The Nissan dealer finished up the oil change and a small repair to the driver’s door window around 10:00 AM this morning.  The Murano got its first car wash since leaving on August 10th. Thus, we were able to put on the Route 66 stickers that we had obtained in the gift shop at the Painted Desert visitor center.  California to be added tomorrow.

The dealer was located very near to historic Route 66, so we did some “drive by shooting” of a few of the signs and buildings along the way out of town.  Joyce drove, Gary shot!

Joyce wanted to get a geocache at the visitor’s center located near the old train station.  Success!  Speaking of trains, have I mentioned how many we see out here in the West?  It seems like no matter where we are on Route 66 we see a train about every half hour.  All BNSF.  It is absolutely amazing how many trains there are to be seen and how long they are,  Most have at least 4 engines to pull the load, but today we traveled alongside one that had 4 engines up front and 3 more in the middle working really hard to move a train that had to be 2 miles long westward.  Warren Buffet must be really happy with the train freight business!

Okay, today was special in a couple of ways.  Number one was the amount of travel we did on the 1931 alignment of the route.  We had 3 stretches which today are considered primitive roads (can you say dirt roads?).  The first section was 4 miles long, the second 3.5 and the third 2 miles in length.  These were between Bellemont and Williams, AZ.  Glad to have AWD and higher ground clearance!  The high spot on the historic Route 66 was on the second of these sections.

In Williams we were out taking photographs and were greeted by a local named John and his brother Jim.  They offered some great advice for taking the old alignment to Kingman.  And boy were they right.  We saw our first Burma Shave signs along the way and had an uninterrupted 75 miles on the two lane road at 65 mph with almost not traffic.  Much better than I-40W!!  We passed through the Indian reservation and saw mostly open range.  It’s a really, really big country when you escape the east coast.

Another highlight was today’s lunch.  Joyce had been waiting for the chance to eat at the Snow Cap Diner in Seligman.  It was a real treat!  Cheeseburgers better than  Five Guys and the very best milk shakes!  Joyce had chocolate and caramel and I had chocolate and peanut butter.

We ate at about 3:15 again and so we needed little for dinner.  We also got some nice photos here and another successful geocache find.

Then on to Kingman, AZ where we arrived about 6 PM after driving 180 miles today.  To the desert tomorrow!

We paused in Flagstaff,  AZ last night to reconnect with Route 66.  We will miss a dew miles because of the side trip to see the Grand Canyon.

The Murano is due for an oil change in about a hundred miles and Flagstaff is the best location to see a Nissan dealer.

I probably haven’t made any comments about our choice of vehicles for this trip.  I am reminded of a decision I made more than 10 years ago to never be without a 4WD or AWD vehicle.   The Mini could have made much of the drive,  but the added ground clearance allowed us to take a number of other alternate 66 alignments.  The Murano has performed admirably!  So far only the left front wheel bearing replacement and now an oil change.  Not bad!

Waiting now at the Flagstaff Nissan dealer for the oil change to be completed,  then on to Kingman via Route 66!

This was our last day to visit the Grand Canyon before returning to the historic Route 66 trip in Flagstaff, AZ.  Since we had a mostly cloudy and wet day yesterday, it was great to awake to sunshine!

The plan was to take the 1.5 mile roundtrip hike down to the OOH AAH overlook which was 760 feet lower that the canyon rim.  The Park Service bills this as a moderate hike.

We drove the 57 miles to the GCNP area near the visitor center where the shuttle buses operate.   We got the orange bus to get to the South Kaibab Trailhead and started down the canyon at 10:15 AM.  Going down was pretty easy–that gravity works both directions, but down is better than up!  There are quite a few switchbacks, especially near the top.

The mules use this trail to get to the canyon bottom and we noticed this right away by the presence of a very recognizable odor and little piles of fresh droppings on the trail.  This lasted about 1/3 the way down the trail and then was no more.  We were glad for this!  We were fortunate  (?) to actually see the mules returning from the bottom when we were about 1/2 way down.

The view from the OOH AAH point was very nice especially since the air was less hazy today following the storm that cleared the canyon air.  We took quite a few pictures on the way down and from the point. Here I am standing near the point pondering the trip back up the trail.

And here is a photo showing the switchbacks with people making the hike.  (They are pretty small on the trail).

We returned to the rim after a bit of heavy breathing around 12:10 nearly two hours for the hike.

Since the canyon was clearer today, we decided to rest up by having lunch near the bus area in the Grand Canyon Village and take a couple more stops on the red line in order to have better photography conditions than yesterday.  We rode the bus instead of walking–this should surprise no one given that we’d just hiked back up to the rim!  We revisited Pima Point and Hermits Rest and had better lighting.

This Grand Canyon excursion was a side trip to the main Route 66 adventure.  We returned to Route 66 by exiting the park at the south entrance and made our way to Flagstaff finding a cache along the way.

Once again, we had dinner from the supplies brought with us rather than finding a place to eat out.  We spent most of the evening planning the next few days of travel and caches to be found.  Gary downloaded a couple of his 8GB cards from the camera so there would be some to refill with more images.

