Gotta keep moving! Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona! We’ve been putting between 350 and 450 miles on the van each day – jumping on and off of Interstate 44 ( and then 40 ) to catch the highlights of Historic Route 66. Each day we’ve gone thru another time change that has thrown our body’s time systems off! We’ve watched the terrain change from rolling farms to vast prairies of blowing waves of grasses, to miles and miles of scrubby brush with flat-topped dark colored hills in the distance. Miles and miles of - - miles and miles! Cool at night and up to 90 degrees in the daytime! Most of our accommodations have been just fine but we’ve also stayed in a typical “Route 66” vintage motel with no wifi and not much of any other accommodations – including a comfortable bed.
In Claremore, Ok, we stopped to see the Davis Gun Museum
with its collection of OVER 10,000 guns.
Even H had trouble taking them all in! We saw a big silly looking blue
whale sitting in a small pond just outside of Catoosa. We drove thru towns with names like Sapulpa,
Depew, Stroud and Chandler. In Chandler
we spotted a restored 1889 round red barn.
In Elk City we had our own early morning tour of their restored “Old
Town” complete with the biggest Route 66 sign of all. Texas had its share of small towns with their own collections of
66 memorabilia. In Groom it was a
leaning water tower and in Amarillo it is the line up of half buried Cadillacs,
standing nose deep in the dirt by the highway.
In Santa Rosa, NM, we stopped to see the Blue Hole and adjoining
park. What a treat! Too bad we left our snorkel stuff at
home! The water was deep rich blue and
the temp was 61 degrees. The boulder-lined pool was 60ft across and 81ft deep
and bubbled with 3000 ( Yes - 3 zeros! ) gallons of water per minute!
We drove the entire Central Ave in
Albuquerque, NM – the longest main street in the USA according to our “Route 66
Adventure Handbook”! Arizona made us
stop and once again drive thru the beautiful and ever amazing Painted Desert
and Petrified Forest National Park! The
last time we were here we were on the bike and did not get to stop at too many
turnouts. This time, H gave in and was
amazed by the colorful vistas and the mammoth deep veined logs that have been
turned to stone and crystal over the millions of years! Holbrook Arizona has a Wigwam Village Motel
that drew us in to check out the restored tourist cabins, each in the shape of
a large white teepee. Each had a sweet
old classic car parked by its door.
Several old tow trucks were parked under the front canopy as if ready to
go assist a tourist having car trouble on a hot day.
And then there was Winslow!
Remember the Eagles’ song – “Take It Easy”? The lyrics call for standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona and
also a line about a girl in a flat bed Ford, slowing down to take a look at
me. You bet – we were there!
Our goal for that day was to make Flagstaff – a pretty
college town nestled at 7000 ft up in the mountains and surrounded by dark
green Ponderosa Pines. But I must
mention that it is the home of Northern Arizona University and it was “Parents
Week” so we pushed on - 27 miles more to Williams where motel rooms were more
plentiful and lots more affordable!
Alas – they were also without the above-mentioned amenities. H said we did have wifi but the room was
too small to get the laptop in it! The
antique air-conditioner/heater did work well enough though since it was almost 90
degrees when we parked and there was frost on the van when we left the next morning!
