Route 66, Day 1, Bedrock City

After a late start and long drive through a wildfire-ravaged community during rush hour, we had made our Night 1 (August 22) destination: Flagstaff, AZ.  Parents would have been happy with Kingman, but when the lone child registering her discontentment with being seated could not keep the registration up upon reaching Kingman, we forged ahead as she slept under a blanket that so completely covered her, a breathing vent had to be fashioned.

We finally planned the rest of our trip that night.  That we're only generally able to stick to a plan for a single day and we had no reservations anywhere was taken into account.  What would effectively be Day 1 (August 23) of our trip would have us see the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon (you know, because you've probably never seen it)

Afer hyperactively running all over everything between the parking lot and the Canyon, Child said "I LIKE IT!" when she finally laid eyes on the Grand Canyon.  It was all downhill from there.  It was as though there was a United Nations Conference of Trashiest People convened.  Europeans in perfume and cologne too strong for wild noses were only eclipsed by those full of wild odor themselves.  Asians sported selfie-sticks like they were going out of style, not realizing they already had.  People stood out at the Canyon's edge expecting their status as Homo sapiens to protect them from pesky gravity and wind.  All seemed oblivious to the GRAND CANYON behind them.  On the way out, we even saw someone unpacking their drone.  There's a decent chance it was struck by lightning (a storm rolled in after we left), a fate which could only be topped by other visitors stoning the drone operator.

Flintstone Residence

We may have gritted our teeth and endured if not for the unruly obliviousness of everyone involved leading to RISK OF DEATH!  Keeping a 3 1/2 year-old's curiosity from killing themselves is difficult enough without assistance, intentional or not.  Someplace where no such concern was required was Bedrock City.  Not only is it 30 acres of pure flatness, it is so sparsely attended, one can practically treat it as a personal oasis.  Better than any actual oasis, there are life-sized Flintstones.  Fred, Wilma, Pebbles and Dino were all present.  Barney, Betty and Bam-Bam were all there, as were life-sized homes for both families, a dinosaur-size slide, numerous vehicles, a salon, grocery store, school and volcano, all shaped and colored to the theme of the cartoon.  The effort to make a real-life Bedrock City had actually been expended; and with marvelous effect.  It was unclear whether adults or Child was having more fun.

Rubble Residence

Bedrock City
(Flintstone Residence behind and Rubble Residence just right of the dinosaur slide)

Dino Slide (faces removed to protect the innocent)

As if simply having a life-size Bedrock City didn't put the Grand Canyon to shame in an enjoyment-to-cost-ratio sense, it actually outdid the Grand Canyon in wildlife too.  When following the trails the throngs of humanity are capable of, the closest one can get to wildlife are human-acclimated squirrels and the occasional roadside deer.  At Bedrock City, the human-acclimated beast was a goat, easily fifty times the animal as a squirrel.  The occasional fauna was a Cooper's hawk that had just killed a rabbit, but couldn't quite get it airborne.  While Dad sat on the long-eared prey, waiting on the bird to return for its bounty, he realized he could never be a wildlife photographer.  His impatience caused him to drive the bird off multiple times.  As a poor excuse, he offers up that rain was approaching and forced his hand.

Predator and Prey (Oh God! Too heavy! Can't fly.)

We had brought much food for our trip.  Being vegan, we didn't think there would be much for us.  Luckily, there was Whyld Ass.  Dad loved the food.  Mom thought it was mediocre.  Everyone loved its baked goods, which served as breakfast three days running.  This allowed us to conserve our precious provisions for the remainder of the trip.

Route 66, Day 2, Flagstaff

A surprise day in Flagstaff.  We had intended to venture east to the Petrified Forest National Park and stay at the Wigwam Motel in nearby Holbrook.  Our lack of planning led us to get a room for Night 4 of our trip instead of Night 3.  Luckily, Flagstaff had piqued our curiosity on Day 1 and we spent some time around local haunts.

For Mom, the only true measure of a place is its thrifting.  The Los Angeles Goodwill Outlet (find one near you here) had transformed her in-city thrifting from a desolate landscape of hipsters and dealers to one of the truly desperate, those relying on this purest form of capitalist hustle, greasing the wheels of secondary market efficiency, turning the least-desired of people well enough off to dispose of it into something useful for penny after laborious penny on dollar after laborious dollar.

