Route 66 - Day 11 - Tucumcari, NM to Conway, AK

We ate at Kix on 66, which is a diner in Tucumcari. I had the huevos rancheros, which were muy bien! (Lorena Ludeña, que estaría orgulloso de mí: he usado mi amplio conocimiento del español para decir 'gracias' un par de veces en el viaje).

Nik forwarded a list of 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' for us to potentially check out from here to Memphis. Thanks, Nik!

While driving through Texas, past Wildorado, there were a few tumbleweeds rolling across the highway. Cool!

What was NOT cool was the cattle ranch after Wildorado . I opened the window to take a pic of all the cows, but should've thought of both the winds and the impact of 10,000 head of cattle in a small area. Smell-ee!

Another cop scare: we were going slightly above the speed limit, but not a crazy amount, when all of a sudden, a Texas State Trooper pulled out of nowhere, and drove up so close and so fast behind us, we both thought he was going to ram us. Then he passed us, drove about 10 ahead of us in the next lane, and craned his head around to look at us. Then he sped up, and kept tapping his brakes. Finally, he slowed down, drove over the grass median, and U-turned onto the westbound highway.

Iv's been a bit worried at different points due to his tinted windows. They're a 20% tint (i.e. they let 20% of the sunlight in). In Canada, they're legal, but in some states, apparently, 35% tints are the minimum you can have on the front windows. We're not sure how the law applies to out of country cars, but it's a consideration that we could get stopped for pimped-out glass...

We stopped at Conway, Texas, to see Bug Ranch, which is a take-off of Cadillac Ranch. It's even more roughed up than Cadillac Ranch was! Oh, well; still photo ops.

We passed by Groom again.









Groom's Giant Cross - redux (recrux?)

Onto Oklahoma! We stopped in Erick to look for a picture of the 100th meridian (everything west used to be the "Great American Desert"), but all we could find was the 100th Meridian Museum and a quiet town. The Roger Miller Museum there was also closed, so we kept driving to Clinton.

Clinton has a few things in it: a Route 66 museum, Jiggs Smoke House (they make jerky there), and the Tradewinds Inn (Elvis stayed there four times). We decided to check out the Route 66 museum.

Definitely worth checking out! Very well maintained, compared to some of the other museums we've seen on the way (the McDonald's museum in San Berdoo, for example, was mostly of the 'get some memorabilia and slap it into a cabinet without organizing it' variety). A lot of good picture moments.

I bought some stamps (finally) to send postcards that I bought over a week ago, and am writing those up now. They'll probably get back after I do, but it's the thought that counts, right?

We hit Leo's BBQ (a triple D featured place) in OKC. SO GOOD! I ordered the Leo's Light, which is obviously ironic, since it consisted of at least a pound of ribs, brisket, baloney, and a hot link, with baked beans and potato salad.

When we walked in, too, the place smelled smoky, like there was a fire burning. Once we looked past the cash, we realized why. There was a fire burning (note in the close-up of pic on right the fire behind the waitress)! Apparently, they smoke all their meat on site. Dinner was great: the hot link was the best sausagey meat I've ever had, and the same went for the baked beans. Their BBQ sauce (which came in the squeeze bottles) was a sweeter variety, and they had both mild and hot versions. I probably ate twice as much as Ivan (I ate my meal, and also polished off half of his baked potato), but this is why he looks like he does, and I look like I do. I can exercise when I get home...

So on to Memphis. Iv's determined to get there tonight, which equals 1 300 km of driving today. Ouch.

After passing Fort Smith around 8:30, a giant glowing cross appeared on a mountain in front of us. We debated whether it was guiding us, or trying to trick us into driving into the mountain. We're still undecided, because it disappeared after we turned a corner.

Maybe the cross was guiding us, because we got pulled over AGAIN for the second time during the trip (this time by an Arkansas State trooper; he was very friendly, too), and got off AGAIN for the second time. Third time's a charm (or maybe fourth time, if you count the cop from this morning)?

He came over to my window and asked for Ivan's license, registration, & for him to step outside. Then he came back, and started talking to me, but I ended up asking him more questions than he asked me (had he ever been to Canada? No. Did he know where Ontario was? Just north of New York State. Had he heard of Nova Scotia? Yes; it's out on the eastern seaboard. And so on), so I think he let us go just to shut me up.

