Route 66 (at 100) 2026

We started the day literally a couple of miles down the road at the old Kingman powerhouse which has an excellent display celebrating the 100 year history of Route 66: Mr Dz legendary diner (not visited this time) in the background ⤴️ Imagine the early Pioneers crossing America in one of these, travelling at night to avoid the scorching heat of the day on rutted, mud trails? In the 1930s during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl thousands of mid-westerners loaded up their worldly good and headed towards California to seek a better life, as described in Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath": Finally, post WW2, America boomed and in the 1950s and 1960s Amercans loved nothing more than a road trip on Route 66 in cars like this immaculate Studebaker: This classic Cadillac appeared in the car park: On then to our last section of Route 66 on this trip, the Sitgreaves Pass otherwise known as the Oatman H...

130 miles today mostly along the longest driveable section of the old Route 66. We left Williams under a beautiful blue Arizona sky: We picked up Route 66 a few miles west of Ash Fork: More stunning views: First stop Seligman self proclaimed "Birthplace of Historic Route 66": Banana malt at the famous Snow Cap diner: Resisted the temptation to stop here though: Onward to the Grand Canyon Caverns (actually nowhere near the Grand Canyon!) and a most interesting 3/4 mile guided tour over 200 feet underground. Ozzy Osborne once stayed in the room that used to be available for overnight accommodation. Perhaps most interesting of all was the huge stockpile of crackers and medical supplies put there in 1962 to support 2000 people for two weeks at the height of the Cuban missile crisis ..... and still sitting there along with pallets of water bottles put...

So, the hotel we had booked for tonight at the Grand Canyon, the El Tovar, is temporarily closed, somewhat ironically given the weather yesterday, through lack of water. The weather forecast for today was for heavy rain and thunderstorms (no tornadoes!) so we decided to abandon our plan for a return visit to the Grand Canyon and instead to do a 180 mile side trip around a (small) part of Arizona previously undiscovered (by us). We were partly inspired by a guy we met in the laundry room back in Tucumcari who recommended a trip to Sedona ........ ..... and so 20 miles west to Ash Fork, an old town on Historic Route 66 and, sadly, yet another example of boom leading to bust. We were especially drawn to the little local museum run entirely by volunteers. In short, Ash Fork was originally established as a railway town as it was at an important intersection of the Santa Fe railroad. It thrived still further with the opening of Route 66 in 1926 and even bo...

The area we travelled into today, 220 miles west across the state line into Arizona, was subject to a red warning of severe rain, thunderstorms, hail (the size of baseballs!), high winds and, most unseasonably, tornadoes!! Thankfully, we only got the first two on the list of doom. It certainly rained (hard) and there were some pretty impressive flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder when we arrived in Williams. There is really not much of old Route 66 left on this pretty barren stretch so we largely travelled down Interstate 40 to get the journey done as quickly as possible. En route we stopped in Winslow, Arizona: I was delighted to find that the coffee shop opposite THE corner has rediscovered the recipe for the White Cow Milkshake 😋 first sampled on our trip 4 years ago but, apparently lost after a change of ownership 2 years ago: We ventured into a very soggy Williams to visit Safeway for some supplies,  top up with gas and to visit Pet...

We left Albuquerque on old Route 66 and pretty much stuck with the old road as far as we could (we ran out of road after around 110 miles at Continental Divide - the point at which rivers start flowing west towards the Pacific rather than east towards the Atlantic). Last week was the annual balloon festival in Albuquerque and there are still a few odd balloons making the most of the early mornings: As we left Albuquerque: We ventured around the notorious Deadman's Curve: ....... and stopped at one of many derelict gas stations and motels along the way that died a death literally in sight of the Interstate highways that killed them off: Above: old Route 66 on the left and Interstate 40 to the right. More positively towns and cities along Route 66 have embraced the 100th anniversary including Grants: Whether on Route 66 or Interstate 40 the views in New Mexico are s...