Classic Studebaker on the I-40.
In western New Mexico just after the Second World War, Route 66 conditions could be so bad that, as well as extra gas and spare water, a guide advised carrying a foxhole shovel for emergencies. Many motorists - recent soldiers - would have had frontline experience of using the small military shovels.
From the interstate, a train on the old Santa Fe Railroad and a car on Route 66.
The 1937 Hotel El Rancho in Gallup was built by a brother of Birth of a Nation director D.W. Griffiths.
The area was used for many Hollywood Westerns. Humphrey Bogart stayed in room 213, Doris Day in 109 and John Wayne in 100. It’s claimed Errol Flynn rode a horse into the bar.
Cross the Arizona state line as the late spring heat prickles the skin. This old car - an ‘Okie who didn’t make it? - is nearly too hot to touch.
Route 66 passed through the fabled Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. Unfortunately, colours are best at dawn and sunset, and I must hurry on.
A couple roasts on two hundred million year old petrified wood.
Holbrook, one of the last Route 66 towns the interstate bypassed, has the 1950 Wigwam Motel.
Fifteen concrete wigwams, although purists says they’re teepees. You can still stay here with original furniture, A/C, but no wifi. From $67.
Thirty-four miles along the interstate is what otherwise would be a little known town, but made famous by the 1972 Eagles' hit, 'Take It Easy.' A couple on a Harley conveniently pose next to 'Standin' on the corner' in Winslow, Arizona.
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Although the Grand Canyon is off Route 66, as postwar tourism boomed, many made the detour. So do I.
Words, pictures inadequate.
