2017 Road-trip day 6

Day 6: Sunday

We both woke around 5.30am, one of us due to the noise of the trains, the other due to that person making more noise then an elephant! We lounged around for quite a while before making a move and bidding farewell to "Mater", and the Wigwam Motel. 

We had breakfasted in watermelon and bananas before we had left, so just needed to fill up the car with petrol and head back on Route 66 for what proved to be a very long day. Our first plan of action was to take the US 180 down to the South entrance to the National Park, Petrified Forest, we spent far longer here then we had originally intended too.

The Petrified Forest is a 28mile journey through spectacular desert. Our first stop was the Giant Logs Trail, a walk around some of the parks largest Petrified logs including Old Faithful which is 10 feet across it's base. Colourful pieces from small shards to massive trunks of these spectacular fossilized trunks lay around the trail with views across the Badlands as a backdrop.

 As we continued on our drive, we were able to pull in to many overlooks including the Crystal Forest Loop, Jasper Forest and the Blue Mesa. All off these offered stunning views, amazing examples of the Petrified logs that once were part of a prehistoric forest and the odd collared lizard. We marveled at the Tepee rock formation and were able to view the 2000 plus year old petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock. We continued over the I-40 and stopped at where Route 66 cut through the park and then onto the Painted Desert with it colours of pinks and reds, photo overload! 

Time was getting on, we had been there for nearly 4 hours and still had most of the days drive to do, so we headed out of the Park and picked up the Mother Road and headed towards Chambers thru Lupton and on to the New Mexico border and views of Window Rock.

Paul: Breaking Bad Interlude 1 - honestly, pretty much the first thing we passed on the road after crossing from Arizona was a kid with his 'pipe'.

We continued along until we had to join up with the I-40, it's here we managed to miss a chunk of 66 road due to misreading the map, whoops never mind we were soon back on track and exiting at 47 to pass the Continental Divide, through Bluewater, Grants and Cubero - where Hemingway was said to have wrote 'The old man and the sea' at the old cafe, so legend says.

 Traversing through Laguna Pueblo Land, curving round the tight loop of Dead Man's Curve and spotting the lava outcrop known as Owl Rock before meeting back up with the I-40 again. We now decided to take the pre-1937 optional route which looking back we should have skipped due to time, the route took through Cortez to Los Luna's and long stretches of road works, by the time we had crossed the Rio Grande and hit Isleta Pueblo we had had enough, although the landscape was enjoyable there was nothing particularly special about it* and when we got to the I-25 we decided to stay in it and head straight to Santa Fe, we were planning to drive back along Route 66 to Albuquerque the next day.

Paul: Breaking Bad Interlude 2 - From the I-25 we did see the Crossroads Motel, the skanky motel used in a few episodes of Breaking Bad.

 We finally arrived at 7.30, shattered at the lovely looking El Ray Inn, checked in and headed straight back out to see if we could get some food. Unfortunately the restaurant that had been recommend to us had a 25 minute wait, we were dead on our feet having left Holbrook at 9.30, 10 hours earlier and decided that we would go over the road to Trader Joe's to stock up on Spicy Lentil Wraps, salad and beer to take back to the room, where we picnicked till we fell asleep around 9.30. It had been a very long days.

*Paul: Breaking Bad Interlude 3 - Not so, I saw loads of places where we could secrete a Winnebago and cook up some Blue Meth.

Days miles: 363

Total miles: 996

2017 Road-trip day 5

Day 5 Saturday

Up early today - 5.40am, can't seem to have a lie in! We used our time just chilling, rearranging our packing and trying to get a blog article posted. We checked out of the El Troubadour and headed to Starbucks to grab some decent coffee and bagels for breakfast.

Then it was back heading out of town onto Route 66 towards Hackberry and Peach Springs and into the Hualapai Indian Reservation. As we climbed the steep hill we caught a glimpse of the Grand Canyon in the distant, despite it being far away, it still looked impressive. Continuing on our journey, we managed to spot some of the old 1920's roadbed alongside the current 66 and we began to see the famous Burma Shave advertising signs as we pasted through Seligman.

Passing through many small towns who's heyday had long passed we headed east to Williams and up into Parks in the Pines, a picturesque drive through forest and a chance to drive on some original 1939 concrete road. Arizona was proving great for sticking to the Mother road and soon we hit Flagstaff, nestled in the peaks of the San Francisco mountains.

We parked up and went for a fabulous lunch in Macy's European coffee house -somewhere we had planned to stop due to it being completely vegetarian - we shared an avocado BLT which was high and had ice coffee and honeyed lemonade.