The last part of the conversation confirmed this to me:

Jeff: blah blah Route 66 blah blah Canada blah great trip blah blah...
State Trooper (smiling): excuse me for a minute.
Jeff (ready to ask for Arkansas travel tips when he gets back): okay!

Ivan gets back in the car. The cop's car lights go on and he takes off.

Jeff (slightly hurt): He just took off?
Ivan: Yeah. He let me go, jumped in his car, and drove away.
Jeff: Oh.

Since this happened at 9:30, we decided to stop travelling just outside of Little Rock, crash at a Motel 6, and drive to Memphis in the morning (still four states in one day). Good night, all!

P.S. Watch for rattlesnakes.

Route 66 - Day 10 - Flagstaff, AZ to Tucumcari, NM

Good morning! For whatever reason, I feel better today, and I think Ivan does, too.

For no particular reason, I will write the rest of this blog in poem form.

For breakfast, We both had a cold slice of 'za
And took off for Meteor Crater National Monument, Arizona
(I personally dislike when people rhyme syllables that are identical,
As I just did that, I will be confined to a special level of Hell).

The crater was huge, but at 10:24
We realized we missed the 10:15 guided tour.
So we saw some exhibits and a big hunk of meteorite,
And took off for Winslow again (our timeline's not so tight

Since we're backtracking again on Route 66
To get to Memphis for an Elvis fix).
In Winslow, we stopped at La Posada Hotel
Which Ivan thought was particularly swell.

It's an old railroad hotel with some mesa views;
Lindbergh stayed there; also Einstein and Howard Hughes
(Two random facts: my favourite 'Happy Days' character was Potsie's,
And Charles Lindbergh sympathized with the Nazis).

Stewart's Trading Post was going to be a photo op
For cheesy plastic dinosaurs, but we missed the stop,
So on the I-40, we continue to drive
At 120 km/hr (in miles, that's 75).

We're stopping at Earl's for some diner fare,
But we think we've already eaten at an Earl's, but we don't know where.
Earl's was closed, so we sloughed it
To the Route 66 Casino for a tasty buffet.

I dropped twenty bucks on the roulette table,
And walked away with ten, so I felt pretty stable
Until I walked by the dollar slots
And the ten I won soon turned into the ten I lots.

Now we're on our way to Tucumcari,
Which at 2 1/2 hours, is pretty fari
The Blue Swallow Motel is where we'll stay
Bring on the jokes (e.g. our road trip is gay).

We ended up at a motel called the Buckaroo
(You can probably make jokes about that name, too).
So goodnight: I will likely sleep like a log;
I'm sorry I don't have more pictures today to post for this blog.

Route 66 - Day Nine - El Centro to Flagstaff (again)

Like Bob Seger, I too woke last night to the sound of thunder. A LOT of thunder! I've never heard that much thunder that close to me in my life. And it continued in the morning. The rain had briefly stopped in the morning, but came back with a vengeance when we were ready to leave. The town was flooded! Check out the vid of the road out of town:



Driving out of California, we stopped in Yuma, which, like Flagstaff, was more of a cool name than a place you'd actually want to stop in.

On to Fecility, California: the Centre of the World. At least, according to a guy who built a pyramid there and somehow got France and China to recognize it as such:



And a run-in with border patrol:



Exit 111: it was bound to happen - Ivan got pulled over by Arizona Highway Patrol. There were a few funny things about it:

Cop: How fast do you think you were going?
Ivan: I dunno, about 120?
Cop: ONE TWENTY?!
Jeff (to self): Convert to miles! Convert to miles!

What was funnier was the officer's last name:



The good news is that Ivan got off with a warning (I totally called it. The cop was ballbusting a bit, but was a young guy, and seemed nice). Once he issued the citation, I asked if I could take a picture of his nametag, since our boss has the same(ish) name.

He agreed, and then got a little chatty with us. His great-grandfather was from Maine, and moved down here.

Stopped at Carl, Jr's north of Tucson for lunch. Good burgers! I don't think this breaks the 'no fast food' rule, since it's a West Coast chain, and therefore exotic (I could be stretching it, but it makes sense to me).

We were about to head to Tombstone, when Nik texted, and said not to take the I-10 east of Tucson due to murders, carjackings, and general badassery. Apparently the Canadian government issued a travel advisory, and said avoid all non-essential travel from Tuscon to El Paso/Juarez.

I'm generally a risk-taker, and despite the warning, I was fine travelling that way. Ivan was not. I didn't blame him: after all, it's his car, and for me to talk him into going and something to happen to us or his car would not bode well.

