Chapter 284

Last week during my mid-winter break we headed out to find some sunshine. Since our vacation to Arizona was such a hit last year, we decided to try the northern part of Arizona and drive more of Main Street, USA. Old historic Route 66. Given the wacky weather, we weren't sure what we were going to find when we arrived.

Oddly enough, a Mustang convertible was a good deal in the dead of an Arizona winter so we picked it up in Las Vegas and drove off to find adventure.

It was a sunny day and as it warmed up, we put the top down. Our first stop was Hoover Dam. All the traffic used to go over this dam, but after 9-11, a giant new bypass bridge was built. You can see it in the background and the road over the dam is now a dead-end.

 You can see how low the reservoir was the day we visited, even with the heavy rain Arizona has been experiencing lately. There's going to be some complaining about not enough water for California pools and fountains this summer.

Once we passed the dam and got on to old Route 66, everything had a Route 66 mural, painting of the Route 66 sign on the side of it, or if lacking in artistic skills, just a plain "66". This was on the side of a building in Kingman. Yes, those are camels on the mural. Camels were used to build the original trail that the train and, eventually, Route 66 were to follow.

Every place along Route 66 had mannequins on top of it, in front of it, inside it, or any other creepy place they could find to set them up and freak you out. In most cases, there was no historical value to them or their costuming. Just mannequins in various eras of clothing wearing wigs that were not on quite straight. Marilyn Monroe and Elvis were a big deal when it came to mannequins.

My first restroom involved Marilyn perched on a chair in the restroom with me. Why was this even allowed to happen???

We stopped at one of many mouldering general stores to see what China has sent for our viewing pleasure. We parked next to a police car that had obviously been parked there for a very long time. On Route 66 it is ok to just park old cars in your yard and it's called "historic". Here we call it a reservation.

There were a lot of cool old signs left along the highway. I'm pretty near sure that most of them don't work anymore, but they were fun to see along the way and added to the whole Americana experience.

 This is Seligman, the town that supposedly inspired the movie Cars. If you saw the movie, remember the part where Radiator Springs is a sleepy, disintegrating town that was barely surviving because the new freeway had bypassed them? They caught Seligman's personality perfectly in that movie. Here you can see the gift shop painted up a VW van to look like a character in Cars.

This old power generating building in Kingman has been repurposed as the visitor center. As you can see from the sign it is at 3,333.33 feet elevation.

We ate at this historic drive-in. Oprah Winfrey ate here and proclaimed their root beer the best she's ever had so I had to have one too. It was really good but...

More historical cars on "display" as we drove along America's Mother Road.

The old Burma-Shave signs have been resurrected by some company I didn't recognize but it added a nice touch along the road.

If you can get a gimmicky thing out on the highway to attract a couple more customers, they'll do it. This one used a low-flying aircraft as their loss leader.

Seligman Garage is one of the buildings that is featured in the Cars movie.

An old department store and a couple of travel lodges snooze away the years along the highway.

Another building featured in the movie is this old gas station. They are such awesome old buildings.

The Aztec motel is still chugging along...and the sign even still works.

Cesspool services, anyone?

Giant roosters were a sign of awesome fried chicken dinners back in the day. This one, like everything else, was wearing a Route 66 scarf. Perhaps to make up for the absence of awesome fried chicken nearby.

We stayed in the Marilyn Monroe room at the Wagon Wheel motel. I was not expecting to be watched over in my sleep by the super-sized face of Marilyn. Why does she have a giant ring and a giant diamond on her cheeks? That just made it creepier. I guess if you toss anything pink from Target at a room it becomes the Marilyn Monroe room. All the old motels have one, and from their websites, they all had the same decorator.

Bob's on a never-ending quest to find squished pennies for Carissa that she never decided she was going to collect. Bob decided she was collecting these many years ago. He has an unerring sense for finding these machines while we are travelling. He even found some machines that were not on the "Squished Penny" app that I downloaded to  my phone that is supposed to eliminate the joy of randomly coming across a penny machine and feeling like you've really accomplished something.

We ate BBQ dinner at a great diner along the highway. They weren't really smoking anything on this BBQ next to the sidewalk, but they did fill the tourists with ideas of where they wanted to eat when the time came since the smoke smell was amazing.

Yet another penny machine stop here on Main Street, USA. 

So you don't get over-stimulated/overwhelmed by our vacation pics, I'll save Grand Canyon and Sedona for next week so stay tuned for more overwhelming.

 Reagan's 36 week pictures. She has figured out how to dance. Next, she has to figure out how to dance to the beat of the music she's listening too.

Hmmm...what can I get into now? 

Hey Aunt Kyanne, what are you doing here? 

Reagan reading to her daddy on a weekend morning. Why in the middle of the floor in her room, I don't know but you gotta get that special time whenever you can.

Reagan on yet another zoo trip. Of course, at this point, Reagan doesn't realize she's looking at the same fish each time she comes to the zoo. I'm sure they are starting to recognize her by now.