started the restaurant and later sold it to Ray Kroc who turned it in to what it is today.  There was an interesting McFeud as when Ray Kroc bought the franchise he thought he was getting the original store that we visited today---that was not the case and left Ray furious and vindictive--I'll leave it up to you to guess what he did.

The original McDonald's outlet---oh Hamburger Heaven.

From San Bernardino we headed towards our final destination.

For those that have followed the blog, you may remember that we stopped at the Wigman Motel in Holbrook Arizona and it  looked derelict and shut down.  Well, there is a Wigwam Motel in Rialto Cal.  that has been revitalized and is being used.  We looked around but couldn't find anyone to ask what the rates were, so we took some pictures and moved on.

We peeked in the window of one of the wigwams and they were quite roomy and totally updated to modern standards.  Would have been great to stay for one night.

Vicky--longing to stay in a wigwam!!!!

We saw many interesting relics of Route 66 along the Mother Road today.  We are staying in Pasadena tonight and the road from San Bernardino to Pasadena is like one big city and you don't go that fast.  Many stoplights but lots to see.  We only travelled about 80 miles today but it took until 4:00 p.m. to get to Pasadena with all the stops we made to look at different sights.  We decided to stay in Pasadena for two nights.  We will leave early tomorrow  for Santa Monica and spend the day there.   That's where our dream of travelling Route 66 will end. 

 In the evening we will come back to Pasadena.  On Thursday we'll take our time and head back to Barstow.  We missed a few things we wanted to see on the way to Santa Monica.   On Friday we will make a dash across the Mohave Desert again on I15 to spend a week at the Grandview Resort in Las Vegas.

Look at tomorrow's blog to see what the end of Route 66 looks like.

Mon. Sept. 3

Yes--The Stamps beat the Esks in the labour day classic!!!!  Sorry to our Edmonton Esks fans.

We started our day in Kingman AZ.  We knew it was going to be hot today as we headed toward the Mohave Desert.  The hottest temperature recorded on our car temp gauge was 110.  We drove with the top down in the morning on the way to Oatman AZ.  We arrived there before noon and that was it for top-down driving as the temperature was already getting very hot.

Vicky wore her pink Route 66 hat today for our top-down driving.

Today we headed on the most curvy, steep, and dangerous part of Route 66---from Kingman AZ to Oatman AZ.  Our first stop was at Cool Springs.  At one point this building on Route 66 burnt down but has since been restored to its original glory.

I also got to wear my Route 66 hat today---the sun was unbearably hot and it wasn't even 11:00 a.m.



After navigating the treacherous tight turns and ups and downs of this steep part of Route 66 we arrived in Oatman.  It is an old western style town.  Wild burros left my miners are now tamed and allowed to wander freely on the street and beg for food from the tourists.  Dirk--I think you said one bit you last year---you should have bit him back.  You think that's bad, look what the burros thought of our corvette!!

But we did find one young burro that so liked our corvette that he tried to eat it.  As we returned to our vehicle, we saw this young burro nibbling at the cover of convertible top.  Luckily some ladies saw him doing it and pushed him away from the car.  He must have liked the roughness and thought it was edible.

At noon they had a gunfight in the street and the people had to stand at each end of the gunfight so no vehicles could interfere with the gunfight.  Even the burros enjoy watching the show.

After leaving Oatman, we headed for Needles Cal.  at the bottom of the valley.  This is where our temp gauge reached 110 degrees.  Luckily the corvette handled the temp well and provided us with lots of cool air.  The rest of the trip was uneventlful.  We saw lots of desert, and more desert and more desert and more desert and more desert---you get the picture--until we reached Barstow Cal.  We then headed south on I15 towards Victorville where we are staying tonight. 

Tomorrow we will follow Route 66 into San Bernadino and then west toward Santa Monica.  We have 3 days to do this part of the trip and then finish up in Santa Monica.  There looks like there is a lot of Route 66 "stuff" to see along the way so we will see what happens and where we end up.

Sun. Sept. 02

Since we missed seeing what Flagstaff Az  had to offer, we decided to back track the 30 miles to see what we had missed.  Since it was Sunday they had a market in the park.  Typical market with lots of crafts and art work to enjoy.

Vicky enjoyed this young busker

We were able to see Mother Nature at her best today in Flagstaff.  While we were wandering through the town some ominus looking clouds started to form.  Within half an hour the most amazing thunder storm and rain hit Flagstaff and lasted about half an hour.  Lots of lightning, thunder and pounding rain.  

After lunch in Flagstaff we headed west again to Williams AZ where we stayed last night.  Williams is an amazing town with many shops dedicated to Route 66 as well as numerous restaurants and lots of old filling stations.

Mr. Smurf enjoyed his ride on the dashboard of the corvette today.

The Red Garter Bordello in Williams AZ.  Notice the dance hall girl hanging out the window.

We drove on Route 66 most of today.  Arizona seems to have the best pavement on the old route.  We were looking forward to arriving in Seligman and were not disappointed.  It truly is a fun place to stop on Route 66 and we got to meet a true legend of the Mother Road---Angel Delgadillo.  He is 85 years  old and is the founder of the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona.  He was a barber in the town and with his brother Juan they ran a successful business as well.  When we arrived Angel was cheerfully greeting customers in his barber shop and then a bus load of Japanese tourists arrived and they obviously had been told about him and they surrounded him for pictures.  He is an 85 year old man with a ton of energy and enthusiasm for Route 66 and a grin that is as big as the skyline of Arizona----I've taken some writer's licence here!!!!

