Route 66 & Beyond

Day 18: 527 Miles Total: 6,096 Miles Saturday turned out to be a very long day. We got an early start and covered a lot of ground. We began in Arkansas, near Memphis, and before lunch we had traveled through Tennessee, Mississippi and into Alabama. The starter on the old Ford was hanging in there, but it was clear that it was getting worse quickly. Since the car now has absolutely no overheating problems we tried to leave it running whenever we could, just turning it off when we stopped for meals. We hit Chattanooga, TN at around 6pm and continued on toward Brevard. At about 7pm we stopped for dinner. When we came back out the car wouldn't start. This was the first time it sat for so long and then refused to start. We waited for another half hour, then another. As we were discussing the possibilities of towing the car to either a repair facility or all the way home, it finally came to life. We drove the rest of the way home with our fingers crossed. I parked it in the driveway...

Day 17: 570 Miles Total: 5,569 Miles We covered a lot of ground yesterday. The 65mph speed limits along many of the Oklahoma two lane highways keeps traffic moving at a good clip. We went through all of Oklahoma and nearly all of Arkansas. We had planned to stay somewhere in-between Hot Springs and Little Rock, but we got there so early that we decided to keep going. We spent the night in northwest Arkansas, just outside of Memphis, Tennessee. The car ran well all day. I tweaked the carburetor before we left, and that or the fact that it wasn't nearly as hot as the day before seemed to make the car run better. It still won't restart when it's hot, but at least it doesn't seem to want to stall when sitting in traffic. Ciao!

Day 16: 337 Miles Total: 4,999 Miles Well, we're on our way again. At 2:30pm we picked up the 1937 Ford, swapped our stuff into it, dropped off the rental car and headed out. We drove about an hour south to connect to the historic Lee Highway in Plainview, TX. The car is running very cool; no radiator problems at all, but when we got to Plainview it was behaving badly while idling and I was having a hard time keeping it running. Then it stalled and when I tried to restart it...nothing. So we pushed the car off of the road and I opened the hood. Twenty minutes later we were off again like nothing had happened. Then we drove for a while and had to pull over to check the map and it stalled again. When I tried to start it...nothing. We waited a bit, then I decided to try something else. I got a hammer out of our tool box and crawled under the car. I lightly tapped the starter as Sharon held the key in the start position. The car fired right up. It happened once more and a light ta...

Day 15: 0 Miles Total: 4,662 Yesterday was another non-travel day. The radiator and miscellaneous details were being worked on all day so we kept the rental car but just hung around town. There was a concert on the courthouse lawn that we went to see, and it was very pleasant. We had lunch there with our friend Croc, then met him again for dinner at a place called Cowboy Gelato . I had a bowl of green chili stew that was the best I have ever tasted. That was about it for our day though. I called the repair facility late in the day and again this morning. They are "hoping" to have it done by noon, but best case is probably early afternoon before we get on the road. We have a lot of ground to cover in a short time, but we aren't going to waste the last few days of our trip on an Interstate if we can help it. We have a route mapped out covering the Lee Highway, another historic highway from 100 years ago. We'll stick to it the best we can given our time constraints....

Day 14: 213 Miles Total: 4,662 Miles Yesterday was a short drive. We slept in a bit and Sharon did all of the driving. We lost an hour crossing into the Central Time Zone so we rolled into Amarillo at about 1:00pm. The first thing we did was to stop by the repair facility to check on my car. The radiator had still not arrived, but they were expecting it by 3pm. After discussing things with the mechanic, it became clear that there was no chance the car would be done on Tuesday, and it was still possible that it wouldn't be finished on Wednesday either. The radiator did come in later in the day and they started reassembling everything, so we're in a wait and see mode. I did go back and book the hotel for an extra night though, so we probably won't start for home until Thursday morning. We didn't do much otherwise except hang around the hotel and recuperate a bit. We'll see what Wednesday brings, but for now I'm antsy and frustrated waiting to get the car back...

