We're movie stars! Or suckers.

It’s always a good morning when you wake up in a Wigwam! We certainly enjoyed our accommodations last night.





Today was our earliest morning yet. We actually hit the road by 8:30! As we passed the post office in Joseph City, we pulled over and I hopped out to mail a postcard to my grandpa. I had a couple to mail, but I figured I’d mail one from one location and the second from another location and maybe they’d get there on separate days? Anyway, I hopped back in the van and looked at the second postcard and realized that it had no address on it at all yet. Which made me think, “Uhhhhh, did I put the address on the postcard I just mailed?” It either has absolutely no address on it at all, or it might be addressed to his name, the retirement community he lives in, and the town. If it’s the latter, here’s hoping a kind postal employee in Joseph City will help me out and send it on its way.

Our first stop of the day was the famous Jackrabbit Trading Post, where we picked up more souvenirs.




From there it was on to Winslow for the Standing on the Corner statue. It’s still fenced off from the fire in 2004, but is fun to see nonetheless. I had to exhibit quite a bit of willpower to avoid buying another t-shirt at the store across the street.



We stopped at the Meteor City Trading Post to take our picture with the World’s Longest Map of Route 66. It's hard to see, but there was a bit of an issue with me beating the timer again. I'm sprinting as fast as I can towards the Catoosa Whale!



After that we drove on to the next exit and headed south of the route to actually see the famed meteor crater. Seeing as how we had driven through the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest for $10/vehicle yesterday, we had high hopes that the meteor crater would be somewhere between $3 and $5 per person.

$15 per person! We were lightly hopping up the stairs when we all looked up and saw that sign and stopped dead in our tracks. Call us cheap Dutchmen, but we decided that $60 for the four of us to look at a hole in the ground was not in the cards. Back on the road again, where for absolutely free when enjoyed a spirited sing along to “Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” on the radio.

We pulled off to see the abandoned Twin Arrows next. They’re still standing, but looking a little less arrow-ish as parts fall off.




Not too long after this, we ran into a storm. It went something like this:

11:15:00 Ran into fierce and noisy hail storm.
11:15:15 Contemplated pulling over until storm passed
11:15:30 Told Jen she could pull over if she wanted to.
11:16:00 Drove out of storm. Felt relieved that we were not sitting on the side of the road like idiots

11:38:00 Drove into baby hail storm. Scoffed at it and drove on.

It rained off and on for a good part of the day, but luckily it never affected our plans.

As we drove through Flagstaff, we contemplated that this would be the perfect place for us to buy a campground when we all retire sometime around 2040. It’s so wooded and beautiful! We decided that if we had been driving down Route 66 during the Depression, we would’ve said phooey to California once we got to Flagstaff.

We took the gravel alignment past Bellemont, one of the biggest treats of the day. We pulled off near the Auto Tour sign just before Parks and set off hiking down the out-of-use 1931 alignment towards the Spring House that used to pump water for the nearby campground. On the way back, we detoured through the woods to pick up the even more decrepit 1921 alignment.

The hike was a nice break to the day. Believe it or not, after all this time together in the van we still haven’t run out of things to talk about. Topics of discussion on the hike included:

1. If we bought a campground near here in 2040, we could also buy a 1920s- or 1930s-era vehicle and give little tours up and down this stretch of the road.
2. Imagine the pioneers who settled the west in wagon trains, going maybe 10-20 miles a day. If they had veered 18 miles round trip the wrong direction off the path to go look at Volkswagons buried in the ground, that would’ve been two wasted days! (Any discussion of the errant Lonely Planet map is followed by Sherrie declaring, “Lonely Planet can burn!”) (Ok, to be fair, aside from that Texas map, the Lonely Planet book is quite handy and packs a lot of information into a small book.)
3. Jennifer really should marry a park ranger. Hey, we’ve got a blog. Let’s see if we can find a single park ranger for Jen!
4. How does a road go from being paved to being gravel? Do they dump a bunch of gravel on top of the pavement, figuring that as people drive over it, the gravel will break up the pavement and it will all mix together? (Dave? Clarification?)






The four of us were in Williams together just over two years ago, so we didn’t spend a lot of time here. We took our picture underneath the same Route sign we used two years ago, and then headed out of town, noting with amusement that perhaps we should retire to nearby Cataract Lake. (“There is no lake. There’s just a sheet of blue plastic. Look at it shimmer!”)




We chose the Snow Cap Drive-In in Seligman for lunch, a very good decision. The hamburgers were incredible and the fries were perfect. As we were sitting there, a group of four guys was eating and milling around the site as well. After our meal, we asked one of them to take our picture in front of the car next to the Snow Cap.

That turned into a conversation about how they are working on An Internet Film Project for a Well-Known Company That We Are Not Allowed to Talk About and suddenly we were signing releases and confidentiality statements and being interviewed on film about our trip. We figure either there really is a film project, or they just came up with a really elaborate scheme to steal our identities. Just to be on the safe side, we surreptitiously took their pictures and wrote down their license plate number.



We made really good time today (I guess leaving at 8:30 helped!), and after a stop to take our picture next to a giant Tiki, we cruised into Kingman before 6 p.m. We took a dip in the pool (admiring the Best View in Kingman) and then drove downtown for a delicious dinner at the Hotel Brunswick.





Tomorrow: California!