Route 66 Part Five: The Finale S T R E T C H

All of Route 66 was memorable,
but if I had to pick just one stretch not to miss . . .

If you’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, no words I could conjure would begin to describe it. If you have been, you know that all the pictures you take look dull and flat compared to what the eye takes in. Our short 5 hour tour of the south rim was memorable, I get the feeling that a 5 day tour wouldn’t be long enough. We went, we saw and once again I vowed to return for a real visit, one with burros and a stone lodge.

After the canyon we made out way back down to Williams and on to Seligman, and some authentic Route 66 travel. Seligman is a gateway to an arch of 2 lane pavement that heads up towards western Grand Canyon, leads through small towns and then comes back down to Kingman. After Kingman the real adventure begins. The way to the “ghost town” of Oatman, is a roller coaster, hairpin, Black Mountain joy with deserted desert 2 lane stomach dropping cliffside no guardrail views. My kind of ride. After Oatman things settle down a bit but scenic is still the word as you go downhill into Topock.

Before we left Michigan, doing research on Route 66, I saw a lot of photos from the road. At home, they all seemed so far away, so remote, so different from the views I had from my windows in Adrian. At home I tried hard to imagine what it was going to be like to be on that road and here I was. I was actually there, taking my own photos, the road was real and I could smell the air. I still can, I hope that sense of being there doesn’t fade.

From Topock we jumped on I-40 long enough to cross the Colorado River into California and got off again to drive 66 into Needles. We had a quick lunch at Burger Hut, some excellent tacos, and headed into the Mojave. The desert was whiter, flater, drier and even more desolate. We drove 66 for miles until we reached Najah's Sahara Oasis, in Fenner. Gas was suddenly a dollar more, but there were palm trees and jets of water coming out of a algae green pool.

After Fenner it was only 50 miles to our turn off at Amboy. It was hot and dry and our few stops were quick, jumping back into the air conditioning. There were the ruins of an old rest stop who’s plaque asked you to listen to the silence and imagine crossing the mojave in the 1920’s. There were a few ruins of road stops like the Road Runner, modern flintstone graffit that spread across the berms for miles and at Amboy, Roy’s Diner, Gas and Motel, being renovated by Albert Okura, who owns the Juan Pollo restaurant chain.

Roy’s old owner used to own the town of Amboy, which isn’t much more than Roy’s and now Okura does too. The renovation had been going on for awhile and there’s no end in sight just yet, I hope that there will be a there there someday.

We turned off Route 66 at Roy’s in Amboy, but we weren’t “home” yet. We drove across the dry lake beds, through the Sheep Hole Mountains and into Twentynine Palms. From there we took the road past the orgy of windmills and into the Coachella Valley. Then it wasn’t far to the Coral Sands Inn and the welcoming arms of our minister, motelier and friend, Ruby Z. Montana.

Now that was an oasis we could be happy to see. No mirage, no high gas prices, a cool deep pool with no algae and the beers were cold and waiting.

Ruby, in red, scurried to meet us at the gate of the Coral Sands Inn

blogger users: click on the photos to see them BIG!

Route 66 Part Three: Onto the Great Plain

Half way point:
Sunday August 31st, 2008
Texas

On Saturday night, the moment we got into the car at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, the skies opened. It was a deluge, a can’t see out the windows, driving on the crest of the road, black night deluge. The 30 miles to El Reno took us a bit longer. Brian’s iPhone suggested we take the InterState but I reasoned we should take Route 66, even if we couldn’t really see it. (we DID see a bit of neon before we got out of the city!).

Sunday morning, August 31st, dawned bright, blue and promising. We were in El Reno, revered birth place of Ruby Z. Montana, our friend and the woman scheduled to marry us the following Sunday morn. Brian had researched Road Food and learned that El Reno was infamous for something called an Onion Burger and he was determined to find one for breakfast. What my fiancé was realizing was that it was Sunday morning and though the cafes were famous for serving up this griddle fried wonder starting at 6 AM, they would all be closed. Fry cooks need to go to church too. One after another we drove slowly by the burger stops, Robert’s, Johnnie’s, Jobe’s and Sid’s, all were dark. In the quiet of a Sunday morn people were startled awake by the sound of Brian’s dreams shattering.

Spirits lifted a little once we got on the road, (after a sorry stop at a Sonic Drive-In), and we had a glimpse of the Great Plains. Rainfall had left the soil bright red and the grass deep green, and we were back on the two lane pristine portland cement of Route 66. We blared our theme song on the radio and headed for Texola.

