Thursday, June 6, 2013

Route 66 - part fifteen



Stagger off bus in Barstow, California.


Barstow has a Greyhound station, a McDonald’s in railway cars and Zoltar the fortune teller.




I predict it can't get any hotter.

Actually, I'm wrong. Near here, in Death Valley a century ago, the thermometer reached 134 Fahrenheit (57 Celsius), the highest temperature ever recorded, well on earth anyway. In fact, it really was virtually a hundred years ago, July 10, 1913. 

Remember those 'Twenty Mule Team' Borax commercials? Borax originated near Barstow, a supply centre for Death Valley mines. I feel like death. Back on the coach for a final run into LA. The I-15 heads southwest towards and through the San Gabriel Mountains. Not long.


Finally, out of the corner of my eye, a sign, ‘Los Angeles,’ and the downtown towers


LA is a rejuvenating 77 degrees (25 Celsius), although - no surprise - smoggy. After a much needed, late lunch, I rejoin Route 66 for a walk along Sunset Boulevard. 

A youngster skateboards outside Hollywood High School.


A few steps further is the Hollywood Center Motel, a distinctly spooky place some compare to the hotel in Psycho.



On old Route 66, only a couple of blocks from where the Oscars are presented, the neighbourhood has a seedy feel. To compensate, the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, which numbered among its congregation Bing Crosby and Loretta Young, is quite splendid.


Late afternoon, I reach the end in Santa Monica on the Pacific. Route 66 arrives as Santa Monica Boulevard terminating at the T junction with Ocean Avenue. If I wanted to - and I really don’t - I could follow the road all the way back to Chicago.


Here's another shot of the intersection with Santa Monica Boulevard leading off to the right. 


I cross Ocean Boulevard into Palisades Park to look for a bronze plaque. More than fifty years ago, Route 66 was named as the Will Rogers Highway. A fitting place for last pictures.



Okay, just one more … in 2009, some bright spark thought it would be good for business if Route 66 ended at - on - Santa Monica Pier. Arguments continue. I prefer the T junction, but, as it’s only a short walk, stroll to the pier. As I turn up so does an old Corvette, all the way from Illinois. It seems appropriate. 


For now, I’ve had my fill of busses, patched up motels and even Corvettes. I wish I could write something profound, but need a drink. My account has been hasty as others take months to trace the road. Some go back to Route 66 year after year. Was this weird idea worthwhile? Yes, I’m glad I did it, but should have gone to the vacuum museum and had an extra scoop of frozen custard. 

I’m pooped and have what feels to be the start of a cold. Perhaps a more discerning summation another day. For now, I’ll leave it to you to judge. 

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Route 66 - part fourteen


Back to Route 66 and into Seligman. In the Forties, the town still had hitching posts.






Seligman offers visitors a taste of Cars.


A near ghost town called Hackberry is God's Acre for antediluvian vehicles.




 However, I meet a charming Polish couple honeymooning on Route 66.


Better than Niagara Falls. 



For the record, I’m now in Kingman where Clark Gable and Carol Lombard married. 

My stay involves a quick hamburger. Temperature’s 105 degrees (40.5 Celsius). I’d planned for late May-early June hoping to miss the worst of the brutal, mid-continent summer heat. No such luck.

Early motorists were warned of the stretch between Kingman, Arizona, and Barstow, California. It was steep, there were sometimes flash floods and the desert sun was cruel. The route is still all of those. Even now, some choose to drive the Mojave by night. 

This trip is becoming a blur. How many days since I left Chicago? Did I really escape a tornado? Should I have had more than two scoops of frozen custard?

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Route 66 - part thirteen




Classic Studebaker on the I-40.

In western New Mexico just after the Second World War, Route 66 conditions could be so bad that, as well as extra gas and spare water, a guide advised carrying a foxhole shovel for emergencies. Many motorists - recent soldiers - would have had frontline experience of using the small military shovels. 


From the interstate, a train on the old Santa Fe Railroad and a car on Route 66.


The 1937 Hotel El Rancho in Gallup was built by a brother of Birth of a Nation director D.W. Griffiths. 

The area was used for many Hollywood Westerns. Humphrey Bogart stayed in room 213, Doris Day in 109 and John Wayne in 100. It’s claimed Errol Flynn rode a horse into the bar.


Cross the Arizona state line as the late spring heat prickles the skin. This old car - an ‘Okie who didn’t make it? - is nearly too hot to touch.


Route 66 passed through the fabled Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. Unfortunately, colours are best at dawn and sunset, and I must hurry on. 


A couple roasts on two hundred million year old petrified wood.



