The Big Road Trip – Day 18

My 18th day on the road began in Winslow, Arizona. I don’t know if Winslow is famous for anything other then being one of the many towns that the old original Rt 66 passed through on the way from Chicago to Los Angeles and the Eagles hit song, “Take It Easy” where the line, “Well, I’m standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona . . .” came from, but Winslow was left behind in time.

When I arrived the evening before, I found the Denny’s (and not one of the better Denny’s I’ve ever been in, either) to grab a quick bite to eat. There I met Arthur, my server, who I learned was of Hopi, Navajo, Apache, Italian, Spanish ancestry. A good looking, young man, Arthur was born and raised in the Winslow area. Arthur wasn’t to talkative like servers in other restaurants I’d stopped at along the way, but pleasant and courteous enough. When I asked him about Winslow, he said it’s existence was based on the BNSF Railroad and tourists like me – mainly attracted there by the Eagles song. He said the town fell into decline during the Great Depression and has never recovered. I can testify to that from a visual perspective when I drove through it today in the daylight.

It is full of ruins, abandoned buildings, boarded up buildings, shacks and shanties for the most part. Very little looked like it was flourishing Rt 66 goes right through the center of the town – which appeared to be most of the town. The easterly part of Rt 66 was the main street and the westerly part of Rt 66 was one block to the north. The main street had about a two block section that had a number of tourist traps and museums (if you could call them that) amidst numerous vacant and often vagrant buildings. It was pretty sad. Tight in the middle of the downtown there is an intersection with a huge US Rt 66 shield like the US highway signs along the road, painted in the middle of the intersection. On opposing corners of that intersection were two souvenir shops with signs over the doors, on said “Standing on the Corner” and the other said “Standing on a Corner”. On the third corner was a vacant lot with a visitor information kiosk and on the fourth corner was a fake bricked wall made to look like an old building with Winslow painted on it above a painted window with a car, like a car showroom. It was like a Hollywood movie lot façade and designed for tourists to take photos. In front of the cement pavers that gave it a patio effect, there was a bronze statue of Glenn Frey, one of the original members of the Eagles with a guitar. Yes, I have a picture of me with the wall as the backdrop and with my arm around a bronze statue – how typically tourist. But, I couldn’t resist – it’s the tacky thing to do.

I spent a little time on the corner taking pictures of other people with the statue – hey, I met some nice people. I told them I was going to make up a sign that would say, “Will take pictures for food!” They thought I was kidding – Ha! I was! I had spent enough time in Winslow, Arizona and it was time to move on. There was something far more awesome on my schedule for later in the day.

So, I filled the car up with gas at the Flying J Travel Center (Truck Stop in the old days) on the outskirts of town, got on the Freeway and off I went heading for Amarillo, TX. Oh, and I had filled it up with engine coolant before I left the motel a bit earlier. The drive to Amarillo was amazing.

I went through numerous towns as I left Arizona and drove through New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. What a beautiful state. The scenery changed every few minutes. The mesas and buttes and mountains and rock formations were fantastic. The colors were gorgeous. There is so much to go back and see. I just didn’t have the time on this trip to do it all. I passed through Albuquerque (I spelled that without looking it up, pretty good, huh?) which appears to be a very modern, city in a beautiful valley surrounded by lush hills. Of course, I don’t think I was ever below 4,000 feet above sea level and even Albuquerque is over a mile high – and we only think of Denver as being the “Mile High City.” I guess I was well over 7,000 feet a couple more times during this leg of the trip, too. The city was beautiful. The overpasses and buildings and landscaping really blended into the high plains and mountainous terrain. I have to go back and visit it again. I also drove through the area where the painted desert and the petrified forest were. I couldn’t see anything of the petrified forest, but I’m sure some of the landscape bordering the I-40 was the edges of the painted desert. It was beautiful, I’ll have to go back and revisit all of this area.

I stopped in Tucumcari, New Mexico to refuel, take a personal pit stop and grab a snack to keep me going down the road. Carolyn called me there and after I got back on the road I called her back and we chatted a bit until I ran out of cellular signal and a huge BLACK storm formed very quickly in front of me. My destination was Amarillo and I really wasn’t sure I was going to make it that far. As I crossed the border into TX, Nature’s Fury let lose. I got off the phone with Carolyn so I could concentrate on the road. It was not night fall, yet, but it was a dark as night, torrential rain and hail pelted the car, high winds were blowing the car around and there was an amazing lightning show. I could find no place to pull off and get out of the storm and call it a night. But, about as fast as it hit, about 20 minutes later, I drove out of the storm on the eastern side. From there it was smooth sailing. The first place I could find reasonable looking accommodations for the night was . . . Amarillo. So, I made it.

I had driven from Pacific Time in AZ to Mountain Time in New Mexico to Central Time in the northern panhandle of Texas. So, I lost two hours of time in time changes – arriving in Amarillo about 10:30 PM (which would have been 8:30 PM where I started). So, I drove the same amount of time that I had planned, but got to my destination two hours later then I would have liked to. I found a room, not one of the best of the trip, but it was clean, had a comfortable bed and free WiFi. And Day 18 ended when I turned out the light for a night’s rest.

More in the next posting.

Enthusiastically,
Ed