The Murano has to go to the local dealer in Flagstaff for an oil change, but we have a noise in the driver’s side window that needs to be checked out.  Hoping this doesn’t take too long as we have a lot of miles to cover tomorrow!

Another great day on the road!  Drove 150 miles today.

We started the day in Holbrook, AZ by taking some photographs about sunrise of the few signs and structures of interest in town.   Since the Wigwam had no coffee either in rooms or lobby, we also stopped at Joe & Aggies Café for coffee to go.   Then back to the Wigwam to finish getting ready for the day and a few additional photos.

We departed Holbrook about 8 AM–early for us!  We passed through Joseph City, AZ and stopped at the Jackrabbit Trading Post for a geocache and a few pictures.  Once again we saw a lot of BNSF trains between Jackrabbit and Winslow, AZ (yes, the famous Winslow in song). In Winslow we stopped to take a few photos of Gary and Joyce with the statue that is a requisite stop on Route 66 trips.

Good night from the Grand Canyon National Park Area.

Oh, yeah, maybe Joyce is right and we haven’t been here before.  Of course the decision still depends on reaching the North Rim sometime in the next couple of weeks.

We also stopped for a geocache at the famous La Pasada Hotel in Winslow.  It is the last of the hotels that were associated with the railroad stops and AMTRAK still stops there today.  It was a very beautiful hotel.

It was about 11:30 AM (MST) when we arrived in Winslow.  After our caching and photography opportunities, we continued on our way to Cameron, AZ where we had decided to spend two nights.  We arrived at 12:30 PM (MST) today and were able to check in to the famous Cameron Trading Post and Motel.  Have a nice room overlooking the Little Colorado River and some nice red rocks.

After checking in, we decided to make our first foray into the Grand Canyon National Park. It was 25 miles from Cameron to the East entrance to the park.  We drove the additional 30 miles to along the South Rim to the main visitor area.  We stopped at 5 or 6 places to take some beautiful photos.  We arrived at the main visitor center around 5 PM.  Took a few photos, but the sun was fading behind clouds and there was some lightening and thunder in the distance.  We left!  Figuring that we’d be back tomorrow for more photo ops.

Somewhere along the GCNP visit today, Joyce learned that the Grand Canyon is bigger than the state of Delaware.  Perhaps shocking, but really, no surprise given the smallness of DE!

It took over an hour to return to Cameron for our hotel.  About 60 miles.  It included a brief stop to photograph two elk fighting for dominance and a geocache find in a primitive camping area just off the main road.

Here are a couple of photos from today.  Unfortunately, the other 4 couldn’t be uploaded due to slow internet connection.

If you think you internet access is slow, you should try these remote areas of the country.  It reminds me what a vast country we have to provide infrastructure for and the difficulties those of us with faster connections have when we are without!

We drove about 250 miles today including the 120 from Cameron to GCNP and back.  We also decided on an unscheduled side trip to see the Meteor Crater.  When we got there we discovered it wasn’t part of the NP system and cost $16 per person to look at a big hole in the ground.  We decided against this activity and kept on drivin’ on.

After getting back to the hotel, we found a nearby cache and took a few photos of the last remnants of the sunset.  Dinner was from our supplies and included cheese & crackers, peanut butter crackers, apples and, of course, red wine.

We plan to arise early tomorrow and make our way before sunrise to the visitor center and take the park provided shuttles to the areas west of the visitor center.  The day is basically unstructured otherwise.

No photos today–sorry, but there’s no easily accessible Internet here in Holbrook, AZ!

We left Gallup, NM this morning about 8:30 AM MDT. We took a few photos on the way to Holbrook, AZ where we had a reservation at the Wigwam Motel–one of the last still in operation on 66.

We found the first geocache of the 6say at the AZ Welcome Center around 9:30 AM MST.  Just like that we moved all our timepieces an hour earlier.  Time to adjust again.

We took a couple of alternate routings today.  The first was an early alignment  at the Pine Springs exit off of I-40W.  Here we drove about 4-1/2 miles on a dirt road that was in pretty good shape.  Along the way we got to see and traverse the Querino Canyon high bridge built in 1929.  It was interesting to photograph.  Also at this site were the remains of a burned down trading post.

NOTE: For a good portion of AZ the interstate took over the 66 right of way so there is very little of the old alignment still available-no choice but to take the interstate!

The next attempt to see the old alignment of 66 was at the Pinta Road exit.   Here we took a one lane dirt access road that took us to a closed section of the old highway.  Unfortunately the information we had was out of date.  There was a gate chained closed and a No Trespassing sign on it.  Turned around and continued our journey to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park.   We arrives there around 11:30 and stopped in at the visitor center.  After we got our map we were ready to go.

Made use of our Senior Pass to gain admission without cost.  Then we were off to many stops to take photos, a few walks (you couldn’t really call them hikes) and to discover 5 geocaches.  Ate a packed lunch about 1:30.