Day 13: 851 Miles Total: 4,449 Miles Yesterday was a total interstate driving day. We put over 800 miles on the car and took turns napping. We rolled into Santa Rosa, NM close to midnight and quickly fell asleep. That gives us a relatively short ride to Amarillo today. No pictures this time, but there were a few bright spots to the day. We ate breakfast at the Ludlow Cafe in Ludlow, CA. It sits in the middle of the Mohave Desert on Route 66 but we had never stopped there before. It was a nice little place with good food. Our second stop was the Galaxy Diner in Flagstaff, AZ. This is a great place with a wonderful diner feel to it. We have been here before, so we jumped off of the interstate and made a pleasant stop. Dinner was late so our choices were limited in Albuquerque, NM. As it turns out, we found another great diner on Route 66 called, surprisingly, the Route 66 Diner. We hope to get the car back today, but probably won't know the status until we arrive in A...

Day 12: 387 Miles Total: 3,598 Miles As the title says, it's my fourth time driving Route 66 end to end, and Sharon's second time. We arrived at the Santa Monica Pier shortly after 5pm today to take our obligatory photos. The drive today went well. We left early to beat the brutal Mohave heat, but it never really happened. I don't think it ever got hotter than the mid-80s. We stopped a few times for photo ops, and then we stopped for a late breakfast at the Bagdad Cafe. The cafe was originally called The Sidewinder back in the 80s when a cult classic was filmed there called The Bagdad Cafe. The owners later changed the name to match the film title. Jack Palance and Alfie Woodard star in it. Look for it; while very quirky, it's a great film. The funny thing is, the film has nothing on the real-life quirky characters who populate this place. We enjoyed talking to them and having them show us all kinds of items left over from the movie, including a boomerang, jukebox,...

Day 11: 370 Miles Total: 3,211 Miles Well, we made it out to Needles, CA on the edge of the Colorado River and the Mohave Desert. It was a fun travel day because we had an opportunity to see several of our favorite sites. We passed by Two Guns and Twin Arrows, then stopped for lunch at the Snow Cap restaurant in Seligman. Our next stop was the Hackberry General Store in Hackberry. The Oatman Pass is a beautiful and treacherous mountain pass that runs from west of Kingman, AZ to Oatman, AZ. As you make the 20mph drive interspersed with the 15mph switchbacks you have to marvel at the brave souls who traversed the route in the 1920s. Sharon braved the drive in our rental car so I could watch the great scenery. Not a smart thing to do when you are the driver, so this was a first for me through this area. Once through the pass, California and the city of Needles are a brief distance away. We got to our motel early, and were sad to find that it wasn't in nearly the same condition ...

Day 10: 268 Miles Total: 2,841 Miles We had a quiet, uneventful ride through the desert today, from Albuquerque, NM to Holbrook, AZ. We stopped here and there to take some interesting pictures, but beyond that there wasn't much else to do. We ate lunch in a diner in Gallup called Earl's, and it was a pleasant stop. In New Mexico and especially Arizona, there are significant stretches of Route 66 that have been covered by the asphalt of I-40. This makes the travel quick but boring. We arrived in Holbrook in the late afternoon and checked into our wigwam. The wigwam village is in pretty good shape. The son and daughter-in-law of the original owner, Chester Lewis, still own the place. Chester died in 1986 but his wife is still alive and living in Phoenix at the ripe old age of 101. We ate dinner at a highly recommended Mexican restaurant here, but after the incredible Mexican meals we have eaten in the last few days, this place was a bit underwhelming. Not bad, just average...

