It's simple

"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."

- Psalm 121:1-2

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The Best And The Worst Of Days

We saw Los Angeles on a sign for the first time today! We have 500 miles left to go until we reach Los Angeles. We thought we would split it up into to days of around 250 miles each. But when we did the math - there is NOTHING out there until you reach Barstow. In my mind I was thinking "Bishop" a lovely town just before you get to Mammoth. I have never been to Barstow but somehow I am pretty sure it is not Bishop. It feels strange to now enter areas that I am familiar with - Lake Havasu, Needles, Blythe - places I have traveled before but never on back roads. I was excited to see what was out there off the highway but concerned now that I know some of these areas and for the first time am feeling a little anxious for my safety. It has always been a concern to me if we get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere but now even more so.

We left Sedona and went to the Deer Park in Williams just outside of Flagstaff. We came here years ago when Griffin was around 2 on the way to the Grand Canyon. We had great memories of the deer and so we went back. Lesson number one: Some places are meant for young kids. Lesson number two: It is not a good idea to try to repeat a great memory. 

I did however really enjoy this fellow.

We left the Deer Park pretty disappointed and ready to get on the road and try to tackle the long drive. But just as we came around the corner to the Route, we saw a sign for Bearizona. You know we are suckers for animals. We tried to resist and we couldn't.  It was kind of like the Wild Animal Park we had gone to earlier in the trip but this time the animals were dangerous. You could not open your windows. If your car stalled, you had to put on your flashers, honk your horn and call the emergency numbers on the card they gave you. We just wanted to see the bears. But it was pretty cool to see a wolf up close. 

We drove through as fast as we could so we could see the bears and get back on the road. It was pretty uneventful... bears sleep in the day. Okay enough nonsense ... back on the road!

The drive was pretty uneventful until we got to Seligman, Arizona where the Delgadillo's Snow Cap Drive-in is. It is a ridiculous place filled with so much fun and nonsense and it was perfect timing for us.

Griffin declared we had to get a root beer float. Since we hadn't eaten since our left over dinner from last night for breakfast (yes, we did!) we added a hot dog and fries. Our bodies are not the same from eating all this junk but somehow we cannot help ourselves. The hotdog was the kind that my mom used to make where you "fry" the outside in a pan with butter. Wow.

We kept the little smiley face potato on our dash along with the flowers we got way back in Oklahoma from the Veterans on Memorial Day. They are cheering us on ... we are getting so close to home!

After Seligman there were a few little towns like we were used to - rundown and abandoned mostly ... I am still snapping photos of the motel signs when I can.

But mostly we are just driving through nowhere. A lot of desert.

We are listening to the end of the book, "The Life of Pi" and out of the 100 chapters we have about 30 to go. It is incredibly detailed and at times painful to listen to. It seems appropriate. The desert just goes on and on and on. The drive is painful too.

Occasionally we will pass a car on the road or I will see something that sparks my interest. A lot of the time I am exclaiming, "Where the heck are we?"  Off in the distance Griffin notices a road that is going up into the "mountains". We laugh about driving up it. There is no way, I say, that the old route would go up that incline. But I am wrong. We do. We drive forever up and up and around and around and around, switchback after switchback. I am incredulous that people would have to do this in the cars they had back then. I read later in the book we are using as a guide that it was a very hard climb for cars and drivers back then. There were wreckers in the area solely to haul the motorists over the crest. And some  cars would make the trek in reverse. Really. For two reasons - one, reverse is a substantially lower gear than first gear, and two, moving in reverse could overcome the shortcomings of early gravity-fed fuel delivery systems. (I copied that out of our book, "Route 66 Adventure Handbook by Drew Knowles, page 361). I have made the drive from Lake Havasu to Long Beach so many times I cannot even count and all I can think about is why did they not use the flat road?

We have no idea where we are. We have no cell reception and I am not even sure if we are still in Arizona or have crossed the border into California. And then we come around a corner and see a burro standing in the road.

At first I thought it was just one burro. And then I saw them ... there were many. Just roaming around. 

It was the funniest thing I have ever seen! And in the middle of nowhere popped up this little town of Oatman (Arizona). It is an old mining town from the 30's and Route 66 is the only road that goes through it. For a while it was a ghost town but today it is a tourist town. I got out of my car and asked a woman who was selling kettle corn what was up with the burros. She told me it was their town - they were there first. The people came after and they look after them now. 

The Oatman Hotel is where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard came for their honeymoon in 1939!

