After getting up – early as usual – and having a breakfast we started today for a tour along Route 66. In Arizona there is a comparatively long part of the original Route 66 between Seligman and Kingman, and that’s what we intended to do. We’ve been dreaming of this from former trips yet…
First we drove the I-40; nearly 2 hours of that freeway which leads to Los Angeles lay before us before reaching the Kingman exit. We’ve got to see a diversified countryside, plain with a wide visibility or even mountainous; the road led through some Indian areas. Then, short before noon, the exit onto the historic Route 66 lay in front of us. Now we wanted to see what was left from the old flair on the next 100 miles. For sure one thing: endless straight roads, with not much traffic, to both sides partly sparse, partly a little more fertile land, hills, and rocks.
Sometime we saw a sign for a place named Hackberry. UAnd what expected us there was exactly what one imagines with the old Route 66: an ancient shop at roadside the Hackberry General Store, with a gas station in front of it, and around it partly corroded cars from long ago. Of course a creaking sign with the label “Route 66” had to be there in front of the shop. And within the shop it looked like expected, as many souvenirs as trash, walls full of license plates and money bills. Needless to say that we took some souvenirs with us – this chance wouldn’t come back that soon.
On it went towards Seligman, 65 miles left, without another historical shop. The landscape was sparse, far away some mountains and branches of the Grand Canyon were visible. Arrived in Seligman we stopped again, and what did we see at the parking lot? A German American café – Westside Lilo's Cafe. So we decided to take some coffee there. And what else one could get in this café? Correct, the famous American cake, that far and wide as sweet. And because some special fellows wanted to taste such a piece of cake for a long time already some of it was ordered. And it really tasted as we expected it to be – no, we have not to repeat this experiment…
After that we went back to Flagstaff, where we took our dinner in the Ruby Tuesday after visiting the Flagstaff Mall. Today it was time for some burgers – and they were really delicious and plenty. The day today was worth it again.
