Mixed Up Days and Meteor Crater and Chunky Bouncers…

Saturday, September 11, 2021 Day 8 or day 12 or day 22, your choice!

I am getting my days all mixed up! The 9^th of September was, in fact, our 20^th day on the road but it was our 8^th day of driving Route 66 if you don’t count the days we spent in Santa Fe. But if you do count those days as part of the Route 66 trip (we did do Route 66-type activities after all) it was day 12. My head hurts.

After Albuquerque, we spent the night in Gallup, heading for Flagstaff and a visit with friends from Tucson who have second home in Flag (as it’s known to locals).

Leaving Gallup, the road is quite beautiful. Lots of rock faces—and lots of rocks falling off those rock faces! Still very little traffic on Route 66. What’s not beautiful are the tourist traps (as one of our guidebooks says, GIFT SHOP ALERT!) masquerading as “museums” or “zoos” or “arts and crafts showrooms.” They are all ugly and all out to separate you from your money.

On the way to Flag is the Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert. It has a wow factor to approximate the Wow! when you first see the Grand Canyon. For the Painted Desert, you drive in through a typical scrub forest of low plants and dirt, not many hills, not many valleys. Then round a corner and Wow!, you see, laid out before you, a beautiful, colorful (it’s not called the Painted Desert for nothing!) scene. 

The Painted Desert Inn (not open at this time)

Because the road through the Park crosses Route 66, there is a small display partway into the Park. Of course we had to stop and take pictures (even though we have been to the Park several times).

Hard to see, but there is an embossed Route 66 logo on the seat.

Even in its heyday, this would not have been comfortable transportation, especially across the Arizona desert in the summer heat!

 

As we drove along Route 66 we saw the sad detritus of the ruin that I40 has caused. Crumbling and abandoned buildings, graffiti-covered shops and homes and workplaces. They do have a kind of forlorn beauty.

This used to be a famous and well used stop on Route 66!

Not sure why somebody thought it would be good to impale a horse on the top of a teepee.

This graffiti isn't too bad!

So sad to think of all the folks who can no longer stop at this campground on Route 66!

Although we didn’t plan well enough to be able to stay in the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, we did stop and take some pictures. With all the old cars in residence there, you can easily imagine what it would have been like to be driving Route 66 in the 40s or 50s!

We think these are old Hudsons.

It could be a photo from 1940 rather than 2021.

Against our better judgement, we decided to go to Meteor Crater National Natural Landmark. We thought, silly us, that being a National Natural Landmark complete with the traditional brown signs used in National Parks, it would be free to us with our National Parks Senior Pass. Oh, my no, no, no! We hadn’t even gotten inside the building before a rather chunky and bouncer-looking woman demanded we produce our tickets that she presumed we had bought on line. Of course, being the very senior seniors that we are, it never occurred to us that we could get tickets on line! (We later checked the prices: $22 for normal not-old folks, $20 each with a senior discount. A family of four including two children would be $70, discounted to $62 online) Pretty pricey for a site that you can just stand around and look at. We left without looking. I think the bouncer wanted to charge us for coming in the door without tickets! We did not feel the love at this place!

We stopped in Winslow for a few photos (obligatory photo stop for anybody who likes the Eagles' music!).

Winslow does a 9/11 memorial very well!

I couldn't count all the flags but we assumed there were 2,977 flags (the number who died on 9/11).

Winslow got two of the girders from the World Trade Center.

Then we had to go stand on the corner in Winslow, Arizona!

Note the primo parking space we got for our Corvette so it could be in the picture, too!

This was a fairly easy day, largely because it has been the most miles on an Interstate (rather than the two-lane Route 66 we’ve been used to. Arizona will make up for it later by having the longest continuous stretch of old Route 66 (over 159 miles west of Flag).

We spent an enjoyable two days with our friends and had some memorable meals because he loves to cook and does it very well. The meals were well lubricated with wine, also. And perhaps a martini. Or two.