I slept late this morning,  so we didn’t leave Henderson,  NV until about 9 AM.  We opened our bottle of champagne last night  to celebrate the end of the road achieved earlier in the day and this might have xontributed to the late start to the day. Our drive took us through the Lake Mead Recreation Area for about 45 miles. First time ever in this federally managed area. Once again our senior passes saves us an entry fee.  What beautiful scenery!  Red rocks and yellow rocks and many mountains to see. Not too many towns along this route.   The largest, Overton NV, was at the end just before the junction with I-15 that we had to take to get to Zion.  Here the Murano turned over 100,000 miles! Even I-15 had great scenery in this part of the country.   We passed through 3 states-NV, AZ & UT.  Sort of like being back in Delaware!  We stopped for lunch in St. George, UT.   I was really surprised at the urban sprawl and its accompanying traffic headaches. We exited the interstate a few miles past St. George and gradually made our way to smaller and smaller number of lanes and traffic signals on our way to Springdale,  UT just outside Zions where we had reservations at another Best Western.  Immediately aftwr checking in, we headed for the park to make plans for our day tomorrow.  Took the shuttles to the last stop and took a hike of 5 miles along the river to the famous Narrows. Got the shuttle down and stopped at Weeping Rock and took another hike of about 1 mile.  Shuttle once more to the History Museum to check out the views for tomorrow morning’s photo op at sunrise. Enjoyed dinner from our supplies on the balcony at the end of the hall near our room.  Saw bats flitting about getting their dinner too. Earl(ier) to bed tonight hopefully.

Well, we got an early stat today (8 AM) as we wanted to see the other side of Joshua Tree National Park. We drove from the East entrance to the West entrance a distance of about 12 miles.  Our objective was to visit the “Hidden Valley” area.  We arrive at the parking area about 9 AM and got our water and hiking poles for the one mile loop trail.  Back around 10  AM.  It was a nice walk and before the heat of the day!

Joyce in a tree!

Joyce on a rock.

We made a decision to cut off a few miles of the historic route 66 so we could make it to Glendora, CA instead of San Bernadino.  Upon exiting JTNP, we took CA-247 NW to Barstow and reconnected with 66.  Granddaughter Leah would really have like to travel this road!  She likes traveling over the hills where you defy gravity for a fraction of a second.  This road was rolling hills over the undulating terrain of the Mojave desert.  It was a beautiful drive!

Barstow at 11:30 AM.  We tried to find a geocache here, but were unsuccessful.  Did get some photos of a Harvey House hotel and an old iron bridge still in service today.  Other places we passed through were:

Lenwood
Hodge
Helendale

Just before reaching Oro Grande, we paced a BNSF train for a couple of miles.  Joyce couldn’t resist rolling down the window and waving at the engineer until she got a toot from the train’s horn.  What fun!
Oro Grande (here we stopped to take some photos of a place that had been there since 1929–the Iron Hog Saloon.  We didn’t go in!!

Victorville (got lost in this town due to unclear instructions and heavy traffic.  a small detour got us back on track.  We had to take about 20 miles of I-15 after Victorville)

Between Victorville and San Bernadino we exited to take an older section of 66 through the mountains.  It was an area called the Blue Cut and was built as a 4 lane in 1931 and was an improvement over the earlier alignment.  We found a virtual geocache there.  When we got ready to return to I-15 the on ramp was closed and we had a detour.  This required a return to I-15N for about 10 miles to get back on (-15S.  Construction!

San Bernadino resulted in a visit to McDonalds–something Joyce swore she’d never do, but in this case insisted that we stop.  Of course, this was the original site of the McDonalds restaurant.

Rialto (passed the other Wigwam Motel without hardly blinking!)
Fontana (saw Bono’s Historic Orange  (shaped) drink stand.  Closed.)
Rancho Cucamanga
Upland (we stopped for a Buffalo Burger at the Buffalo Inn)
Claremont

Driving across the desert one is reminded of how large the country is. There were many changes in the scenery and vegetation as we made our way.  Traffic was never a problem until we got to the larger cities.  Then urban sprawl and heavy traffic made for slow driving.  Another thing, you don’t have to mow lawns out in the desert!  Of course, I can’t imagine what possesses people to live in this environment anyway.  I’m sure they would say the same about Wilmington though.

We had wind in our hair most of the morning and only switched to A/C around 2 PM for a while.  Later in the day (after dinner at the Buffalo Inn) we changed back to wind in our hair.  It was nice driving in the morning and early evening.

Glendora was the stop for the night.

Tomorrow we get to Santa Monica and the end of Route 66.  We plan on starting our return drive almost immediately.  We still have no plan for that part of the journey other than we will be in Salt Lake City to visit with Jeannie, Mark and Riley for a few days.

Yesterday we drove 230 miles, today only 90 but we ended ip the same place we started!  We decided on two  nights in Twentynine Palms,  CA so we could recover from the Desert Rat Day’s activities and the late arrival.  This was an easy day.

Most of the morning we spent in Joshua Tree National Park.  What was really amazing os the stark change in the plants between the Mohave Desert and the Colorado Desert that come together in the park. We stopped on the visitor center on the way back.  Made good use of our national parks senior pass again.

