Route 66 Day 13 November 3, 2019
My best way of waking up is to throw (figuratively speaking) myself into a shower and let the sensation of the water massaging my skin bring all my senses to consciousness. We had a beautifully appointed bathroom in Winslow ...
I'm still getting used to the way the American bathroom taps and light switches work! It seems they do everything the opposite way to how we do things in Australia. The taps turn in opposite directions when you go to turn them on. In every hotel we have been to, you have to step into a bath to have your shower. That means, that before you start showering yourself, you have to start the water by turning on the tap, then pull up a pin so the water will be diverted away from pouring into the bath, and wait for it to come out of the shower head. Most of the time it's pretty easy to figure out where you have to turn the water lever around to, to get hot water, but sometimes it is based on prior experience!
And while I'm having a whinge ... another thing that often involves problem solving skills is turning on the lamps in the rooms. For starters the light switches have to be flicked up to turn the lights on, and down to turn them off. This is the opposite to the way light switches work in Australia. Some of the lamps though, require lateral thinking! Some have knobs that resemble an olden days lamp wick turner (they're the trickiest). You twist the extended pin to turn on the light. Other lamps have a switch near the bulb, some have a switch at the base, and some are little bed head lights that have a button to flick or press in. It's always interesting!
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| Jenny and I decided this would be us in 20 years time. A couple of old ducks in good shape, enjoying life! |
Cars, trucks and trains run parallel to each other, An interesting structure on what looked like
and in the sky, planes criss-crossed. an Indian reservation.
Our first stop was Meteor Crater where the "world's best preserved meteorite impact site" is celebrated and commercialised. I have to admit that they do a great job of educating the public about what possibly happened when a "piece of an asteroid" travelling at an estimated 26,000 miles per hour collided with planet Earth an estimated 50,000 years ago.
In the foyer was a piece of meteorite which had been stroked and handled so much it was shiny in places.
For the beginning of the tour, we were invited to take a seat in a theatre and watch a short movie that brought to life the dramatic event that probably took place. It was very well done. At one stage they were talking about the height, width and depth of the crater and compared it to football fields, with an audience. As I was watching I thought about the people right up the top in the 'nosebleed section'. And then it occured to me that the altitude of where we have been was the reason why I had been suffering small nose bleeds (nothing serious) for the last few days! When I mentioned it to one of the other guys, he said he'd had the same thing happening too.
When the movie was finished, we were allowed to wander at our leisure to various vantage points and have a look at the crater.
A guy in a 'onesy' The crater is vast. With the help of well placed telescope, you can see details of what is happening in the bottom, including an American flag ... of course!
With Jan and Sharon With Jenny
The impact site is nearly a mile across and over three miles in circumference. It is nearly 550 feet deep - large enough to engulf a 60 story building or to accomodate 2 football fields on the floor of the crater. Of course, discussions came up about our own Wolf Creek Crater which was sensationalised in the movie of the same name. It has not had anywhere as much money poured into its preservation, but is nonetheless quite spectacular. I have only seen pictures of it, and now I have put it on my bucket list as a place I need to visit.
Following the walk and climb around a small section of the rim, we then had the opportunity to have a look at a display that had been set up explaining more of the science behind what we had just seen.
We learnt about how the crater had been used as a place to train the astronauts before they went on their moon missions.
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| The Apollo test capsule |
In future missions scientists would like to bring rocks from Mars back to Earth, and then someday, ultimately, have people walking on the red planet discovering its fascinating secrets.
We got back on the road again and headed to our next destination - Two Guns.
This old ghost town which was at one time a roadside stop on Route 66 which sported two roadside zoos (the cages are now in ruins) ....
.... Canyon Lodge store and camp (which was established in 1924)
... an American Meteorite Museum established in 1946, the old concrete arch Canyon Diablo Bridge built in 1915, that still crosses Canyon Diablo
.... and the infamous Apache Death Cave. Dale told us some spooky stories about these places ... his own experiences and things he had heard. In terms of his own experience, he had been to the Apache Death cave and had tried to take a photo, but his camera wouldn't work. In fact, none of the cameras of anyone who was with him would work! (do, do, do, do - think the theme to Twilight Zone).
In terms of what Dale had heard ... Apparently Canyon Diablo was the worst of the worst Wild West towns. It was first surveyed in 1853 by a soldier who had great difficulty negotiating the canyon near where it was eventually built as a railway town in 1880. He named the landscape that caused him such trouble, Devil's Canyon. When the town was established, it took the canyon's name - and it ended up being extremely appropriate for the reputation the town earnt. When Canyon Diablo finally got a peace officer, his badge was pinned on his chest at 3pm, and he was laid out for burial at 8pm on the same day! Ensuing peace officers never lasted more than a month before they became residents of the nearby Boot Hill cemetery. At one time 35 graves could be seen with wooden markers and stone covered mounds. All are gone today, except for the one belonging to Herman Wolf - a trader who passed away in 1899 and the only one to have died peacefully.
On the road again to the next stop ... Twin Arrows. This bush grows all along the road's edge.
Me and Jenny The 'Men in Black'... as they became known.
