2023 Road Trip: Route 66: Arizona II (5/16-17/2023)

Tuesday, May 16, 2023 (continued)
After Walnut Canyon National Monument, we continued along Route 66 in Flagstaff, AZ.

Museum Club (1931, as a taxidermy shop with display of
"stuffed animals" in what is said to be the largest log cabin
 in AZ) became a nightclub, then a country music venue

Flagstaff Santa Fe Railway Station
(1925, in Tudor Revival style)

Lowell Observatory (1894) takes advantage of the city's
status as world’s first International Dark Sky City
because of this community’s ongoing commitment
to protecting the quality of its dark skies

Pete's Route 66 Gas Station (1949) Museum
in Williams, AZ features a 1950 Ford

Turquoise Tepee in the Bowden Building (1947)
is also in Williams, AZ

Zettler's Route 66 Store (1929 as City Bakery,
1940 a grocery was added) in Ash Fork, AZ

DeSoto's Salon in a former Texaco gas station (1958)
has a 1960 Desoto on the roof

Roadkill Café and OK Saloon (5/17/2023)

Roadkill Café from the west side

Fortunately, for most of us, they will not
cook your roadkill, yet the menu items
have names such as Armadillo on the
Half Shell, The Chicken That Almost
Crossed the Road, Guess That Mess,
and One-eyed Dog Hit in the Fog

Inside the café, where we "played it safe"
and had bowls of chili

Inside the OK Saloon with dollar bills stapled over the var

Lots of taxidermied heads, and note the stools
next to the souvenir penny machine

We stayed at the Supai Motel (1952) and
were able to see the neon sign at night

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Seligman, AZ calls itself the "Birthplace of Historic Route 66," because its citizens called for Arizona to designate the stretch of road between Seligman and Kingman as Historic Route 66, in 1987.

Aztec Motel (1915)

Aztec Motel sign (5/16/2023)

Delgadillo’s Sno Cap Drive-in (1953)
(a Roadside America attraction)

Delgadillo’s Sno Cap Drive-in (5/16/2023)

Angel & Vilma Delgadillo's Original Route 66 Gift Shop
in a 1914 building that once housed Angel's barber shop
and pool hall, but in 1972 became the headquarters of
the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona
(a Roadside America attraction)

Rusty Bolt (1933) with mannequins on the porch rooftops

Copper Cart (1952)

Oh, my, so this is the world's largest Route 66 sign?!

We continued on Historic Route 66, and saw several sets
(of 5 signs) of the Burma Shave signs, starting with #1

Burma Shave sign #2

Burma Shave sign #3

Burma Shave sign #4

Burma Shave sign #5 (a Roadside America attraction)

Dope on a Rope shows how they lowered the
first sightseers into Grand Canyon Caverns;
unfortunately the caverns were closed due
to problems with the elevator and no one
was around to lower us on a rope!

The Grand Canyon Caverns are the largest dry caverns in the country. Dry caverns are related to sinkholes, cliff crevices, or a fracture along a joint of bedrock.

We could not even pan for gold at Grand Canyon Caverns
(discovered in 1927, 1935 new entrance by the CCC), located
near Peach Springs, AZ (a Roadside America attraction)

Valentine Gas Station (1950s) in Valentine, AZ

Hackberry General Store and Conoco Gas Station (1934)
with a 1957 Corvette, in Kingman, AZ

Hackberry General Store in Kingman, AZ
(a Roadside America attraction)

We purchased gas at Terrible's, a 1979 Terrible Herbst station,
with a tower and red-tiled canopy

The Powerhouse (1907-1909) Visitor Center with
the Arizona Route 66 Museum (2001)

Visitor Center and Route 66 Museum sign

The Arizona Route 66 Museum reminds us that the land and trade routes of the indigenous people of America were here first, even as stereotypes of these people were perpetuated along Route 66.

Next "Westward Expansion" followed the Old Trails Road,
essentially from Albuquerque, NM to Los Angeles, CA

The Depression/Dust Bowl era had migrants taking Route 66

The peak of Route 66 with vacationers and sightseers wa
during the Jim Crow era when Black Americans needed
their own guidebook, Negro Motorist Green Book (1936-
1964), to find accommodations that would accept them

The Powerhouse Visitor Center also included the
Electric Vehicle Museum (2014) with the Rolls-Royce-
themed red golf cart (1981) of Willie Nelson

Nelson's golf cart featured a
miniature bar in the back

The Buckeye Bullet 2.5 (c 2009) was built and raced by
students from Ohio State University, setting world speed
records for an electric vehicle in 2009, and with batteries in 2011

Kawashocki (1987) electric motorcycle

"Vintage" 2008 Tesla Roadster (#480)

Solar Race Car Xenith (2011, by Stanford University)

Next: Route 66 in Arizona continued.