So we headed north to Phoenix, and then to Flagstaff (note I wrote the earlier part of today's blog while on the road, unaware we'd end up in Flagstaff ever again. Ah, hubris!)

We're staying at the Arizonan Motel, which is run by a guy who used to live in Scarborough. Decent place, with renovations going on. And internet (whew). I believe with this post, I'm caught up to present! Hoorary!

Since we got in early, we ordered in from the New Jersey Pizza Company in Flagstaff. EXCELLENT pizza! So all was not lost by staying here. This 'za is comparable to a big city, professional pizza joint, and I'd honestly say one of the best pies I've ever had. We ordered mushroom, bacon, and pepperoni, and they threw on fresh herbs and very fresh tomato sauce. I just had a cold piece for breakfast, and it was still great!

Route 66 - Day Eight - Santa Monica to El Centro, CA

Our bad karma from the day before was momentarily stayed by a trip to Snug Harbor, a local diner, for breakfast. Friendly service and great food! They make a mean omelette (I had one with jack cheese and turkey chili. YUM!).

When we were done paying, Ivan & I realized we both were left with $1 to each of our names.

I stopped in at the Whole Foods Market next door to try to find Nik some hickory smoked salt, which I'd been looking for since Texas. No such luck.

We headed to the end of Route 66: Santa Monica and Ocean Blvds, and found both the marker and the (other) 'Route 66 ends' sign. Even though we were both crabby, we shook hands and got a pic. Hooray! Thus endeth the trip out.

Now, the trip back. More bad karma: Ivan found a parking ticket on the car when we walked back.

We headed to Sunset Blvd to drive and see some homes. Then we got on to Mulholland for a bit towards the Pacific, and saw more nice homes. We had lunch at a nice (albeit expensive) sushi resto on the Sunset Strip. We kept driving, caught a glimpse of the Hollywood sign, and headed out of town towards Yuma.

(note that the above narrative does not include the 90 minutes plus of bad navigation on my part, or the fact that Iv still wasn't feeling well due to the bad food at the Beaver St. Brewery back in Flagstaff. I'll stick to the positives)

Once we got out of town, the destination was San Bernardino for the unofficial McDonald's museum, located on the site of the original McDonald's. Great museum, albeit a big disorganized. It has a lot of old McDonald's toys, memorabilia, etc. that you may or may not remember from your youth. Here's a vid I shot in there:



We aimed for Yuma, but settled in El Centro: a hub town for SE California, with a lot of franchise restaurants. This was the first time for a while we got into a town early enough to feel like we had an advantage in finding a motel, especially since there were so many here, and most of them had a lot of vacancies. The Superstar Motel was the choice, mainly because we were superstars. And also because it was $45 and clean.

But no internet. Blargh!

Route 66 - Day Seven - Sedona, AZ to Santa Monica, CA!

Sedona - a town your mom would love. You drive down through Owl Creek Canyon, and hit a touristy town full of New Age stores, spas, and B&B's. Hotels & motels are more expensive here, too. The drive through the canyon is worth it, but unless you're 50+, you probably won't want to stop here. Hence, I have no pics.

Williams, on the other hand, is a definite stop on the Route 66 trail. A lot of older stores, diners, cafes are more preserved and photogenic. Some are a bit kitschy, but hey! That's Route 66!

Seligman (pronounced 'Slig-man') is a mix of the two: a lot of tour buses stopped there, so we had to manoeuvre around people for only the second time on the trip (the first being at the Grand Canyon). But the town is very unpolished, and the shops are fantastically tacky!

I went into the malt shop, which was worth the drive alone. From the 'Sorry, we're open' sign, to menu items like 'Sundaes - male or female', it promised to be a good place to order something. A young British couple were in there just after me, who were doing a four day trip south from Vegas.

The whole process was like a Marx brothers movie, with Groucho behind the counter.

Jeff: Is it too early to order a malt? (note: it was 10:30 a.m.)
Groucho: It's never too early to order a malt!
Jeff: one peanut butter malt, please.
Groucho: Is it too early for this? (He pulls out a mustard bottle and squirts it at me; the British couple screams. I'm a bit startled, until I realize it's a yellow string that shot out at me)

The couple and I laugh. I pull out a $20 bill to pay for the malt.

Groucho: That'll be $20.
Jeff: What a coincidence! I have a twenty right here.

Groucho takes my twenty, and gives the change to the British couple. He hands me my malt.