The road architecture continued to amaze us. In Texola we found a hundred year old Territorial Jail where ne’er-do-wells were locked up together in the stone building. The door and windows were open to the August heat and the January cold. Miscreants were not coddled back in the day.

A few minutes later we were in Texas. Shamrock held a vintage Conoco and a restored Magnolia service station. In McLean we visited The Devil’s Rope Barbed Wire Museum, where docent Anita Sealy followed us around to make sure we signed the guest book. The place was a hoot, and I was amazed at the collection, the displays AND the Gift Shop.

After McLean we headed to Amarillo where we had Sunday supper at Dyer’s, again guided by Road Food. Another hour of awe inspiring scenic driving on 66 got us to Adrian, YES, Adrian, Texas, the Route 66 midpoint between Chicago and Los Angeles. Again, disappointment for Brian, the famous MidPoint Cafe, home of the Ugly Crust Pie was closed for the day. But there was a big sign and a photo op then we bravely . . . if pielessly, drove on.

We made it to the Texas/New Mexico border by 5:15, crossed a time line and it was 4:15. It wasn’t far to Tucumcari and the vintage Safari Motel right on Route 66, dinner at the Pow Wow Lizard Lounge and the end of our third day on the road.

I felt as if I had left Adrian, MICHIGAN, far far behind.

- - - David

Route 66 Part Two: Through Missouri, Kansas and into Oklahoma

Business along the original Route 66 once boomed, then languished while the super highways expanded.
Some, like Wrinks Market in Lebanon, MO are coming back to life, neon and all.

The decision to get married was almost instantaneous after we heard the California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage on May 15th. The place, also a quick choice, as soon as Ruby Montana announced her impending minister certification, the Coral Sands in Palm Springs was the obvious venue. The date, September 7th, the 12th anniversary of our Domestic Certification in Seattle. Mode of transport: I’d been itching for another cross county trip, an opportunity to show Brian my favorite landscapes and to initiate him as a national park junior ranger. And if we drove, we could take the dogs.

Then that song popped into my head, like the voice of an angel heralding a plan. “If you ever plan to motor west, travel my way, take the highway that's the best. Get your kicks on Route 66”

The planning began, websites, books, maps, motels. Motels still live on Route 66, but finding ones that allowed two Weimaraners wasn’t that easy. Most of the classic restored ones consider themselves too fragile to allow canine. Their loss, ours too. But while we missed out on the Munger Moss and the Blue Swallow, there was plenty else to see.

The Mother Road starts in Chicago and ends in Santa Monica. We had enough time to drive it from St. Louis to Amboy, California. The road isn’t a straight shot. Not only does it wind and turn, sometimes it disappears completely. Parts have been consumed by Interstates and some have been abandoned or lay on private land. But there is enough left to follow for miles and days and plenty of magic remains.

Through Missouri, 66 sticks pretty close to I-44 but the parts that take off into the hills and valleys of the Ozarks are buccolic and the little towns still hold friendly cafes and vintage motels. we stayed and ate in Cuba, Mo our first night and visited a great section the next day that took us to Devils Elbow. At Lebanon we took a spur that revealed Wrinks Market (top photo) and the “exclusionary” Munger Moss Motel. The motel has a gift shop, run by the owners, that is crammed full of 66 curios and souvenirs. We stocked up on postcards and decals.

After Phillipsburg, the road strays away completely from 44 and we got to experience complete solitude. After Springfield it got even better. We brought along a spiral bound book, EZ66, which guided us to a 1920’s section of the road and into the remains of Spencer, MO. We crossed a 1926 steel thru-truss bridge and stopped at an old filling station that someone is restoring, complete with sign, canopy and Ethyl gas pumps.

The old station, bridge and roadway were eerie and beautiful, we now officially had 66 fever and we were still in our first state. West of Joplin we followed a remote stretch and crossed into Kansas where 13 miles of 66 cuts the corner of the state and leads into Oklahoma. Construction and bad directions got us a little lost, but we didn’t care we found our way to the border of Oklahoma.

It was small towns with one-of-a-kind names like Quapaw, Narcissa and Venita that greeted us in Oklahoma. In Vinita we used our Road Food online guide to find Clanton’s, in business for 81 years, and famous for it’s chicken fried steak, which of course I needed to try, and I did.

17 miles east of Tulsa is the town of Catoosa which is famous for a little roadside attraction called the Blue Whale. It was built in the early 70’s by Hugh Davis for his wife Zelta. Zelta loved whales and collected figurines. It is the ultimate collectible. It is the center of a swimming hole that went from family use to a tourist attraction. You can’t swim anymore but it’s easy to have fun. We even met Hugh’s son who still watches over the place and who told us tales while he walked around hunting for litter. He had no problem letting the dogs join us on a tour.


