Day 33 -- May 3, 2003 -- Saturday

36,326 on the odometer as we left Sedona with Gallup, New Mexico as our final destination. Today would be a Route 66 day. There were 49 Route 66 exits marked on our map between Flagstaff and Gallup.

Tom and Lane commented on my beads as I checked out of the Sedona Real. I've told the story of the Floating Neutrinos (Day 18) so many times now that Bozzie Jane and I discussed the possibility of making up a new story now every time someone asks.

As we gassed up, a bearded man approached the car asking for money. He was very happy to have his photograph taken. His name was Bear, and he lives in the woods. Seriously.

We again enjoyed the beautiful one-hour drive from Sedona to Flagstaff.

There were a few sights we missed in Flagstaff (Route 66 Motel, Wigwam Curios, and the Museum Club -- where the owner's collection of stuffed animals is mounted in tree branches above the dance floor), but we didn't warm to Flagstaff, so we just drove on.

"Don't forget Winona" is one of the lyrics in the famous song "Route 66" written by Bobby Troup in 1946, so we were excited to see it. Unfortunately, it appeared that just about everyone had forgotten Winona. Everyone except the Route 66 sign thieves, as there were neither Route 66 signs nor Winona city limits signs. We didn't even see a business, but we did backtrack to get a photo of a sign with an arrow pointing toward Winona. Someone should put a memorial of some type there -- at least a Route 66 sign of some type.

The Twin Arrows Trading Post in Twin Arrows is one of the special landmarks along Route 66. Sadly, it had closed, and the place was in pretty bad shape. I got several photos of the huge wooden carvings of the twin arrows. I had to jump big cement barricades to get to it. The Twin Arrows were made from two telephone poles planted at an angle to form a shaft, and some trim pieces were added to replicate the arrowhead and feathered tail sections. The result was a huge, unusual monument that really caught the eye. From what I could tell, the property must be owned by the state of Arizona.

In this stretch of Route 66, Interstate 40 is the route, and we had to take the various exits to see little pieces of the original road and various sights in the little towns and whistlestops.

Down the road a dozen miles, and we pulled off the Interstate to Two Guns, Arizona. Like Twin Arrows, Two Guns was the site of a gas station and trading post. Nothing remains except some stone wall ruins and an old Two Guns sign where someone has written "Not" above the old "Welcome" sign. We caught a glimpse of Diablo Canyon, but I decided the little white car did not need to venture down the rocky road.

The terrain in this part of Arizona is just flat desert with low shrubs.

The next landmark on our Arizona Route 66 map was Exit 233 -- Meteor Crater. We hadn't read much about it, so our expectations were low -- especially since it was six miles or so off a section of Route 66 that is already in the middle of nowhere. Were we ever in for a surprise!

50,000 years ago, a huge meteorite struck the ground here -- the first of only two documented cases of a meteorite striking this planet. The crater is 550 feet deep and 2.4 miles in circumference. To put this in perspective, the crater could hold 20 football fields. The Visitors' Center, Museum of Astrogeology, and Astronaut's Hall of Fame are housed in a big beautiful brick facility that we certainly didn't expect, and the museum was very professional -- certainly as fine as anything we had seen. The owners have big fences with concertina barbed wire to keep people from sneaking a free peek; the $12 per person entrance charge seemed steep, but after all, no one else has what they have. Wind gusts were being clocked at up to 72 miles-per-hour, so we didn't stick around outside after we saw a good-sized man lifted off his feet near the rim.

Meteor City is about 12 miles away. The Meteor City Trading Post has two world's largests -- the world's largest Route 66 map (painted on the fence) and the world's largest dreamcatcher (a net that would appear to catch tumbleweeds and litter that blow in its direction as well as all dreams lost in the wind).

I did a poor job of spotting the remains of old Route 66 drive-ins. I missed what was left of the Tonto Drive-In on the western outskirts of Winslow. We may have been distracted by a billboard promoting "Standin' on the Corner in Winslow, Arizona." This is a famous lyric from one of the Eagles biggest hits, "Take It Easy." The song was written by Glenn Frey and Jackson Browne, and we were told rumor has it that Glenn Frey might have begun writing the song after being released from jail in Winslow. The song goes: "Well I'm standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona with such a fine sight to see. It's a girl, my Lord, in a flat-bed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me."

We had read that Don Henley (who was the lead singer on "Take It Easy") gave some money to an effort to build a monument to the song on the street corner. We were very pleasantly surprised when we found a beautiful monument and park on the main corner of Route 66 in downtown Winslow. We parked the car and took a number of photos of "the corner." Then we walked around town.

We were very fortunate to meet John and Karen, owners of Dominique's Hallmark/gift shop/Route 66 shop/flower shop right across from the corner. Many years ago, John was a delivery driver for the Thrifty Food Company, and he traveled all across Arizona on Route 66, so he had great stories to tell about Route 66 during its glory days. John and Karen bought their corner building in 2002 and completely refurbished it. They now get a lot of tourist business; they didn't get any in their previous location.

