Williams and Route 66

Williams claim to fame is that it is on Historic Route 66, know as 'America’s Main Street' or 'The Mother Road', it was the last town to be bypassed by Interstate 40 in 1984. In it’s heyday it was the main thoroughfare from Chicago to Santa Monica for the travellers seeking adventure in the West. Williams is now billed as 'The Gateway to the Grand Canyon' however it was originally a mountain town and logging centre, and once a home to gambling, opium dens and brothels. Now the charming 19^th century storefronts have t-shirt and souvenirs shops behind them and the Ma & Pa motels have been restored to their original glory.

Most of the buildings have preservation orders on them and so the art Nuevo petrol station is now the Cruiser’s Café 66 and tables and chairs replace the cars on the forecourt. Inside the walls are covered with old signs and murals eulogizing the famous highway and next door in the old workshop they sell every kind of souvenir you can think of stacked on shelves made from tail gates off old station wagons. Outside on the forecourt a huge oil drum Bar B Q was being lit and beside it was an enormous tray of ribs dripping with their secret spicy sauce.

After a couple of cold beers we walked back to the RV park just in time to watch the Steam Train return from it’s trip to the Grand Canyon, the owners of the RV park came out onto the veranda, rang the bell and waved, and the train driver blew the whistle and waved back, a ritual they carried out four times a day, every day! That evening they served supper from the Chuck Wagon while a guy with a guitar played on the stage. The food was good and free, just bring your own beer. Then when it got dark they showed a film ‘Second-hand Lions’ with Michael Cain and Robert Duval, on a screen nailed to the shed!

Bright and early Monday morning we set off on the motorbike on ‘Tour 3’ in the campsite leaflet. First we headed east on I-40 to Flagstaff, a brief run around town revealed a 19^th century downtown area with restaurants and microbreweries, at little too early for that so back out through the new town where throngs of students from the Northern Arizona University were dragging heavy bags, not sure why, I thought it was the summer holidays?

Then south on 89A and through Oak Creek Canyon, where the river winds its way down 16 miles of pools and falls between, sometimes sheer, rock walls rising 2500 feet on either side. At the top of the canyon we pulled into a rest area where Navajo people had stalls selling their jewellery, pottery and other items like bows, arrows, drums and pipes. The view from the overlook showed the road snaking down the mountain side to the valley below where a 60 seater coach was just beginning its journey up, hope we don’t meet that on a hairpin I thought! Our journey down was uneventfully and the coach passed us on a straight section near the top. We intended to stop at Slide Rock for lunch, where a natural water slide carved by the creek from the canyon floor provides a free water park and cooling ride. However, the world and their kids seem to have had the same idea and every inch of flat rock visible from the road was occupied by towels, chairs and people, so we decided to go back up the canyon a little way to a pull in we had seen. It was perfect, a small car park where the attendant let us park in a corner for free, we took our picnic down to the water's edge where we sat on rocks in the shade of the trees watching two fishermen trying to catch trout in the pool below the waterfall. We didn’t like to overstay our welcome so after about half an hour we pushed on into Sedona.

Situated at the foot of Oak Creek Canyon it has been the setting for hundreds of western movies in the land of ‘Red Rock Country’. The scenery was magnificent however the town was a tourist trap, fake western shop fronts selling expensive arty trivia.

We continued south west through Cottonwood and Clarkdale to Jerome, clinging to the slopes of Cleopatra Hill it was once a roaring mining town of 15,000 people and called ‘The Wickedest Town in the West’. It now has restored buildings, historic sites and a magnificent view.

We parked on one of the only flat streets in town and walled up the hill to the Spirit Room Bar, once part of the Connor Hotel it is now the liveliest watering hole in town. The extremely high ceilinged room was cool and the beer was cold and for the first time ever I finished my glass of beer before Dave! Back on the road again we continued on 89A to the 89 just north of Prescott, and turned north through China Valley, Paulden, Drake and the Prescott National Forest back to Williams, a 206 miles round trip. Once back in town we stopped at the Cruisers Café for a beer and the smell of the Bar B Q nearly made us decide to stay for supper but we had already got stuff out of the freezer so we headed back to the RV.

The next day they were starting the festivities for the run up to the 4^th of July so we walked into town and Dave spent some time looking at the Antique Tractor Show, then we walked down West Street past the Ma & Pa motels all decorated for the 4^th of July with ribbons and flags,

and popped into Pete’s Route 66 Gas Station where Dave found a tin advertising sign for Corvettes which we had to purchase of course.