We departed the park around 4:45 and made it to Holbrook around 5:30 MST where we checked in at the Wigwam Motel for a 1950s/60s experience.

Ate steak again….  split a filet at the Butterfield Stage Co  Steak house and drank a local beer that was just okay.   The restaurant was started as an overland stage company carrying US Mail.  They were the only ones going through Indian territory and when people wanted to go there they had to improve their service to carry passengers.

Agter dinner we tried to take some sign pbotos and the bought some beer at a drive up liquor store–on a Sunday night no less!

Okay, we’re esconced in our teepee for the night.  On to the Grand Canyon tomorrow!

We finally left ABQ around 10:30 this morning after chasing balloons and having a later breakfast.  We had to back track a little on the way out of town because we misread the instructions from the 8-map publications from about 6 years ago.  But that was okay, we got to see a couple of things we hadn’t seen. Once we were on our way, the traffic was pretty heavy for a Saturday until we had gone about 15 or 20 miles SW of ABQ. Urbanization occurs everwhere…  Then we were back into more open road. Places on the map today were: Laguna Indian Pueblo (Reservation) Correo Laguna Budville San Fidel Grants Prewett Gallup At Correo we took an alternate alignment for the historic Route 66.  This was a really great drive on a mostly dirt/gravel road although there were a few miles that had old pavement still showing.  We were only able to drive about 12 mph while avoiding potholes, washboard road surfaces and 3 or 4 other cars!  This section was about 10 or 12 miles long.

After we got back on better pavement, we had to go around a mesa and a formation called Owl Rock.  Looked just like an owl, too!  This was between Budville and Laguna.

San Fidel was a ghost town with three or four old abandoned buildings.  But it had a new post office!  We found a geocache here that was protected by a RT 66 sign. We saw a lot of freight trains today.  They seemed to be about every 20 or 30 minutes.  It was a big surprise to see the number of FedEx and UPS trucks on the open cars! Between Prewett and Gallup we were finally seeing the red rock formations the southwest is known for.  Also saw some lava fields in close proximity to the red rock formations.  Pretty interesting. A few miles out of Gallup we stopped to see what was in the Red Rock Park.  Mostly it seemed to be a place for limited camping and rodeo activity.  Quiet today, but surely rodeo season is coming soon.  There was an interesting old post office that we photographed and a rock formation called Church Rock.  Then we continued on to Gallup. After checking into our hotel for the night the sun was still pretty high in the west.  So, we took that time to photograph the motel signs in warm sunlight followed by dinner.  We ate at a 3 diamond AAA rated restaurant called Earl’s since 1947.  On the menu they had a selection of half dinners for the smaller appetites.  We both selected fried chicken.  This was one of the few places that served real vegetables with the meal.  Had a choice, too!  Joyce got salad, green beans and mashed potatoes  while Gary selected pinto beans, mashed potatoes and vegetable soup.  The food was pretty good and it wasn’t a chain restaurant.  However, the local population of artisans made the rounds trying to sell handmade jewelry and other treasures.  We said no thank you at least 20 times! Following dinner Gary wanted to take a drive on a road he had seen on the GPS map while photographing the motels signs.  It was called Superman Canyon Road. Hopefully there are some nice pictures of red rock and a sunset. Before returning to the hotel we made one more pass to photograph the neon signs lit up at dusk.  Harder to do than you might think.

While having our morning coffee in the room this morning,  I happened to notice some hot air balloons reflected in the mirror. I wanted to photograph them, so I hurried through my shower and decided to get in the car and chase them down.

Joyce at first more interested in breakfast, but on second thought decided to join me on the chase.  They had started west of town and were heading east.  So we hopped on I-40E and zoomed over to I-25N and got off a couple of exits later.  After driving around a shopping center for about 5 minutes we came upon one balloon landing in an open field and were able to get quite a few photographs.  We also got an opportunity to talk with the balloonists and their passengers.

What a start to the day !

Well we spent the rainy morning doing laundry, downloading photos from Joyce’s camera and making plans for tomorrow’s trip to Gallup, NM.

To satisfy midday hunger we decided to make our way to Old Town.  Found one cache on the stroll around the square.  Then located La Hacienda where we had a nice lunch of enchiladas.

Can you tell which belongs to Gary or Joyce?

Then we tried to unsuccessfully locate another two caches in a nearby park.  We used most of the afternoon to do some grocery shopping at Target to beef up our supplies for the next few days.  Since I had failed to pack long sleeve shirts, we also found an REI here in ABQ where we were able to find an ExOfficio long sleeve bugs away shirt for the cooler upcoming nights in the high altitudes of Arizona.

Dinner in our hotel!  A little TV and then nighty night for our trip to Gallup, NM tomorrow.

We awoke to a cloudy, rainy morning!  Looks like we made the right decision to go to Sandia Peak yesterday.  Will need to find a few indoor activities until it clears up this afternoon.

Here are a couple of photos from yesterdays activities.

A beautiful cactus from the La Bajada hike

A petroglyph from the Petroglyph National Monument of unknown meaning