Alfred at Last!

The waiter came over to get our drink orders at this cozy restaurant in downtown Flagstaff, Arizona.  Munchkinhead ordered a pomegranate margarita and showed him her Wisconsin ID.  Alfred ordered a margarita and showed him her Iowa ID.  I kind of wanted to order something just to show my California ID, but the restaurant had milk.

Munchkinhead and I had met up with Alfred in the morning when she arrived in Flagstaff.  We were so happy to see her!  She had arrived much earlier than originally anticipated (she had spent the past few days driving down from Iowa), so that meant we had time for some fun before she had to meet with her new supervisors.

First stop, the Prairie Museum.  It’s in an old indigent hospital and covers the history of Flagstaff.  We saw an old iron lung, lots of saddle stuff, and some other old stuff.  And we found the kid’s room.  Hee hee.  We built Lincoln Log structures, played school, dressed up like pioneer girls, served dinner and had a gun fight.

 

After the Prairie Museum, we all headed to Alfred’s new home at the Museum of Northern Arizona.  While she met with her people and was shown around her new home, Munchkinhead and I explored the museum.  It’s a fairly small museum, most of the exhibits are about Indians, though there is some geology and dinosaur stuff.  Alfred is going to be helping the museum catalogue its new plant and bug finds.

When we finished with the museum proper, Alfred showed us to her new home.  It used to be a chicken coop, but you can hardly tell. It’s a nice dorm-like room in a long building.  Her room is closest to the kitchen and bathroom buildings.   We helped her unload her car into her new room and then shared the cake we had brought for her to celebrate her new job and new home.

Then we set out for our next adventure of the day.  There’s a 10-mile gravel road in the area called Schultz Pass Road.  It goes between the San Francisco peaks.  We really wanted to go on this road, but alas, it was closed because it was still covered in snow.  So, we took a few pictures with some of the signs and decided to go see a National Monument north of town instead.

The drive to the monument was very beautiful, with lots of neat mountain scenery.  The monument was probably beautiful too, but we didn’t see it because we didn’t feel like paying for entry to the park.  We headed back down the long road linking the park to the highway.  Then, there it was, directly in front of us, the other end of Schultz Pass Road, and it was open!

We spent the next hour or so exploring gravel roads, taking pictures with signs and kicking up a huge cloud of dust.  Despite the snow on the ground outside, it was too hot in the car to not have the windows down.  Consequently, dust filled the inside of the car, coating the insides of our mouths with the flavor of a  bowling alley.  The outside of the car, once white, became a chalky grey color.  It’ll need a good washing and vacuuming by the time we return to the Yay.

The remainder of the evening was spent helping Alfred settle in, grocery shopping, unpacking and dinner at that delicious restaurant mentioned above.  We bid Alfred an early goodnight at about 9 and headed back to our hotel to prepare for our sunrise departure and long one-day drive back to the Yay.

We Got Our Kicks, and Plenty of Great Pics

The second day of our journey took Munchkinhead and me Bakersfield, California, where we stopped the night before, to our destination of Flagstaff, Arizona.  On I-40 and Hwy 58, the drive between Bakersfield and Flagstaff is about 6 hours.  We took 12 hours; we didn’t take I-40 or Hwy 58 much at all.  We took the old Route 66, at least where we could, and National Trails Hwy.

Arizona has maintained Route 66, highlighting it as an historic scenic route.  Although the Route overlaps with I-40 in some places, it is still separate through all the downtowns which Route 66 passed through back when it was the main thoroughfare.    The towns, even if very small, are still there and functioning.  In one area, there’s even a town who’s main street is designed to look like an old western town.  And there are still Burma Shave ads along the side of the road.  I was so excited to get to see real Burma Shave ads!!!

Route 66 in California is a whole ‘nother story.  The road is in bad shape, very rough, lots of cracks and pot holes.  The former towns along the route are now empty shells, disheveled buildings with half-collapsed frames, graffiti covered bricks, piles of old tires and rusting vehicles of yesteryear.  Even though there are frequent ramps leading to and from nearby I-40, there is nothing for miles and miles.

The scenery however, was magnificent in both states.  Arizona’s high mountains through which Route 66 winds round and round, up and down, narrow road, sharp turns and the most amazing views looking down into the valleys.  Munchkinhead and I had a lot of fun looking across to roads we could just make out across the great abyss and predicting if we would later be on that road.  We often were.  We stopped at many of the turn-offs to take pictures.

California’s Route was flatter than Arizona’s, with soft hills Munchkinhead called “roly poly hills,” flanked on either side by large mountains in the distance.  In some places, huge, jet black rocks, protruded from the cactus covered ground.  We took  pictures of these so Alfred could tell us what they were and how they got there. 

One really nice thing about Route 66 in California, we were pretty much the only car on the road.  (This was certainly not the case in Arizona.)  Being the only car on the road, we were able to stop whenever we wanted to take pictures, including pictures in the middle of the road.  (see above)

We were also pretty much the only car on National Trails Hwy, a windy, two-lane highway running roughly the same direction as Hwy 58 in California through some large hills/small mountain areas.  It was a very good thing that we were pretty much the only car on the road because Munchkinhead was driving!