Flagstaff Arizona to Kingman Arizona

I only drove 147 miles across Arizona today but most of it was on old Route 66. We stopped in the historic towns of Williams (bypassed by Interstate 40 in 1984) and Seligman (bypassed in 1978). Being bypassed often resulted in economic hardship. Williams is known as "The Gateway to the Grand Canyon". The historic downtown area covers about six blocks. We enjoyed touring the town, shopping and taking photos. Once an important stop for railroad traffic, Williams seems to be thriving primarily on tourism.

In 1987 the residents of Seligman convinced the state of Arizona to designate Route 66 as a historic highway and to add "City of Seligman" signs on Interstate 40 to draw people to the town and old Route 66 as well. In 2006, Pixar's movie "Cars" based its sleepy town "Radiator Springs" on Seligman. The result of these actions has been economic success for what might have been called a ghost town in years past. We had lunch at the Snow Cap Drive-In built in 1954. While the food was good, the Drive-In itself has so much history about the owners and visitors old and new on the walls, it was really tough to stop reading everything and order our food. The rest of the town was also very compelling.

Tomorrow with over 6,500 miles and 18 states behind us, We will cross back into California, I will drive the final 300+ miles home and this extraordinary road trip will conclude. We've seen a lot of beautiful country and met some interesting people. I have only posted a handful of photos from the thousands I took. I'll post more and better versions in time. I'm glad I decided to take a chance on only using my iPad Pro and the Affinity Photo software to process my photos. It's not a direct replacement for my normal workflow but it has allowed me to process and post photos relatively quickly while on the road. Many were edited in Amtrak trains moving at upwards of 70 mph or in the hotels we stayed in after many hours driving. WiFi has often been spotty to non-existent so I just used my cell service if that was available. I'll apologize now for the misspelled words and poor grammar in the posts from the last couple of weeks. My time to edit and write has been very limited and frankly, I've been tired from all the traveling. It's a good tired though. I'll go back and make some needed corrections as soon as I can.

Some of you reading this may know that my Mom passed away a few months ago. I hadn't taken a real vacation in several years as I had my hands full being a primary caregiver for her. This has been a cathartic experience and while I still think about her everyday, this trip has helped move me along the path of healing.

While I greatly appreciate and welcome the new readers/viewers of this blog, I'd like to acknowledge the long time readers who have come back after my not posting for several years. Yesterday's post had about 1,100 unique views and the number of visitors has been steadily increasing in the past couple of weeks. For those of you who have kindly taken the time to reach out, I have received your messages and I will respond to everyone as soon as I can.

Thanks for joining me (virtually) on this journey. California and the final post of this Route 66 trip tomorrow!

Greg (Big Pixel Pusher)

Santa Fe New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona

I drove 384 miles today from Santa Fe New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona. We really enjoyed staying in Santa Fe. While all of the stores were displaying very beautiful but expensive things, very few tourists seemed to be purchasing things. It was clear that the Covid-19 virus has impacted Santa Fe hard. I would say that fully one third of the stores were vacant, another third were closed, and the remaining third that were open, weren't busy. The town was not packed at all and those tourists that were there were not carrying packages. Anyway, we stayed at the historic La Fonda Hotel. I woke up around 4:30 and decided to check out the Orionids meteor shower. While I didn't see any, there were countless stars in the sky above Santa Fe.

We knew we had a long drive to Flagstaff so we got up early, had breakfast at a nice cafe that has been in the same location since 1909 and got on the road. We refueled the minivan and ourselves in Gallup New Mexico. We then decided to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona (such a fine sight to see).

Our stop here was brief but enjoyable. The road from Windslow to Flagstaff seemed to mainly be climbing and we passed several towering mesas and red rocks were prevalent.

Tomorrow we intend to return to Route 66 to see the Arizona towns of Williams, Seligman, Kingman, and Oatman.

Flaming Heart

Flaming Heart, originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher.

Here's another shot of the "tattoo" motorcycle Kathy and I saw at Buddy Stubbs Car and Motorcycle show in Phoenix Arizona. I had already taken a bunch of HDR sequences of this bike, packed up my camera gear and was waiting in the shade for Kathy to finish when I remembered I had my lens baby with me. I decided to go back and get a few more shots.

Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising, originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher.

Kathy and I had driven to Tempe, Arizona to watch her son play baseball against the Sun Devils. Early one morning, before the game we drove over to Phoenix to a Harley Davidson dealer to attend a car/motorcycle show. This was the most impressive bike there and the most impressive bike I’ve ever seen. The front forks had been engraved and the entire bike hand painted in a sort of tattoo style that was very cool. I later found some information about the artist who painted this bike and it apparently took quite a while to complete.