At John's recommendation, we walked down to the La Posada Hotel for lunch. The La Posada is a beautiful Harvey Hotel designed by Mary Colter (famous Southwestern architect who designed the buildings at the Grand Canyon among others) and built in 1930. The hotel was one of a number of luxury hotels adjacent to train depots that the Fred Harvey Company built in partnership with the Atlantic and Pacific and Santa Fe railroads. The post-World War II decline in rail travel led to the closure of the hotel in 1957. The property was purchased in 1997 by Allan Affeldt, who along with his wife Tina Mion, and Daniel Lutzick, managed to get $10 million in grants to restore the place from the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund and the Arizona Department of Transportation Enhancement Grant program. We further understand they just obtained another $1 million in grants for landscaping. Can you imagine getting $11 million in grants to fix up your business? We must be doing something wrong.

The La Posada is very impressive, and we had a delightful lunch. This would definitely be a great place to stay! John on the corner told us that the restoration of the La Posada had a tremendous impact on the revitalization of Winslow.

While the hotel was something to see, we probably got a bigger kick out of observing local high schoolers decorating the hotel with balloons for their prom that night. Somehow we doubted that stretch limos and motel rooms are part of the program for high schoolers in Winslow.

As we drove out of Winslow, I stopped at a patriotic display and was pleasantly surprised to find Remembrance Garden was built around two beams from the World Trade Center.

We really liked Winslow -- one of our favorite Route 66 towns!

The Jackrabbit Trading post was built in 1947 by two Joseph City, Arizona businessmen, Robbie Robinson and James Taylor. They devised a billboard campaign that made the "Jackrabbit" famous. Bright yellow billboards with a silhouette of a jackrabbit were all that was needed to promote the Jackrabbit Trading Post. There is a big fiberglass jackrabbit out front, and Boz was gracious enough to climb on for a photo. We met Tony Jaquez, the owner since 1991. The lights weren't on when we arrived at about 1:30, so we fear that business may not be that good. Bozzie bought some moccasins for granddaughter Madison.

The Jackrabbit is on the outskirts of Joseph City. Not much else to see there, but we took a nice photo of a patriotic sign put up by the two local Cub Scout troops.

Holbrook is a decent-sized town. There are a number of old motels there including one of the best-known Route 66 landmarks, Wigwam Village. This is a beautifully restored old motel featuring concrete teepees originally built in 1950 by Chester E. Lewis. We loved Wigwam Village.

Heading east just outside Holbrook, we saw giant dinosaurs next to the highway. We pulled off to find the "International Petrified Forest, Dinosaur Park, and Museum of the Americas." Sounds BIG and IMPORTANT. We drove up to a ticket booth where Tomacita took our $10 bill. It was to be a two-and-a-half-mile drive through the Dinosaur Park. Tomacita looked a little sick and mumbled incoherently when I asked her if it was really exciting to see. It wasn't. I believe we saw a total of six concrete dinosaurs in the 2 1/2 miles; there were bigger and better-looking dinosaurs for free along the highway. There was some petrified wood in the desert on the drive, and there were some Indian artifacts in the Museum of the Americas, but this was not a noteworthy stop. Neither quirky nor cool. I imagine they were having a tough time of it; there were 21 flagpoles standing proudly out front, but only two sad-looking flags remained. The rest room was extremely nice and clean.

The REAL Petrified Forest National Park WAS just a few miles down the road. We enjoyed the views of the colorful Painted Desert and Petrified Forest along the 27-mile scenic drive. We met a number of nice people, including Marcus and Ranger Rachel. Ranger Rachel told us we should have bought a 13-month pass good for all National Parks for $50; I added that to my list of things one should do before heading off on a trip to all 50 states.

In the parking lot, we met John and Corinne; they had been on their own trip across America for over two months and were just heading home. Inside the park, we met Gary and Janice as well as Ian, Matthew, Bruce, and Celia.

Several exits produced little or nothing as we headed east. I felt cheated when we stopped to see "Indian Ruins" after we saw many signs promoting it. It was nothing but a modern gas station and Indian-themed gift shop. I didn't spend any money there.

We detoured off Route 66 to head north to Window Rock, Arizona to see the famous window rock. The sun set on the way there, so we didn't get the best view of Window Rock, but we did manage a photo or two. It turns out the city of Window Rock is the capital of the Navajo Nation, and we saw the various offices of the tribal headquarters.

We crossed into New Mexico at about 7:30 pm, and the time changed, so it was 8:30. We galloped into Gallup, New Mexico about 20 minutes later. Gallup is known for a number of great old motel neon signs, and we cruised down Route 66 and snapped several photos. It wasn't until the next day that we realized we missed the biggest and best part of the motels on the east end of town.

We had a nice meal at the Ranch Kitchen. They'd served 7 million customers in 49 years. It was started by Earl and Beverly Vance. Sharon was our waitress. I had barbeque brisket and chicken, and the combo was very good. We checked into the Holiday Inn. The lobby was spectacular, but the rooms were poor, though Barbara noted they were about to remodel. We had been disappointed with only two motels -- the only two Holiday Inns we have stayed at.

We saw 15 trains today. That meant 15 ice cream cones for Bozzie Jane. I hoped Papa would do the buying. We'd like to know why trains don't have cabooses anymore.

While it wasn't one of our favorite days, it was certainly a diverse and interesting one. It was sad to see so many ruins of what were significant spots on Route 66.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we've seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of "vital statistics" on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you'd like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.

Moon over Gallup, New Mexico.

Click here for Page 1 of photos from Day 33 -- May 3, 2002

Click here for Page 2 of photos from Day 33 -- May 3, 2002

Click here for Page 3 of the photos from Day 33 -- May 3, 2003