Vicky is sitting in Angel's barber chair.  To the right of them you can see a picture of Angel when he was a young man.

Angel's barber shop and store.

More fun places in Seligman.  The Snow Cap restaurant was famous for playing tricks on the customers.  I got squirted with a fake musturd bottle and Vicky asked for some tape to put up a picture of the twins and the girl gave her a cassette tape.  Real Three Stooges humour and fun.

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Vicky added our business card with the grandkid's picture to the wall of photographs and business cards.  If you ever get to Seligman see if you can find it.  As you enter the restaurant from the left front door, look to your right.  Let us know if you see it.

After Seligman we headed for Kingman and saw many small towns along the Route with old hotels and buildings dedicated to Route 66.  At Hackberry  we came across a great old service station with many old relics including a 57 corvette just sitting outside.  I'm surprised someone hasn't offered them enough to let it go.  Too bad,  as it seems to be just sitting for the weather to get at it.

Vicky made another new friend at Hackberry

After Hackberry we headed for Kingman.  We noticed that the temperature steadily rose as we descended from the high altitude of Flagstaff to the much lower altitude of Kingman.  We will be watching the weather channel tonight as we stay in Kingman to see what is happening in the Mojave desert the next few days.  We will need to make some decisions tomorrow as to what we are going to do over the next 4 days as we are close to our destination but have our timeshare booked for Fri. Sept. 7 in Las Vegas.  We 'll let you know what we decide to do.

Sat. Sept. 01

We started our day in Gallup NM by visiting the El Rancho Hotel where many Hollywood stars have stayed while filming movies.  Beautiful interior and the rooms have the names of the stars that have stayed there over the door of the room they stayed in.

If you don't know who Richard Boone is you can consider yourself young---if you remember a TV western called "Have Gun Will Travel" and a bounty hunter named Paladin then consider yourself old.

On the way out of Gallup Vicky saw an Indian vase she wanted to buy but we decided it would be tough getting it into the car.

We then followed Route 66 to the stateline between New Mexico and Arizona.  We stopped at a place called Chief Yellowstone that has the border marked on the floor as it passes through the middle of the building.

Route 66 travels through a lot of Navajo land in the eastern part of Arizona.  For about half an hour the scenery was beautiful with many coloured rocks.  Any of you that have travelled throught the St. George Utah area would find this very similar.  It then opens up into barren land similar to the Texas plain.

At Holbrook Arizona we stopped at the famousWigwam Motel.  It didn't look like they used it anymore but it looked kind of neat with lots of old cars parked in front of the wigwams.  Apparently they have restored a wigwam motel in California which we will look for.

The next photo at the Wigwam Motel is for our grandkids, Isabella and Leif.  If you kids have been wondering whatever happened to Doc Hudson from the Cars movie you can stop wondering.  He is resting and rusting out at the Wigwam Motel in Arizona.

The next photo is also for Isabella and Leif.  Grandma say a huge Arizona rabbit and decided it needed to be tamed.  Go grandma Go.

Our biggest thrill of the day was arriving in Winslow Arizona and finding the statue standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona.  I think the town of Winslow can owe its existence today to the Eagles.  There was a bus load of English tourists when we arrived and they were buying up merchandis across the street from the statue as if there was no tomorrow.  Great fun talking with them and taking pictures for them so couples could be the picture together.  They returned the favour for us as well.

So there we are standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona--what a fine sight to see.  There's a girl my lord in a flatbed Ford--you know the rest if you're an Eagles fan.

If you look real hard at the photo below you should see a girl driving a flatbed Ford truck

We also toured the Winslow museum and talked to a lady working there who was a town councillor after 9/11 and was instrumental in bringing two girders from the twin towers to be put in Winslow.  She had a real "feel good"  story about how they got the girders from New York city to Winslow at no cost.  Ask us to tell you the story if you're interested.  You will be surprised to hear who covered the cost for getting the girders from New York city to Winslow.  We went to where they are moving the girders to a new area of the town.

Twin Tower girders from New York City.

Our next great visit of the day was to Meteor Crater.  Heike and Dirk will attest to what a marvel this place is.  A meteor hit the plains of Arizona 55,000 years ago and left this incredibly large hole.  It is one of the best examples of a large meteor hitting the earth anywhere in the world.  We spent about an hour and half here and enjoyed the museum,  and looking at the crater.

This picture doesn't do credit to the size of this crater.  It is 500 ft. deep and when you look down at it, it is hard to imagine that something from outer space had done this kind of damage to the earth.  If you are ever in the Flagstaff Arizona area it is worth a side trip to Meteor Crater.  Also an interesting story about a man who had a hard time convincing the scientific community that it was caused by a meteor and was not a volcanic crater.  Truly worth the trip.

We ended our day trying to get accommodation in Flagstaff.  We had to drive 30 miles outside of the city to find a place to stay.  I think that everyone from Nevada and parts of California that have been suffering the over 100 degrees has sought refuge in the coolness of Flagstaff for the long weekend.