While half-joking about finding Flagstaff's Goodwill Outlet as a Day 1 activity, the extra Day 2's priority 1 was clear.  If ever we get Mom to do a full write-up of what she found, it will be included.  The most notable find was the oldest garment she'd ever found in the wild, dated 1929.  In the place of a full inventory, allow this one quote instead: "I couldn't see over the mountain of stuff I had."  Lucky for the rest of us, she pared this down to what would fit in the car.

Tactile experiences for children at Riordan Mansion

Child and Dad didn't join in this thrift score.  Instead, they went to Riordan Mansion.  It is almost completely surrounded by now by NAU (apparently, a University).  While making more wrong turns than one would think possible on a mile-and-a-half drive, we saw much of this campus and only one entrance to the Mansion's grounds, which we had been adjacent to during many of those wrong turns.  We didn't take a guided tour of the interior of the mansion, but the Visitor Center had many tools and implements of the time.  The tactile experience was of far more interest for 3 1/2 year-old Child.  More child tactile experiences, this time of feet on rocks and earth, were had on the Mansion grounds.  Adult tactile experience was that of no fewer than 5 mosquito bites inside half an hour.

Rear of Riordan Mansion

After lunch, we ventured to Thorpe Park.  Child had much pent-up energy from so much time driving.  This park was the perfect release.  As usual, she made a friend, a boy who was celebrating some small part of his ninth birthday here at Thorpe.  Mom was enamored with the Saddlemates.

A few Saddlemates, including a two-seater

Only allow children to make decisions for you when you're genuinely 50-50 on the options.  I didn't care whether thirst-quenching happened next or toy-finding.  Child chose toy-finding.  This led to a direct experiencing of the Goodwill Outlet for Dad.  Dealers had descended since Mom's early-morning triumph.  The place had been picked over and things Mom had caught and released had disappeared.  Nonetheless, a braided belt and jar full of wooden beads supplied the required materials for an hour or so of child necklace-making later that yielded three wonderful pieces of jewelry.  Some fries and drinks at Galaxy Diner next door and some swimming at the hotel rounded out the day.  Despite two nights of trying, taking advantage of the first International Dark Sky city's dark skies was fruitless, as both clouds and lightning descended and viewings at Lowell Observatory's telescopes were impossible.

Route 66, Day 3, Petrified Forest National Park

Leaving the hotel in Flagstaff went more smoothly than most of our other departures, especially ones where there's more to pack than was unpacked.  The drive to the Petrified Forest National Park was far more interesting than our Night 1 drive, with daylight illuminating all manner of interesting things.  Among them were stone ruins, cows, abandoned trailers, horses, abandoned houses, burnt out houses, abandoned motels and old, DANGEROUS playground equipment.  Dad also noted we were passing right by Meteor Crater.  Plans for Day 4 were filling in.

The Petrified Forest National Park was spectacular and spectacularly sparsely attended, even for it being the National Park Service's 100th birthday (this was a complete coincidence, something we didn't know until we talked to a ranger later).  Unfortunately, the short hike Dad planned made a 3 1/2 year-old cry.  It wasn't the hike itself, of course.  She just wasn't getting her way.  Mom was saintly enough to take Child back to the car, allowing Dad the hike he had originally planned.  Lots of pictures of the scenery known as The Painted Desert were taken and at least one jackrabbit was scared off on the trail between Tawa Point and Kachina Point.

Painted Desert as seen from Kachina Point (click for the much better big version)

Despite the tumultuous beginning, Child was ready for the rest of our visit.  Stopping off at Whipple Point, she made friends with an elderly couple from Phoenix.  But it was the Route 66 stop where she took over.  After hearing about how the National Park Service swindled the land required to connect The Painted Desert to the Petrified Forest and how that led to Route 66 being decommissioned, we set out with three rangers and a French couple to see what kinds of litter people had left on the side of the road.  This litter was now considered archaeologically significant and, like the natural resources of the forest, were not to be removed from the park.

It's rare that a non-historian gets to play archaeologist.  It's even more rare that such non-historians are more excited by what they find than the actual historians.  Mom, the yet rarer breed, gets downright giddy.  Bottle remnants, car parts, used cans of beer and some things unknown made her practically squeal with excitement.  The locals recognized some of the ephemera printed on the bottles better than she did; and when they told her, it was clear she was filing it away for later research.