It was once an attractive stop with a red and white Valentine diner. It was a site use in the Forest Gump movie (one of my all time favourites). Forest ran past it.
I got to see the inner workings of a petrol bowser!
The next stop was Flagstaff ... and we got to have a delicious Chinese lunch at the Golden Dragon Restaurant.
With our tummies full, it was time to hit the road again.
Arizona is a state filled with contrasts. There's the desert like expanses of plains, and the mountains with pines adorning them ....
... and there's the changes in colours from hues of blues to greens to oranges and yellows ... We were on the road to the Grand Canyon's southern rim.
When I was kid living in America (in 1967) the other kids in y class nicknamed Grand Canyon. My name back in those days was Jan Cannon, so I suppose it was a similar sounding name. Nevertheless, it sparked my curiosity. Through my teenage years I saw pictures of this magnificent piece of geography and thought that I would love to see it for myself one day. I'd forgotten how much of a dream it was for me until we were finally on the road to see it. It was hard for me to contain my excitement!
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| Proof!! I woz here! |
There were lots of vantage points fro which to view its magnificence.
I was like the guy in the picture below ... I just couldn't stop staring at it!
Behind this vantage point, perched on the edge of the rim of the Grand Canyon is a stone tower. It is known as the Desert View Watchtower and is a monument to a time, a place and people designed by architect Mary Colter in 1932. My pictures show the effects of the changing light on it, from the time we arrived and as the sun was setting.
Inside there is all kinds of Native American art.
We could see all kinds of views from the tower as we slowly climbed the four floors to the top!
There were no time pressures on us to be back at the hotel by a certain time, so Jenny and I decided to take a wander up to the tourist centre and have a look around. There were all sorts of wonderful merchandise for sale:
We'd been chatting about how maise is very colourful, and I saw some little cobs, so I just had to take a photo.
Meanwhile, back at the Grand Canyon, the effects of the dusk light was having a beautiful effect on the rocks.
Jenny sat contemplating, while I scooted around snapping away. Another selfie was irresistible.
There were lots of admirers, speaking in muted tones, ans the sun slowly disappeared.
We slowly walked back to the car park, to find it practically empty ... and our car waiting in solitude.
Although we didn't know it then, the real fun was about to happen!!
Our destination was Williams, a classic Route 66 town and the last one to be diverted by the Interstate system in 1984. I'd heard Dale giving some instructions to some other people, but as the information was not being directed at me, I arrogantly thought that I would be able to use Google Maps to get me to where we were supposed to be going. There was one major catch - there was no reception!! That meant that Jenny and I had to guess what the scant instructions in the itinerar meant. We guessed wrong. Instead of turning left, we should have turned right. I was driving and I should have listened to Jenny's hesitant suggestion. Oh well, we all have 20/20 vision in hindsight.
As a result of that initial mistake, we travelled back the way we had come. All the way I was thinking, when we get to the bottom we'll have reception - but again I was wrong. When we arrived at the roundabout, we mistakenly thought we should head west, and all the while I was thinking, "surely we'll get reception soon!" I was wrong. Eventually we called into a service station at a place called Gap, and after filling up the car, asked for instructions. We were heading in the wrong direction... completely!
The worst thing about driving at this time of night was that there were a lot of cars travelling in the opposite direction. My brain kept telling me that we were going to have a head-on collision with the cars, but then at the last moment I could see clearly that the cars were on the other side of the road. The roads were narrow too; and I naturally wanted to stay away from the centre of the road, but that meant I kept driving over the rumble strip to tell me that I was too far to the right. It was harrowing!
Eventually Jenny and I saw a Highway Patrol car perched at the side of the road. I pulled off the road, and slowly started backing up. I was feeling a bit scared that I might encounter a gun toting anxious officer. Instead, when I did eventually get out of the car, I met a very nice young woman who was on patrol by herself. I explained to her my predicament and she kindly offered to write me out some instructions on where I needed to go.
While I was waiting for her to get back to the car, I tried one more time to see if i could activate Google Maps. This time I was in luck. It told me that my journey would take me one hour and thirty-two minutes!! By this time we'd already been on the road for an hour and a half. Additionally, we received a text message from Dale asking if we were alright. I replied that we were a bit lost but alright.
After thanking the officer for her kind help, we got going again. Reception was coming and going. Google maps wanted to take us back to the Grand Canyon, so we decided to trust the police officer's instructions. Then Dale sent some instructions, so between the three sources of information, we had the knowledge we needed to get to our hotel.
The final clincher of the trip happened just after I got off the I-40. I had to turn left, and I mistakenly started driving on the left hand side of the road!!! Fortunately, the guy coming in the opposite direction had his wits about him, and he drove off the road to avoid a collision. It was close!! For a split second, I almost felt like I was in a Hollywood movie!!
By the time we got to the hotel a few minutes later, my nerves were shot. Jenny was a wonderful comfort. It was 9.30pm, and the men on our trip were just returning from dinner. They helped to get the bags out of the back of our car. I went into my hotel room and collapsed on the bed. Fortunately, tomorrow was a quiet day enjoying the scenery of Williams. Jenny and I had talked about going back to the Grand Canyon to look at other sights, but after that trip home ... there was no way!
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