From Catoosa, it was through Tulsa and Route 66 down to Oklahoma City. It was getting dark and threatening rain but we wanted to make a detour to the Oklahoma City National Memorial on the site of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

By the time we found our way there it was dark. We got out of the car to booming thunder and flashes of lighting. We walked through a monolithic gate that marks the time of the explosion and down into the park. We were met by a large reflecting pool that is faced on one side with ghostly glowing chairs. The thunder got louder and it started to gently rain. There are 9 rows of chairs, for the people killed in the explosion and a group of 19 smaller chairs representing the murdered children. It is a beautiful memorial made even more poignant in the flashing thunderous dark of the night. We walked around the pool to the Survivor Tree, an American Elm, that withstood the the attack. The tree is protected now by a wall that encloses it and you like a chapel. We slowly walked up to this symbol of enduring life. By then my tears were mixing with the rain.

- - - David

Route 66 Part One: How It Began

Friday morning, August 29th.
The Element rests in a quiet alley in Adrian, no idea what’s to come.

Three weeks ago today, it all began. Two 60 lb. dogs, their dog food, dog meds and dog beds, dog crate and dog blankets, and some of our stuff were all piled into and on top of the Element and the journey began.

We had plans, my friends, big plans. We needed to get to St. Louis and onto Route 66 where we would follow it as best we could to California. We’d get on a desert road and travel down to Palm Springs, get a license and get legally married. Then we’d get back into the car and do a zig zag tour of a few national parks and the great plains then rejoin Route 66 to follow the part of the Mother Road we missed up to Joliet. Then it would be a quick drive due east back to Adrian, and home. We had our plans, an alligator file folder of maps and we had 16 days.

We’ve crossed the country before. Brian did it twice with Hobie Cat, I’ve done it alone, a few times with friends and twice with Anioł. We never did it together, at least not in the same car.

Our goal this crossing was to take less traveled roads, HWY 52 out of Adrian was the first one. 13 miles led us to Ohio 108 and then to Indianapolis where road construction forced us into the city and to the first of our second goals, Road Food. I admit to my share of McDonald’s on the road but we wanted more. We wanted local food, and we found it at Mug n’ Bun, guided there by the Road Food web site.

A car hop served up pork tenderloin on a bun, excellent battered onion rings and the best glass mugged root beer I’d ever had. And it was all delivered to our car window on a clip on tray. Only hours into our first day, we were blissed. Mug n’ Bun was also handing our free bumper stickers, and that is how another goal was born. We slapped the sticker on the Thule roof box (named ”the coffin”) and resolved to collect place stickers wherever we could.

Fed and fueled we made our way back to the highway. We got a little lost, but were guided back by our iPhones. I learned the value of the the phone, a little pin found us and another one showed us the way. We drove to another detour around St. Louis which we navigated with a map I had emailed to myself from the AAA site, and met up with Route 66.

Route 66 was commissioned in the 1928 and started as a series of connected and signed local roads, many unpaved. It stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles, over the years becoming 4 lanes of portland cement in many states. Parts of it are gone or buried, but enough of it remains to follow. We were gong to do that, staying off the Interstate as much as we could.

We joined Route 66 outside St. Louis and followed it for the next two hours. The Route kept cutting across HWY 44 which had been built along and on it’s original path. It wasn’t easy but we persevered and were rewarded with some great road through the rocky Ozarks. We had reservations at a dog friendly Super 8 in Cuba MO. It was dark when we got there, but not so dark that we couldn’t find a six pack before we checked in. First Day 574 miles, travel time 12 hours.

Why Route 66? There are web sites and fan clubs coast to coast. There are groups in every state it crosses dedicated to preserving what’s left. It is lined with enough original architecture to keep me awake and too many turns to allow you to lull yourself into road hypnosis. There are neon encrusted Motels still operating AND there’s the famous song.

I had loaded two versions of the Bobby Troup song to the iPod. We played it often, we played it loud, the music bouncing off pavement, rocks and abandoned service stations.

“If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, the highway that's the best.
Get your kicks on Route 66!”

The guest books we were encouraged to sign attest that foreigners seem to adore the road even more than americans do. Despite all the attention Route 66 is getting lately, we often found ourselves totally alone on the pavement. This was a very different way to cross the country. There was nothing familiar to this old traveller. This was a dream that came true every day.

- - - David

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- - - David