We ended the night last night in Williams Arizona the self proclaimed Gateway to the Grand Canyon. We stayed at the recently refurbished Grand Canyon Hotel right on main street Williams which is the oldest hotel on Route 66. This hotel to put it bluntly was a fire trap and a dump before Amy and Oscar got ahold of it 7 years ago. They now have it completely refurbished with as much of the original details from before and even have remodeled the old stable into an amazing pair of suite type rooms. We stayed in one of those rooms as it had a king bed and a futon plus a bathroom large enough to park the convertible in. So no large cockroaches to wrestle last night so we settled in and wandered into the town of Williams which is essentially a 3 block long area of shops, bars and restauarants. We had a blast as we bounced from place to place and ended up sitting outside listening to an entertaining guitar player and getting the crowd to sing along. Here are some photos from Williams...a town that I will definitely have to return to some day.
That's Dennis and Scott with the mayor of Williams. I asked him if Williams had always been this vibrant and exciting because well you know, it's not like the Grand Canyon just showed up a few years ago. The town was filled to the brim with folks from all over the world and it was only Wednesday. There was a 20 minute wait at the restaurant we chose and every other place was packed. We saw people from Germany, Italy, Japan, France and I'm sure a number of other countries and quite honestly I had never heard of this town. Well the mayor at first told us with a twinkle in his eye and a wry smile that it was all due to outstanding leadership. A little self promotion I guess..actually he said the change only started maybe 10 years ago and has finally taken off with the help of people like Amy and Oscar at the Grand Canyon Hotel who were willing to invest in the community. He also went right down the list of other places we needed to visit including his son's diner down the street..naturally. It would have been great to spend more time talking to him but he was busy dragging people in off the street to his bar and restauarant after the gunfight(yep they have one twice a day). You could tell he was quite the character....and speaking of characters..
You know the second guy long rumored to be dead. Apparently he just moved to Route 66 and nobody has paid attention yet. Funny story..as this version of The King came into the diner, he went straight to the bathroom. As soon as the door to the bathroom closed someone in our party yelled..Oh my god don't die!!!!! Those of you old enough know what that means. Won't say who said it but it wasn't Scott or Dennis...I believe at least two other tables in the diner got it. Fortunately, The King returned and took his seat at the counter for a root beer shake or something. Apparently this Elvis is the Early years thin Elvis. The Eagles and Elvis...Arizona truly Rocks!!!!
The first guy is Angel Delgadillo who with his brother Juan(now deceased) established Seligman Arizona as an absolute must stop for Route 66 travelers. When we arrived there were no less than 3 tour buses there and Angel was indeed giving a hair cut to a German fellow who couldn't understand a word Angel said and vice versa....lucky Angel didn't get confused and give him a perm or something. Juan ran the drive in that has a ton of great memoralbilia. Here is one of my favorites....
It says Car Wash- Best Hand Job in Town----Yes it's a legit and yes that is a replica of Mater from the Cars Movie which is based on Route 66 in the background.
The majority of today was spent on the old original Route 66 in Western Arizona and Eastern Arizona...here are the numbers I listed above....
367---total miles travelled
317---miles you would have travelled if you went interstate
28---the total miles we actually spent on the Interstate of the 367
118---the high temp hit around 3 pm in Needles California
130---the number of residents living in Oatman, Arizona
250---the number of wild burros living around but mostly in Oatman, Ariz.
This was the most rural portion of the Route and in addition to Seligman, AZ mentioned about we went thru Oatman, AZ. Here are the photos that explain the numbers above...
These burros run the town..and of course, bring in the tourists. Pretty cool except for the little pile of surprises they leave all over plus I was a bit worried that the FiberOne bars we had in the back of the car would lead a donkey/burro attack on the convertible--top up or not. We were able to hold them off and find time to get a cold beer before departing.
Regarding the top of the convertible..we held on as long as we could but 118 is flippin hot and oh by the way THIS IS THE MOJAVE DESERT. People died there. We survived 105 with the top down in New Mexico but had to give in for most the afternoon today and put the top up to run the air.
Here are some photos of the scenery from the day and you can understand why we hid under the lid..
That is water in the photo..it's the Colorado river and apparently that has no impact on temp since it was 118 right there too.
When you travel this stretch of The Route you really begin to appreciate the effort given or question the sanity of those that followed this road west. Of course, that could likely be said about three 50 year old guys with seemingly better things to do..work, kids, wives etc. etc...Sometimes there is no reason for going West..there is just the need or desire to do so.
I can't believe we are one day from the end of the road(this road anyway). I leave you with a cool photo we took today along with my conclusion from this trip that life really isn't about the destination but it truly is the journey. Oh wait..one other thing...we did disprove an age old adage used time and time again. The adage is
IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME. Well, that might work with Field of Dreams but not on the Route, Otherwise we wouldn't have witnessed this built along a long dead tourist stop on the Route.
Easter Island just can't compete with the Eagles and Elvis. More tomorrow on our journey thru California and our final day with the three of us all together.
TJ
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