After Oatman we felt revived again. We continued driving and somewhere along the way we crossed over into California. It was pretty uneventful - no big signs on this little road.

We drove well into the evening. We needed to make it to Barstow and we still had over 100 miles to go. It is about a two hour drive on the highway and we were averaging about 2 & 1/2 - 3 times longer than highway driving. I stopped taking photos around 6 PM when I realized I needed to DRIVE as fast as I could to get to Barstow by dark. I did not want to be on an isolated road in the dark. I don't think I have ever been as anxious as I have this whole trip as I was on that road. Often we would be on a road that paralleled the main highway but this last stretch before Barstow we were for some reason pulled way out into the desert away from the main road. We had estimated the "detour" to be around 60 miles and I figured I could do that in an hour an a half. I was counting on that as the sun would go down just about that time. I watched my milage and the clock religiously and hoped Griffin's estimate was correct. it was! We pulled onto the main highway just as the last bit of sun went down and we rolled into Barstow around 8:30. We stopped for food at the only non-chain place that was open (we actually combed the city for everything and all they had was fast food). We ordered our food (salads!) and two cups of ice water which were given to us without lids. Somewhere on the way to our hotel my iPhone slipped into one of the cups. 

GAH!

The only market was all the way across town said the convenience store employee where we had stopped in to see if they sold rice (the antidote to fix a wet phone). But then we spotted a Panda Express and went in to see if they would sell us un-cooked rice. They did! My phone is sleeping in a nice little nest of rice tonight and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be okay. Each night we tell each other our best and worst of each day. Today I think was my best (the burros!) and my worst (the scary drive and my phone drowning) of the entire trip. I think we drove over 400 miles today. Tomorrow we will be home!!! 

Standing On A Corner In Winslow, Arizona ...

We left New Mexico today and crossed over the line into Arizona. The drive is getting less and less scenic with long stretches of desert and the usual small towns of decaying buildings. It is not like it was in the mid-west where the old towns have been preserved.

We drove down this road for what seemed like forever - I was worried that our car was too low for all the holes and trenches ... only to find this at the end:

We are using a combination of a book on the Route, maps and extensive research that Griffin did on the roads ... this was not supposed to happen! But coming around the corner a bit later made it all okay ...

I will never get tired of seeing livestock roaming the streets!

I wanted to stay in this motel so bad when we first started planning this trip ... I am so glad that we didn't however. It is the cutest place ever but, no. I do not think this is for me. What we have noticed is that often the areas that the old motels are in are no longer the most desirable. Especially in the larger cities where the old Route tends to be in the seedier parts of town.

We drove through the petrified desert and saw the painted desert and we also took the drive out to see the meteor crater.

This prolonged our drive and we are tired of being in the car but not to tired to drive the extra miles to take a side trip to Sedona. We found some amusing things on the way ...

Remember the Eagles song, "Take it Easy"?
"Well, I'm a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see..."

original road remnant

The drive to Sedona was long but such a welcome change of scenery!

We arrived around 4:30 and checked in to our hotel - the Portal Inn. It is a fabulous place to stay and the owner, Dennis took time showing us the grounds, our room and sharing the history of the hotel.

We didn't have much time to spend in this amazing place so we tried to cram in as much as we could. We took a private jeep tour up the rugged roads to get a bird's eye view of the area. Our driver drove fast and talked faster. The dirt road was filled with a lot of uneven rock (boulders?) and we bounced and swerved a lot. It was definitely a wild ride!

It was fantastic. It was an hour and a half tour and it was timed for us to be at the top at sunset. And we were.

Sedona is beautiful and relaxed.
We are staying in a charming inn that was built by the innkeeper himself. He did an exquisite job staying true to the Craftsman Style - leaving no detail unturned. The walls are all thick adobe to keep the heat out in the summer and the furniture is all collected antiques. The proprietors previously lived in Pasadena and most of the furnishings were found there, either in antique stores or at the Rose Bowl Flea Market.

He told me he hand made all of the doors ...

They light a fire each evening and serve wine and appetizers ... and our room ...

Was just what we needed after spending so many nights in cramped rooms!

You can be certain this was one of my favorite things about the room!

We ended our night with a long uphill walk to a restaurant in town. We started with appetizers of rattlesnake with prickly pear sauce, bison, and cactus fries. 

They served us a complementary amuse-bouche of grilled pork, and then brought us a palate cleanser of tequila sorbet. By the time our dinner arrived we were so full we could not eat it. Thankfully we have a refrigerator in our room.  I am thinking it will make a wonderful breakfast!