Well, we're not totally sure yet. We're back in Flagstaff and sorting it out. Route 66 today though. Maybe Needles tonight. Who freaking knows! woo!!

Thanks to everyone for their comments. We don't have time to reply just yet. but we will.

Loves Us!

The room where we stayed was small with one very large bed. It could have slept five. The girls crashed long before I did, as usual. I stayed up writing. This is routine now. In the midst of all of this constant churning, this bobbing from town to town, we've managed to develope a routine. This suits me. We're up by dawn. Or soon after.

Today was no exception. I woke up first, which is also usual, and checked to see what the sunrise was up to. Beautiful. Brilliant yellows and just a few clouds. I grabbed my camera and a train jumped in the shot. It happens. Around 70 trains a day come through Flagstaff. Maybe more.

We loaded up our gear and hit the Mother Road once again. Today was going to be a real treat. We're going to be travalling over 150 straight miles of Route 66. What's even better is that it strays far away from the interstate.

But first, there were a few small towns to check out. To get there, we drove along old, nearly forgotten parts of 66. Along these parts were earlier incarnations of the route. You could see it zig-zagging around you. At one spot, a cut in the woods gave you a clear view of exactly how it must have looked so long ago.

The Arizona Forestry Commision has marked out the old Route 66 very well. It's sort of odd that a government forestry department would do such a thing, but they have, especially in western Arizona.

Before we hit any towns, we drove an abandoned section of 66. I turned a corner and saw a little fuzzy furry thing scurry into a hole. Stopping the car I exclaimed, "OH! Fuzzy thing!" And then two more popped their fuzzy little heads up from their holes. Then more showed up and soon it was a prairie dog fun fest! We watched them for a few mintues, giggled and took pictures then finally had to say goodbye to our new friends.

Our first town worth mentioning was Williams. We fueled up at the cheapest gas station for miles ($1.89 - every other town was $2.29) and got out of town. Ash Fork was next. A nice town with a very homey feel greeted us. 

For the next part of 66, we had to do some fancy driving over VERY rough roads. It was more pot holes than road, actually. All to get to a bridge with a tree growing up out of it. It sounded pretty cool when I read about it, and was even cooler seeing it in person. How often do you get to see a tree growing through a bridge?

Seligman, on first glance, looks like a town built too close to a nuclear power plant. It's almost a surreal, mutated, halucinization. The first building we saw was, I think, supposed to be an ice cream parlor, The Snow Cap. It's got ... well, check out the pictures. I can't even begin to describe it. Just amazing. We walk in the very small area for ordering and the guy behind the counter immediately starts messing with Nikki. It's hilarious. All she wanted was an ice cream cone and he's talked her in circles and was this close to getting her to buy a cup of chipped ice with cream on top of it (get it?).  Either that or she was a few seconds away from crying. He only picked on Ashley a little bit and was pretty straight with me. I wish I had it on video. It was a whole routine and Nikki was just perfect for it.

They downed their cones and we moved onto Angel's barbor shop. Angel is this wacky old guy who ran a barbor shop in Seligman for years until one day he realized that Route 66 was disappearing. He then took it upon himself to inform the world of this and to help out. He's largely responsible for the Route 66 resurgance. And he was hilarious. I think he was also the uncle of the guy running the Snow Cap.

We shopped around a bit more and ended up buying a few things. I got a Route 66 sign, one of the smaller ones. I want one of the big ones, but they're $50. I just haven't talked myself into it yet. Maybe. We'll see.

A few other small towns flew by us. Some small towns on 66 are nothing but a few abandoned buildings. Some are nothing at all.

Hackenbury would be nothing at all, if not for the Hackenbury General Store.  It looks like it belongs in Seligman. Had a charm about it, even though the woman behind the register was kind of grumpy. I think she was having a bad day. I got a bottle of Route Beer (get it?) and a post card.

Then came the desert. It was long and relentless. The Black Mountains in the distance seemed to beckon us and mock us at the same time. We drove for what seemed liked days, but what was actually about 20 minutes. The scenery changed very little in that time. I kept an eye on the temperature gage the entire time. Ever since I blew a blew out a head on my own VW Jetta due to overheating (the waterpump died), I've been a freak about engine temp. The car we're using for this has a temp gauge that tells you the actual degrees. Usually the car is around 210 degrees. It got up to 220. Made me nervous.

The Black Mountains in the distance crept slowly  closer and closer to us until finally we found ourselves driving what seemed to be straight up. For roughly 5 or 6 miles, we zig-ziagged, made several 180 degree turns, drove 10 mph (and that was sometimes too fast!), feared for our lives when there was no guard rails and feared for our lives when there was. We got a vew pictures, but it's truly a sight to behold. I'd love to drive it again. It was a challenge! Going up the hill, the car got to 225 degrees. More silent freaking.

But nothing could prepare us for Oatman. The town is mostly known for one things: burros. The burro is the sacred animal of Oatman. They roam the streets, stand out in front of cars and basically do whatever it is that they want to do. The tourists and the towns people tolerate it. Actually, the towns people love these guys. Each burro has a name and most of the population seems to know each and every burro. Charming.

This was also the town where they shot the film "How the West Was Won." Also, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their honeymoon here. Why? No one knows.

This road is so insane that in the 40's there was a towing company who would tow your car up the hill for $3.50. There were seven gas stations in town at one time. Then in the 50's Route 66 was moved to a "better" location (one without the crazy hill). The day after it was moved, six of the seven stations threw in the towel. Today, the closest station is 17 miles away.

The girls ate at a small cafe and I bummed Nikki's pickle off of her. One of the best pickles I've ever had. Ashley kept hers and I could see by the look on her face that she was afraid I'd ask for it. Clearly, these are pickles to be reckoned with.

We spent about an hour, maybe more, there. And I think we all fell in love with it. Wouldn't want to live here, but a great place to visit.

By this time, we had pretty much agreed to stay the night in Needles, California.  We drove through more desert, across the Colorado River and into California.  Needles is almost right across the boarder.

It's an ok town. Certainly nothing special. It was 4:30pm and we grabbed a motel. I'm not too keen on the motel idea. We've done it a lot, but I do apreciate not having to set up the tent.

After getting the room, grabbing cold showers and tidying up, we found a chinese place (the food was really good). The rest of the evening was spent talking about the trip and going through today's pictures.

Right now the girls are sleeping and I'm writing. I always enjoy this time to myself. My memory is usually pretty rotten. This project has helped me greatly.

I've been told that I'm too long-winded. While I do know that I am and that I'll do everything I can to work on it, I apoligize, but at the same time, this is how I'm remembering everything. If I don't get to write it down with the chance of talking about it with someone, I just go crazy.

And to the reader, I am sorry. I'll do what I can about that.

So in the spirit of short-windedness, I'll end it there.

Tomorrow is the real desert. Wish us luck...

Stats
Miles traveled today: 443
Hours on the road: 13
Miles traveled in total: 4101

Pictures
Pictures from Eric's Camera.
Pictures from Ashley's Camera.

Video
Video from a lonely section of 66.

Where are we?
Map showing where we are today!
(Purple = where we've been. Red = where we traveled today.)