The amazing thing about this walk was the help Mom got in item discovery.  Child is still low to the ground.  Child doesn't yet have a generic "junk" category that things seen get filed into.  And, as such, Child was the best finder of them all.  Her grand prize was a 7-Up bottle with only its neck broken off, leaving the front and back label fully intact (pictured below).

While the petrified wood was cool, the landscape, especially the alien Tepees location, was the real treat for the remainder of the drive.  It's the landscape of Mom's soul.

One of the features at "The Tepees" (like Kachina Point above, bigger is much better; do click)

Route 66, Day 4, Holbrook

Waking in a wigwam is pretty damn cool.  Especially when it's the Wigwam Motel Holbrook with all its classic cars.  Holbrook seems not to have modernized much.  Sure, there's wireless service, internet, wind power, etc. but there's just one small stretch that has been taken over by national restaurant chains.  The core historic downtown and, in fact, most of the city, seems to have held on to its historic identity.

Holbrook Wigwam Motel

Two consequences of this are the city having virtually no virtual presence and the presence of zombies.  We were looking for the old bowling alley the previous night.  Upon finding it and seeing it was closed down, we pulled into the occupied-by-too-many-vans, non-pull-through lot just wanting to get a nostalgic closer look.  Out popped what looked like a walking windmill, blades of matted hair attached to a face with eyes so crazed, our normally ice-cold blood shot to minor panic.  Dad's first instinct was to pull through, not yet having noticed the non-pull-through nature of the lot.  The creature was almost within arm's reach of our car.  Dad had to act fast.  Reverse.  Make sure you don't hit anyone or anything.  Blast off!  Safe at last, back on Route 66.

In hindsight, perhaps we were in no genuine danger.  What would such a person have done even if she got in arm's reach of our car?  How would she even breach a locked car?  Then, Shaun of the Dead ran through my mind.  Others could have taken up station behind us, blocking our path, forcing us to run them over to escape.  Unlike the movie, these zombies could well have been armed, at least with pipes, bats and knives if not firearms.  Though perhaps such a sequence of events was unlikely, why take the chance?  Quick escape was even hindsight's proper action.

The friendly local cat.  Just because.

About that virtual presence, we searched for a park for Child to play in.  Nothing (seriously, check here if you doubt).  The only thing we found was a campground with an attached playground.  Probably fooling no one, we put on a ruse of being interested in the cabins, but were shopping around.  Dad negotiated the finer points of such a stay in as excruciatingly lengthy detail as he could manage while Child played under Mom's supervision.  "Oh, a 'Couples Cabin?' Tell me more" followed by "You don't say?" and other overly and oddly interested inquiries eventually petered out.  Sensing unease in Dad when he was really just searching for the next inane question, the young lady behind the counter gave an assist.  "Would you like to tour the cabins?"  Would I?  How else could I make an informed decision?  It's really the only proper course of action.  Of course Dad will tour the cabins.  Surely, that would buy another 15 minutes of playground time.  Upon taking the keys and strolling over to the cabins leisurely, the inspection began immediately.  Everything that could possibly be wrong would be found under the watchful and discriminating eye of a potential patron.  When Dad opened the door, he inspected as closely as possible and closed the door.  His watch showed that only 26 seconds had passed.

A particularly tall person could only lie down in this cabin diagonally.  A bunk bed was on one side, a queen bed on the other and only just enough room for a person to walk separated the two.  Very little could go wrong with setting up such a camp-similar structure.  With such little to inspect, Dad had no choice but to stroll back.  Lucky for Dad, the playground was basked in blazing hot sun and no fun anyway, much of the metal equipment better for pan frying pancakes than playing.

Then we did what Mom does best, wander.  After seeing little of interest on the north side (where the restaurant chains were), we proceeded to the south side.  Mom's hoard-vision picked out a parabolic swing from a sea of houses and we made our way to Lewis Park (which has a Facebook page, once you know what to look for).

A park only hoard-vision could find.