Groucho: You want a straw?
Jeff: Yes, please.
Groucho: Here you go.

He hands me a bundle of straw from underneath the counter.

How could you not like a place like that? I only wish we stayed longer.

Oatman: I think this was the start of Ivan's bad mood. We had a really nice drive into it through the Black Mountains. Sure, it was touristy, but it was also cool in a quirky way. There were wild burros wandering the street. I loved it (although once they learned that I didn't have anything to feed them, they didn't have much use for me).

Ivan, on the other hand, liked the idea of it until he realized he'd have to step around piles of burro poop. NOT impressed. I believe there were very few burros in Stoney Creek to prepare him for this.

We ate at the Oatman Motel. It's definitely a odd place: the walls are lined with dollar bills (70 000 of them, according to our waitress), all signed by customers who staple them up. Clark Gable & Carole Lombard stayed here for their honeymoon night in 1939 (presumably before the walls were cluttered up with dollar bills. Here's a vid:



Our waitresses were really friendly. I asked one if there were any wall bills signed by famous people (I did see one signed by 'Justin Bieber', but I'm doubting it was his). She showed me one above the bar, signed by 'Ronald Reagan', but she had heard two stories about it:

• one was that Ronald Reagan signed it when he stopped by in the late 70s/early 80s
• the other was that two guys signed it: one named 'Ronald', and the other named 'Reagan'

We ordered food: mine was a pulled pork sandwich, which was okay, & Ivan ordered a burger & fries, which he did not like one bit. Once we were done, we graffiti'd up some Washingtons and stapled them to the wall (if you ever go there, mine's on the wall in the restaurant on the other side of the bar, near the floor by the stairs).

Iv wanted to take off ASAP, so we drove down the Black Mountains to cross the Cali border at Needles. I gotta admit at this point: this part of the trip was the least interesting. There's a lot of rough land through this part of California on the I-40 to the I-15, without anything to look at. We decided to stop at the Bagdad Cafe, though, in Newberry Springs.

Note: DO NOT STOP AT THE BAGDAD CAFE. Drive by for a picture, at the most, but don't go in! If you've heard of the movie 'Bagdad Cafe', this diner is featured in it. When you walk in and see the locals that are slouched around, you are more likely to think of 'The Hills Have Eyes' or 'Wolf Creek'.

I'm pretty good in most situations, and will end up being in places that maybe I shouldn't, but this was one of the few places I've been where I thought, "I wish I didn't come in."

The place was dirty, the cook/guy who served us was dripping with sweat, and the locals gave us some crazy stares and smirks. We ordered drinks, and got the hell out of Dodge. On to Santa Monica.

I slept in the car after that (fortunately, Ivan was driving), and we got into Santa Monica around 8. Hotels there are much more expensive than we were seeing, but I found one for $70. It was in an okay neighbourhood, but was on the wrong side of dodgy for Iv's taste. The place was clean, but all walls were painted white, there was a bare fluorescent ceiling light, and the beds were the loudest, squeakiest beds you'd ever sleep in (imagine a rusty gate with a speaker hooked up to the hinges).

I've stayed in worse, but this was the icing on the cake for him that day. The aftermath the next morning was as follows:
Jeff: So how'd you sleep?
Ivan: Well, if anyone asks, I can tell them what staying in jail feels like.

For the record, there was no soap dropped.

Route 66 - Day Six (Holbrook to Sedona, AZ)

We busted out of Holbrook for the Petrified Forest & Painted Desert National Park, but without breakfast, our navigational skills were a bit lacking. We ended up on old 66, but it was a part that didn't intersect with the I-40, so once we hit dirt, we had to turn around and go all the way back to Holbrook, hook up with the I-40, and stop at the Hopi Cafe for a trucker's breakfast. I had chicken fried steak smothered in white gravy, and biscuits and MORE white gravy. They sure do like their gravy down here.

Petrified Forest & Painted Desert was nice, but in retrospect, we should have skipped it in order to see more of the Grand Canyon, which was later in the day.




Pop quiz: Winslow, Arizona is known for:

a. its efficient crystal meth production facilities
b. its mention in the Eagles song 'Take it Easy'
c. a place with a lot of fast food restaurants
d. all of the above

I made Ivan stop in Winslow, to go to "the corner". While we were there, a couple got me involved in their argument over whether the song said "a corner" or "the corner". I confirmed it was "a corner". They then got me to explain the difference. I went into definite and indefinite articles (Ang, you'd be proud at my ESL teaching skills to EFLs), which may have been too overwhelming for them, since they smiled, nodded, and ran away quickly.