There was a BBQ place in town. Stopped in for lunch to get Joyce her fix.  The first since Santa Fe! Had enough left over for dinner tonight.  Since it was 103 today this afternoon we caught up on managing the many photos taken on the trip in the A/C.

We discovered another local find on our way out of the park.  A local astronomy club had established an observatory just outside the north entrance.  We stopped in to check it out and there was actually someone onsite since it was Saturday.  We were waved over by Mike who was proud to show us around and talk about their future plans to build a 300 seat observatory.  He was especially interested in explaining the “orrery” they have constructed.   An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system the illustrates the relative positions of planets and other heavenly bodies.  See www.skysthelimit29.org for information.

We returned to Joshua Tree National Park near sunset to take a few more photos.  Arrived a little late, so am not expecting the images to be very good.  On our way back we atopped at the observatory for their Saturday evening telescope sky viewing program.

zzz zzz…..  on the road tomorrow!

Here is the geoart for Rt. 66 showing in yellow the caches we did today.  Covered 4 miles in 2-1/2 hours getting these 20 caches that make up the lower part of the “6”.  113 degrees and really, really bright sun!

Today we knew we’d be crossing the Mohave Desert once we left Kingman, AZ.  And what a day it was!  As we expected hot weather today, we decided to leave earlier than most of the other days.  So, we were up, had coffee & breakfast, packed the car and were on our way at 7:30 AM.

On the way out of Kingman, we took some time to photograph some of the buildings and signs.  Then we found our way to historic Route 66 known as Oatman Road west of Kingman.  Oatman Road continued west over the Black Mountains.  Along the way, the variety of cacti changed from the east side to the west side.  And the road, well, it was a Mini road!  We stopped on the way up the mountain at a local establishment called Cool Springs Cabins where we met and talked with the proprietor while we obtained a couple of Pepsi’s and a post card before continuing on our way.  We got some good advice and learned that the trip over to Oatman was 8 miles and included 122 curves/switchbacks over Sitgraves Pass.

Top speed–20 mph with some places marked 15 and a few at 10 mph.  A great ride!

Oatman, AZ is famous for its free roaming burros.  We saw 8 or 10 and photographed a few.  Otherwise, the town is mostly a tourist mecca.  Moving on to, the next place on our list was Needles, CA.  We photographed some saw tooth shaped mountains and the “Welcome to California” sign as we crossed the Colorado River.

There was a noticeable difference in the arid climate between Oatman and Needles–much drier and the vegetation changed again.  Different cacti!

In Needles, we took a few photos and took an alternative route through town on a second pass following the instructions from our maps.  If doing it again, I’d say these few blocks don’t add any value to the trip.  On the way out of town, we had some trouble finding the route and took CA-95 N heading toward Nevada.  We figured it out after 8 miles and turned around to get back on the route.  When we got back to the correct turnoff, it was marked going south, but there was no sign on the north bound side.

This put us in the direction of Chamblis and Amboy.  This was where Joyce had staked out a geocaching expedition in the Mohave Desert.  It’s a special kind of cache called geoart.  From the map, there were a lot of geocaches 0.1 mile apart that formed the US highway shield, two “6” figures and the letters RT at the top.  Just like the signs.  There was no thought of doing all of these, but we did about 24 in about 2-1/2 hours.  Walking around the Mohave Desert between 1:30 and 4:00 PM was a hot experience!  We had plenty of water, food in case we got lost, walking sticks and a GPSr.  We found all but one on the circular part of one “6” but didn’t want to continue  to finish the 6 because of time in the sun and heat.

Gary in the desert!

The Mohave Desert….

Oh, yeah, speaking of heat, here’s how the day went:

9:30 AM       90 degrees
11:30 AM  101 degrees
12:00 N      102 degrees
12:30 PM  104 degrees
12:40 PM  105 degrees
12:56 PM  107 degrees
01:00 PM 108 degrees
01:10 PM 106 degrees
04:45 PM 113 degrees
05:30 PM 107 degrees

We had 5-60 air conditioning until about 12:30 when we turned the A/C on for the rest of the day.

While walking around in the Mohave, we lost site of the car for most of the time.  It would be easy to get totally lost within about 0.25 miles.  On the way back after finding the last cache, I kept thinking what if we can’t find the car (failed to mark it’s location on the GPSr when we started out) or it went missing.  Fortunately, the first cache we found was within sight of the car.

I also found that I could “smell” the heat because the air was different and the arid climate changed the ability to smell.  It was probably 113 to 114 during our caching experience.  Saw a few lizards, a jackrabbit and very little else.  The vegetation was also limited.  We had a good time and drank all the water doing this.

After the cache, we had a cold beer in the car while the A/C ran to cool off the car.  Plus a few crackers for sustenance to get us to Roy’s Café in Amboy, CA.  We found a cache at Roy’s and had a Route 66 Rootbeer each before continuing on our way to Twentynine Palms, CA where planned to spend a couple of nights and see Joshua Tree National Park before returning to the historic Route 66 drive.

Arrived in Twentynine Palms about 5:30 and checked in to the Best Western, unloaded the car and sat back to soak up some cool while watching the news, Wheel and Jeopardy.  Maybe the pool will be next!

No pictures of the desert rats though!

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.