Holbrook, one of the last Route 66 towns the interstate bypassed, has the 1950 Wigwam Motel.


Fifteen concrete wigwams, although purists says they’re teepees. You can still stay here with original furniture, A/C, but no wifi. From $67. 


Thirty-four miles along the interstate is what otherwise would be a little known town, but made famous by the 1972 Eagles' hit, 'Take It Easy.' A couple on a Harley conveniently pose next to 'Standin' on the corner' in Winslow, Arizona.


Although the Grand Canyon is off Route 66, as postwar tourism boomed, many made the detour. So do I.

Words, pictures inadequate.




Sunday, June 2, 2013

Route 66 - part twelve


Sobering news: if you go back to my last posting and the pictures when leaving Oklahoma City, you’ll see a tower of some sort with ‘Yukon Oklahoma’ on the side. A few hours after I passed, the same stretch of the I-40 in Yukon was hit by a tornado. There have been deaths and damaged vehicles are still being searched for victims.
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On the prairie outside Amarillo are ten old Cadillacs buried at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza. This singular installation, from 1974, is the Cadillac Ranch. 


The project, commissioned by a - dare I say, somewhat oddball - Amarillo oil tycoon (who lives on an estate called Toad Hall), is a Route 66 favourite. Passersby are encouraged to add graffiti, so colours and impression constantly change.


The Ranch is now even more controversial as the elderly commissioner of pop art faces a number of sex charges, charges he denies. Some have called for the Caddies be bulldozed, which, given the idea’s bizarre originality, seems a pity.
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On across the baking Texas Panhandle, arriving in Adrian, halfway along Route 66. An achievement -  I’m hardly alone in managing it - to be noted. 

A bird’s nest in a permanently vacant motel sign suggests how empty this place is.





Wandering around the service station, it strikes me I’ve seen the remains of so many gas stations. However, cars were less reliable and often had breakdowns. Route 66 was challenging, often very rough and the weather sometimes grim. Many a worried motorist must have nursed his car into such mechanical havens. 


On the Texas-New Mexico border is Russell’s Travel Center, a truck and bus stop. This is only noted because here - of all places - ‘mid country CDs, sunglasses, windshield washer fluid, coffee mugs and Route 66 shot glasses - I find an audio book of Stephen Fry reading Douglas Adams’ idiosyncratic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Sold!

By the way, if you haven’t read the book, the answer to ‘The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything’ is 42.

Back on the highway and arrive in Tucumcari, New Mexico.




Decades of advertising made Tucumcari one of Route 66’s most famous stops. The town (population about 5,300) once had more than fifty motels. 

Before the journey, I’d only heard in passing of an animated Disney film called Cars. Versions of the Blue Swallow Motel - when I arrive an old Pontiac is out front - and TeePee Curios appeared in the movie.




The Blue Swallow opened in 1939 when many motor courts had convenient garages next to rooms.

TeePee Curios dates from the early Forties.


Route 66 attracted me for an excess of gimcrackery. I happily snigger at today’s gift shops crammed with predictable knickknacks, but it was always so. Enticing tourist traps and their tacky contents were part of Route 66 well before every cheap souvenir in the world was made in China.

Pass a Harley and into Albuquerque.


A quick foray to the 1793 San Felipe de Neri Church, built of adobe with walls five feet thick. 


Outside, I break one of the ten commandments and succumb to lust. Route 66, especially in the Southwest, teems with classic vehicles, many complementing restored motels and restaurants.  However, this seems to be for private cruising.


In downtown Albuquerque, the 1927 KiMo Theatre - yes, theatRE - makes one’s design deprived heart turn somersaults. 


Today’s cinemas - as with bus terminals - are so drearily functional. The KiMo is pueblo deco, a combination of southwest Native American influences and art moderne. Opening year, it offered Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, first feature-length talking movie, but not, as sometimes thought, the first film with sound.



Dinner at the 66 Diner with a 1950s jukebox and blue-plate specials.


Grilled cheese and hot turkey sandwiches to malts and banana splits. Their trademark plate is the nontraditional ‘Pile Up’ - ‘a pile of pan fried potatoes, chopped bacon, chopped green chile, two eggs any style, cheddar cheese and red or green chile sauce on top’ - $9.99. A half size, the ‘Fender Bender,’ is $5.99.

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Latest news from Oklahoma City is that five died in the tornado. People attempting to flee clogged the interstate, were trapped and killed.

(Final note after returning home: the tornado was the widest ever recorded in the States, 2.6 miles (4.18 kilometres) and an EF5, the highest rating, with winds of up to 295 mph (474 kph). Twenty died. I was very fortunate.)