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.