It was really quite astounding how well kept the park was.  The grass was present, unlike in most of the front yards we had been driving past, and was as well groomed and green as any I'd seen.  And in case it hasn't been apparent just how prominently playground equipment featured on this trip, here's what there was in addition to the parabolic swings: corkscrew slide, merry-go-round, three Saddlemates, a fire engine and a scoopy thingy that seemed more like backhoe operator training than plaything (in which case, Child will be the best backhoe operator ever).  The park also came with an amazingly friendly local cat.  She became fast friends with all of us.  The merry-go-round also had some very sample-worthy squeaking, creaking and other metal-on-metal sounds.

Merry-go-round and Fire Engine.  Sample front yards in the background.

At this point, parents were hungry.  After a sorely disappointing breakfast at Joe and Aggie's that had us witness a Stan that could be described as somewhere between "deeply disappointed in how his family was now running the restaurant" and "waiting around to die," we tried Mr Maesta's, an establishment rumored to have fry bread.  We had not, as yet, encountered a fry bread stand on the freeway, much to our puzzlement.  The rumors were true and between the plain fry bread and grape soda, we finally felt ready to bid Holbrook goodbye.

Mr Maesta's.  They serve fry bread.

Route 66, Day 4, Joseph City to Flagstaff

The Jackrabbit Trading Post defies time.  Dad bought a $0.25 postcard.  How does some place that charges so little on a road that so few people now travel stay afloat?  That is something none of us had the heart to ask the proprietor.  The main draw here is, of course, the giant jackrabbit ...

The famous Route 66 Jackrabbit

... and the distinctive sign that has been immortalized and commemorated many times.

Jackrabbit Trading Post sign

We stopped in Winslow, where we did not stand on any corners.  Annie got a dress at Alice's Attic.

We stopped at the abandoned Meteor City Trading Post.  Cool pictures like the one below were taken.  Some zombies-in-training were also picture-taking, so we cut short our perusal.

The ruins of the Meteor City Trading Post

On the way to Meteor Crater, Child fell asleep.  Mom watched over her as Dad nerded out.  This turned out to be for the best.  Grand Canyon-style cliffs had to be negotiated to get to the lookout posts, which would have been climbed all over by Child and might possibly have led to a heart attack for Mom.  The crater is amazing and the view around from atop its rim as much so.  Still a bit pricey though.

The main floor of Meteor Crater.
Click and magnify just to the right of the white in the middle to see a 6' astronaut cutout.

Roughly 1/2 of Meteor Crater, because that's all you can do without a wide-angle lens for something this big.

For the night-cap, we nerded out more at Lowell Observatory.  Mom and Child each had their first Saturn and Wild Duck star cluster sightings.  We also saw the scopes that Clyde Tombaugh used to observe and discover Pluto.

Pluto Discovery telescope, used by Clyde Tombaugh in initial observations of Pluto.

Clark Telescope.  Used for follow-up confirmation of Pluto.

On to Kingman, a journey that put on a spectacular show of lightning, one we were not able to photograph, unfortunately.

Route 66, Day 5, Kingman

Day 5 (August 27) was reserved mostly for driving home.  The charger-less Electric Vehicle Museum was a worthwhile stop that showcased Willie and Waylon's electric vehicles.  They are just golf carts, most of which have been electric for a long time; but, hey, any chance to get close to something Willie Nelson treasured should itself be treasured (and photographed).

Left: Willie Nelson's electric golf cart.  Right: Waylon Jennings' electric golf cart.

The museum itself is not so impressive.  It's the size of a large mechanic's garage and is just one cavernous, not particularly well-lit room.  However, the vehicles were fascinating, including a land speed record holder, a hot rod and a vehicle inspired by wartime (WWII) gas scarcity.  A few are pictured below.  That we had to go through a century of internal combustion engines to re-ignite interest in EVs is a shame humanity will have to shoulder as history books are written.

Mom found an ARC thrift store and scored well (again).  Our reliance on Chipotle for vegan food was wearing thin.  We did get fries at Sonic though.  Child and Dad also took a walk along a new trail adjacent to the thrift store.

The drive back was interrupted only by a driver change and dinner, accompanied by podcasts and monotonous scenery.  Once home, the familiar confines greatly aided sleep.  The return to mundane routines and responsibilities was a bit of a downer.

1959 Henney Kilowatt. 60 mile range.  Capable of 60 mph.

2011 Buckeye Bullet 2.5.  Official FIA speed: 320 mph.

1959 Trident "R"

1906 Elwood-Parker Luggage Tug