(an Ivan, my Lord! In a flatbed Ford; us standin' on a/the corner)

We stopped in Flagstaff for lunch. Flagstaff is more of a name that evokes images of westerns, and less of a place to visit for any touristy goodness. If you're ever in Flagstaff for lunch, stop at the Beaver St. Brewery. Then ask for directions to a better restaurant.

A lot of driving got us to the Grand Canyon after 4 p.m.; the sun sets around here about 6:30ish, so it didn't give us a lot of time with pics. Ivan wasn't impressed, but I was okay. I realized that I am not a fan of big landscapes and vistas. I don't have anything against them, but they don't fill me with awe. I'm more of a small town, stop in a bunch of buildings, snap some pics, and talk to people type of guy. Ivan's more of a big scenery, talk to minimal people kind of guy. The Grand Canyon was the Grand Canyon.


(Chicken Little on top; Grand Canyon in middle; bravery on bottom)

Iv did a lot of jumping from rock to rock, which made me super nervous. I couldn't do it: if I got closer than three metres from an edge, I had visions of me falling off and smashing at the bottom like an egg. After the Grand Canyon, we drove to Sedona in the dark. A lot of winding down steep roads, but we couldn't get a sense of what was around us while driving. Sedona's hotels were mostly full; we tried five or six before settling on the Day's Inn, where we found out it was peak tourist season (September & October).

Route 66 - Day Five - Albuquerque, NM to Holbrook, AZ

We woke and got the bugs of one province and seven states washed off the car. On to Old Town.

I was disappointed with Old Town: very touristy, and the one place I wanted to stop in (the Rattlesnake Museum) was closed. San Felipe de Nevi was a nice church, though.


From there, we took off to Acoma Pueblo (aka Sky City), and stopped at the Rio Puerco Bridge on the way. It was an old Route 66 decommissioned one-lane bridge in the middle of the I-40. Still looks impressive.

So Sky City is the oldest permanently inhabited North American settlement (since 1150), and was down a side road that had big 'ROAD CLOSED' signs all over it. We pulled up to one, and one of the native road workers waved us through. He also said something to me, but could not understand the accent at all.

I'm usually pretty good with thick accents, and this is probably the third time in my life I heard something spoken which I knew was English, but just couldn't figure it out.

Anyway, he waved us through, and we weaved through some big roadwork machinery to get to Sky City. I wanted to ask if they serve vodka at Skyy City, but that joke doesn't really work when spoken...

Sky City: fantastic! The sun was crazy hot, though, and despite Ivan reminding me to put on sunscreen, which I did, I got burned. Which drained my energy levels a fair amount.





Another thing that drained my energy levels was was the climb down. We got a tour bus up, and the option to climb down a natural staircase. Four of us (me, Iv, and two women) took up the challenge; the rest went down on the bus.

A couple of things I should have considered:

• my ankles don't bend that well
• I am very scared of heights
• IT'S A FREAKIN' STEEP MESA

Before, during, and after

I made it down successfully, but sat down a couple times and scooted on my ass. This was not like climbing a church tower...

From here, we broke a cardinal rule: we went to McDonald's, rather than a diner on the way. It was about 2:30, and we had looked for the Uranium Cafe in Grants, but couldn't find it, and instead of driving on any further, we gave up and got some chicken McNuggets. Come to think of it, that was my last meal on this day. I guess the steak in Amarillo is still in my system, keeping me full...

We then took Highway 53 to the El Malpais National Park to see the ice cave and the & Bandera Volcano. The volcano was a 20 minute hike up the mountain, which further tired me out, since it was still about 30C out. But it was beautiful. Another half hour down to the ice cave had me exhausted, but at least the ice cave gave me some respite from the heat...you could feel the cold air after taking four or five steps towards it.



Finally, we raced the sun to get to Painted Desert & Petrified Forest National Park, but it was too late. So we hopped it to Holbrook, where the Wigwam Inn awaited us. Our first real Route 66 motel!



Definitely worth staying at (except for the A/C unit in our room that didn't work)! We were in tepee #12; all tepees have classic cars parked outside, too.

Nik informed me that teepee #1 was where Oprah & Gail stayed. There, the similarity between them and Ivan & me end. Goodnight, folks!