Day 9: 276 Miles Total: 2,573 Miles Which way did we go? Just before breakfast this morning I called the repair facility manager for an update on our ailing 1937 Ford. If he said they were ahead of schedule and the car would be finished today, we would return to Amarillo. Otherwise we would continue on to Albuquerque. Well...we're in Albuquerque as I am writing this. It turns out that this was not the first time this radiator had been repaired; maybe not even the second. As I mentioned previously, there is a structural problem in the way the builder first installed the radiator which causes undue stress on it and ultimately causes breakage. Instead of redesigning the mounts the previous owner just kept repairing the radiator; until he sold it...to me. So the guys at Vintage Autohaus have ordered a new radiator which may arrive tomorrow. If it does, Sharon and I will be back on the road on Monday. If it doesn't it could take longer. So we drove to Albuquerque today via the...

Day 8: 133 Miles Total: 2,287 Miles More correctly, it was Tucumcari, NM last night since I'm a day behind in my blog. The Ford Fusion drives flawlessly and gets around 35 mpg; even so, I wouldn't trade my '37 for two brand new ones. In any event, we meandered along the short drive from Amarillo to Tucumcari, including a 17-mile stretch of unpaved Route 66 between Glen Rio, TX and San Jon, NM. Rental cars are good for something after all! We got to the Blue Swallow Motel, arguably the most famous motel along Route 66, and checked in. We wound up staying in the same room as last year. We wandered through town taking pictures and we had a nice dinner at the newly reopened La Cita restaurant. After dinner we sat out in the cool evening breeze and met a few of our fellow travelers. It was very pleasant, and our only concern was whether we would be continuing west in the morning or turning around and heading back to Amarillo. You'll have to read today's blog to see ...

Day 7:  0 Miles Total: 2,154 Miles Well we got the bad news today. The '37 is going to require a significant amount of work to make it roadworthy. The radiator didn't just break; there was a structural build problem that needs attention so it doesn't recur. And since the mechanic is going to be in there anyway, why not take care of a few other issues? So the car is going to be out of commission at least through Friday, and maybe the weekend. We rented a car today, a Ford Focus. Not exactly as cool as the '37, but probably a bit more reliable. We've decided to do part of the remaining miles of Route 66, but we realize we won't have time to do all of it. So tomorrow it will be Tucumcari, NM and one of my favorite motels anywhere, The Blue Swallow. For today though, we had already rented the Courtyard room for two nights so we decided to explore Amarillo a bit. Crocodile Lile volunteered to be tour guide and took us around town in his 1964 1/2 Mustang converti...

Day 6: 242 Miles Total: 2,154 Miles  No pictures today. We got up early with the intention of making it to Amarillo in the early afternoon. We were plugging along without event until I pulled over to the side of the road to return a phone call. When the call was finished I went to start the car. Nothing. This was the second time on this trip that the car wouldn't start. The first time it had stalled after being very hot. This time it didn't seem to be the case, yet after 20 minutes I tried it again and it fired right up. So we were on our way again, but with a second apparent problem looming with the '37. As we got to Amarillo the ambient temperature was in the 90s. I was worried that the car would get very hot. It had already been running 15-20 degrees warmer today, and I knew that once we hit all of the stoplights in Amarillo it was likely to be boiling. It did get quite hot and the car was barely running when we turned the corner to the radiator place. In fact the e...

Day 5: 375 Miles Total: 1,912 Miles We had another relatively uneventful day today. We got a late start after Sharon and I had breakfast with Ron and Barb Hart. They gave us a tour of some of the inner workings of the Boots Motel, then Ron took me to get some pictures of the old Jefferson Highway on a long closed section of Main Street on the north side of town. It was great and I got some incredible photos. The two below show Main Street and the Main Street bridge over the creek. It's hard to believe that one of the early great American roadways, the Jefferson Highway, ran right down this road through the middle of town as part of its route from Winnipeg to New Orleans. The Jefferson shared some common roadway with Route 66 (though not this part) but preceded 66 by over a decade. Since we were in a hurry to get as far down the road as possible, and since we got an incredibly late start, we didn't make many stops along the way. We tried to visit 4 Women on the Route in...