 Feeling sustained and fortified we were back on the road again this time heading for Winslow via Winona. Unfortunately, this is where we managed to lose Route 66 and missed going through Winona, sorry Winona! However it didn't take much to get back on track and we cruised on in to Winslow, parked up, and 'stood on the corner in Winslow Arizona, taking it easy' while checking out the Statue paying tribute to the Eagles classic.

As we passed out of Winslow we saw the 9/11 Remembrance garden with a pair of girders from the World Trade Centre. We crossed over the Little Colorado River to briefly join the I-40 before getting back on 66 and pulling over to get a photo with the roadside Jackrabbit (if you haven't been to the Jackrabbit you haven't been to the Southwest), and brought a few postcards from the Jackrabbit Trading Post.

 Then all that was left was to continue past Joseph City and into Holbrook to our home for the night the Wigwam Motel. Where else would you stay, but an 1950's concrete tepee, these were inspiration behind Disney's Car's movie cozy cone motel. That evening we headed out to find some food and ended up at Tom and Susie's Diner, recommended by trip advisor, for sodas, salad veggie burger and some of the best fries we've had since we arrived in the States - crinkle cut chips!

 As we left we noticed that sunset over the desert looked amazing and photos had to be taken. Fancying a beer before heading back and Holbrook having no brew pubs in town, we headed to Safeway and brought ourselves our first PBR to take back ( hipster beer according to the MCLars Hipster Girl song) and headed back to our wigwam for the evening.

Days miles: 275
Total miles: 633

2017 Road-trip day 4

Day 4: Friday

After having a bit of a lie in, Paul walked round to Subway to grab some breakfast of egg and cheese sub rolls to eat back in the room, while I started packing. unfortunately they didn't do coffee so we had to contend with the hotel’s complimentary coffee instead.

It was an easy check out and within a couple of minutes our Uber arrived to take us to Hertz at Fullerton - picking up here rather then in Anaheim saved as several hundred dollars so worth the $20 odd dollar ride.

After a short wait, we received our car for the next 10 days a Buick Verano, it is filthy inside, looked like someone had thrown a drink around so after complaining and seeing how the Hertz employee was cleaning it, I decided to take over and give it a proper cleaning instead. The outside also looks like somebody has been throwing fruit at it, honestly! Not a good start. However we were on our way just after 10am which hopefully meant that we would miss all the Los Angeles traffic heading out to Las Vegas for the weekend.

We headed on down the I-15 to clear town and it was interesting to see the derelict old Route 66 between the two carriageways. When we got near to Victorville we decided it was time to start cruising Route 66 and started our Route 66 adventure. We cruised along by the Santa Fe Railroad passing the sagebrush dotted hills and the mostly dry Mojave River. Through the towns of Helendale and Hodge passing the Bottle Tree Ranch and onto Barstow. As we needed some road trip snacks we pulled into Vons supermarket at Barstow to stock up on fruit water and rice cakes and a few bits for lunch then it was back onto Route 66. We stuck to as much of the old Route 66 as possible eating our lunch at as rest stop on one of the sections of the I-40 that covers the old route. As we near the heart of the Mojave the temperature rose to 113F, its was a tad warm! We marvelled at the sights as we passed – Pisgah Crater lava field, The Baghdad café of movie fame and onto Amboy.

The old road is out for repair west of Amboy just after the famous Roy's Cafe but apart from a diversion there that led us to use the Kelbaker Rd diversion, we stayed on the original route all the way from Victorville out of California.



We stopped at a roadside shack just outside Needles and purchased a jar of sage bush honey, having smelled sage brush we have great expectations of it.



At Topock – not Topcock as our navigator had insisted! – we took the old Route 66 down to where the road used to cross the Colorado River, it’s now washed out but was indeed great to see. We did a short stretch on the I-40 to cross the Colorado and were now in Arizona.

Driving through the narrow and winding roads over the Black Mountains through Oatman – look out for the wild burros – we continued to climb to 3550 feet to the peak of  Sitgreaves Pass, we pulled over just east of Cool Springs to take some photos of the spectacular views and noticed a set of rock steps – we later found out that this once lead up to Shaffer’s Fish Bowl Springs, a man made basin. We continued on and headed to our stop for the night, the El Troubadour Motel at Kingman.

The El Troubadour is a classic Route 66 motel from the hey-day of the road and we are staying in the James Dean themed room.

After dropping off our bags we head into town as we need a few supplies, namely fuel and some ice packs for the cool-bag. We then headed to the Rickety Cricket brew pub where we enjoyed a pint of Hangar 24 orange wheat beer and a Mission kolsch. Unfortunately they were only taking reservations that night so we headed over to Mr D'z classic route 66 diner where we shared a grilled cheese sandwich and a banana split after having our photos taken with the classic steam locomotive on display in the park opposite.

Day miles: 358
Total miles: 358