Further down the street we looked in through the windows of Twisters 50’s Soda Fountain shop where girls dressed in pink and white were serving root beer floats. A last stop at the ‘Art of America Show’, in the old Polson Building built in 1901, where I found some turquoise earrings which the lady selling them had bought in an auction as part of a job lot. She was not sure of their origins as they had no markings but she thought they we probably Navajo or Zuni. I thought they were definitely Navajo but I didn’t tell her that, I did however ask her how much she wanted for them. She shrugged and said $25, I shrugged and offered $20 (£10), she accepted and by the time I had handed over the money a friend of hers came with a piece of paper she had just run off her computer showing the same earrings for sale on eBay for $120. She seemed OK about it and said I had a bargain, I already knew that.

By the time we got back to the Cruiser’s Café the sun was beginning to go down and a small Confederate Band were playing outside for charity. After a beer or two we walked back to the RV for supper and watched an amazing sunset.

The next day was the 4^th of July so we stayed at the campsite as the town would be crowded and there was entertainment on the site. We watched the ritual at the veranda and waved to the train with the others, and sat for a while talking to the owner as he and his wife were bikers as well. Later on we walked across to the Chuck Wagon with our wine and glasses and joined the others listening to the guy with his guitar singing country music and anything else he could remember, eventually he was joined by a guy with drums and they played some blues which kept Dave happy. The fireworks were due to start at 9pm so we walked back to the RV as that was nearer where they were due to set them off. The time drifted by and eventually an aerial mortar exploded to the west of us, followed by shooting stars, multiple rockets and more aerial mortars.

Just as we were beginning to enjoy them, it stopped, they had only lasted a few minuets so we thought they could not be over yet, so we waited and waited but nothing happened, then people on the other side of the road started to get into their cars and leave. We stood up to get a better view and then we saw it, the hillside to the north was on fire, then we heard it, fire engines tearing out of town in the direction of the fire. The forests had been on high fire alert for ages due to the lack of rain and high temperatures, the fireworks display had been cancelled twice and rearranged for different locations, the wind had got up just before 9pm and we assume that was why they were late starting. Unfortunately none of the precautions had worked and one of the fireworks had set fire to the world’s largest stand of Ponderosa Pine trees, we watched for ages as the flames jumped and danced in the dark sky. More fire engines screamed along the interstate and up into the hills, the fire was being pushed north by the winds and eventually it disappeared from view behind the hills although it was definitely not out judging by the reflected light and smoke. We retired indoors deflated by the anticlimax of the display but slightly worried and listened for any change in the wind. It dropped completely a while later, as it seemed to do most evenings, and so we went to bed. The next morning there was no sign of the fire and the talk was that it had been stupid to go ahead with the display under the windy conditions, but that the town council was renowned for that kind of stupidity. Not being locals we declined to comment!

Thursday we had a late start, we watched the ritual on the veranda again, and then decided to take the motorbike east on the old route 66 road. It looked on the GPS like you could get most of the way to Flagstaff so we thought we would get as far as we could and then take the I40 the rest of the way and have a look around downtown Flagstaff before heading back. We headed west and took the first exit of I40 which didn’t turn west; it went north into the mountains to a very small settlement that only had dirt roads so we turned around and went back to I40.

The next exit did allow us to cross the interstate and head west and the road signs confirmed it was Route 66, it wound around not far from the interstate through little collections of buildings that had seen better days. Past an RV park and restaurant that was chained shut and then without warning the road turned to gravel. If we had had an off road vehicle we could have gone further but it was not a good idea on the motorbike so we turned around again and headed back,

past an old gas station ‘now open 6am to 8pm’ presumably trying to make enough money to stay open at all. The interstate has bypassed these small communities and made the journey easier for the traveller but the living much harder for the locals. We came back to the interstate junction but decided to stay on route 66 to see if we could make it back to Williams, but the same thing happened again just a few miles down the road it turned to gravel and so we turned around once again and came back to the interstate

where we saw a storm brewing to the north and a small twister forming under it.

We made it back to Williams before the rain started so we had a beer at the Cruisers Café and later at the RV we sat watching the lightning through the windows, it didn’t last very long and we had a beautiful sunset again that evening.

Friday we had a quiet day but we booked in for an extra night as they were putting on a special meal Saturday night. Saturday afternoon the guy with the guitar showed up again and supper was very good, beef, chicken or pork with corn, potatoes, beans and bread, followed by cheesecake and ice-cream, and when it got dark they showed another movie on the screen nailed to the shed! We talked to a very nice couple, David & Susan Tulloss from Tucson, who where there with a group of hams, amateur radio enthusiasts, and they brought their maps to show us good places to go and roads to avoid.

Monday morning we were packed up and on the road again with the RV heading first east and then north to Monument Valley and beyond.