Since I had forgotten the cameras, Dang!, we will have to come back over for some photos. We have driven through here several times and I just noticed the old signs for the Copper State Motor Court. I don’t know how I could have possibly missed them before. Just goes to prove, you always see something new. We also followed the old section off of 8th Street, out past the KOA. It’s sad to see that Stoneworld is causing this section to deteriorate. We cruised on back into Seligman via the old alignment again. Decided it was time to pay Angel a visit. He was in great spirits, as usual. His daughter now helps run the store. She’s his boss now. It always amazes me when folks remember my name, especially when I haven’t seen them in a few years, and knowing how many people they meet each day. The store has expanded since we were last there. Prices are pretty good, low compared to most. And yes, John, I saw your license plate hanging on the wall. We had a good visit and bought a couple of trinkets. Next time you’re in be sure to ask Angel’s daughter about the time Jerry Seinfield was in. Funny story.

Today we headed west out of Seligman. We checked out the old 1921 section off to the right about 5 miles out of town. The old culverts are still there and it is easy to see where the road once went. We stopped and checked out the Calgary Mission which was once a motel. We then stopped and checked out some old foundations on the left that we believe might be the remains of the old Deer Lodge. About a mile and a half further are the old foundations of Hyde Park. Last time we were here there was no fence around the area. Upon further exploring we found that they are reintroducing the black footed ferret in this area. There was a hole in the barbed wire fence and we slipped through and did a bit of exploring. We cruised on further west until we were about 6 miles east of Peach Springs. There is a great stretch of an older alignment of the road here. It is blocked off by a fence but there are no “No Trespassing” signs. There is a gate along here and it only states “Keep Gate Closed” and it is not locked. We walked through the gate and hiked about a half mile of this old section. I’m not sure if you can or not, but I think that next time we are in Kingman we will rent a SUV and obtain a permit from the Hualapi tribe and drive this section. It is really overgrown most of the way, but looks like a great stretch of road.

Remnants of old 66 east of Peach Springs, Arizona

We had passed by a Route 66 landmark and will return to it now. Grand Canyon Caverns. One of the things we thought about as we headed up the road was that there weren’t many of these old tourist traps left, especially in the west. Thought about how the grandkids would love this place. We had a great lunch here and looked around the gift shop. We’ve done this tour of the caverns before and won’t do it this time. We took some photos of the place and headed back to Seligman.
Grand Canyon Caverns - Between Peach Springs and Seligman, Arizona

I needed to take a few then and now photos. Once finished with these we decided to go to the Snow Cap for dessert, sundaes. Juan was busy in the back cooking, but son, John, is following in his fathers footsteps to the tee. It’s a great tradition to pass on. They have added many more tacky things to look at around the place since we were here last. And they’ve enclosed part of the eating area with some plastic tarp, a great wind blocker.

Since I had forgotten my camera yesterday we headed east towards Ash Fork again. There is a great old rock bridge not far out of town that I want to get pictures of. Upon closer inspection it either has to be from the old wagon trail or a really early alignment of 66. Back to camp. Tomorrow we will move camp to Holbrook KOA.

We didn’t make it to Holbrook. It was pretty windy when we left Seligman and we decided to stop in Williams. Ended up being there for a week. We camped at the Railside RV Park so that we could have an instant phone hookup and do a little surfing of the web. We had snow twice while we were there. We ended up staying home most of the time. That was okay since we have lots of things to get caught up on. I did some captioning of my photos that I’ve been taking and Earl got the taxes done. :( It was some needed down time.

We are now making camp at the Holbrook KOA. We got in yesterday. Today we just had to hit the road. We’re following Jerry McClanahan’s “Bones of the Old Road” in the Winter 1997/98 issue of Route 66 Magazine. We headed east on the Interstate to Sun Valley Road and turned north. We drove a half mile and weren’t sure if we were on the right road or not so turned back. We checked out the old motel/campground here. Mostly because of the Route 66 campground. The motel doesn’t have any doors or windows and we figured this is the indoor tenting area. Looked like it could have been a left over from the days of 66. Next stop was the Goodwater exit where we checked out a great timber bridge over the Little Lithodendron Wash. It has been restored and doesn’t look too bad. We cruised this short section of road and then got back on the superslab to the Adamana Road exit.

Here we checked out the trading post, prices are a little high but they have some real nice stuff. We then walked down to look at the other timber bridge across the Big Lithodendron Wash. This one is not in as good of shape as the other one, but still a cool looking bridge. We followed the old road further east down to Rocky’s Old Stage Station. This is a nice section to drive, it’s sad that Rocky was cut off when the Interstate came through. Maybe it was the lack of daily customers that gave him nothing much to do that finally did him in. There was not a soul here now, not even the old guard dogs that used to greet visitors.

Rocky’s Old Stage Station East of Holbrook, Arizona Near the Painted Desert

We backtracked to the freeway and continued east. We decided that if we had time on the way back we’d stop at the Painted Desert. We wanted to see if we could make it out to one of our favorite spots on Route 66, the ruins of the old Painted Desert Trading Post. We exited at Pinta Road. We knew we had to drive on dirt road for a mile to get to the actual stretch of highway we were looking for. The car was filthy from the snow in Williams so we thought we’d see how far we could go. Surprisingly, the dirt road was actually smoother than old 66. Since there’s no traffic out here we decided to go all the way, we averaged a speed of about 7 mph out to our destination. Last time we were out here it was so windy that we didn’t get a chance to look around, today is perfect. I don’t know how much longer this old trading post will stay standing, it appears to be starting to lean in on itself. We explored a bit more and then made our way down to the bridge here that crosses the Dead Wash. This is a pretty cool concrete bridge and still in pretty good shape. It is possible to continue west on this stretch for a bit further but we were satisfied with reaching our goal, maybe next time we’ll go further. Back to the fast lanes.