Route 66, Indian Closures, Burma Shave
Kingman, AZ - Sun, 13 Sep 2020, 5pm
After stopping over lunch for a surprise hawk show earlier today we got back on the road to Kingman, Arizona, our stop for the night. We drove AZ-64 the rest of the way south to Williams then turned west on Interstate 40. We could've taken I-40 the rest of the way; it would've been the shortest and fastest. But instead we took a slight detour on old Route 66.
Route 66 is the stuff of legends in the US. It was built in 1926, running nearly 2,500 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles. It immediately became a symbol of mobility, first for affluent car owners in the 1920s, then for Dust Bowl emigrants in the 1930s, then for post-WWII growth and expansion in the 1940s and 50s. The road has been the subject of several songs and has appeared in TV shows and movies.
The heyday of Route 66 started winding down in the late 1950s, with the building of the Interstate Highway System. The interstates were higher quality roads, wider, smoother, faster, and generally took faster routes between major cities. By the late 80s Route 66 was officially de-designated.
Route 66 today is a relic of a bygone era. The towns that grew and thrived around it saw their fortunes wane over the course of decades as traffic shifted to the interstates. Many are now like modern-day ghost towns, with boarded up and mostly abandoned buildings and few residents anymore except for a few stubborn hangers-on.
But many towns have found new life as centers of nostalgia. They're full of kitsch and repackaged memorabilia, aimed at people who thirst for a sanitized, chrome-plated version of life in the 1950s. The little town of Seligman, AZ we drove through is like this. It's all vintage highway signs and old-fashioned shops designed to appeal to the (fictitious) nostalgia of the Boomer generation. For me, it just gives me hives.
Burma Shave
Well, there was one bit of repackaged memorabilia that didn't give me hives. Along Route 66 are several sets of old-style Burma-Shave signs. Burma-Shave was a brand of shaving cream that became popular in the late 1920s for its rhyming roadside signs. The brand became defunct in the 1960s due to corporate acquisition and the signs were removed. But now they're back, presumably erected and maintained by one of the many Route 66 nostalgia organization out there. Here's an example I shot video of:
Peach Springs
Driving Route 66 was not an end in itself. It was a necessary route to the town of Peach Springs.
"We're going to Radiator Springs," I said at one point to Hawk. She didn't get the joke.
Radiator Springs is the old Route 66 town used setting in the animated movie Cars. It's a fictional town, and it's most likely not based on Peach Springs.... Radiator Springs was an example of a near-ghost town, a remnant, a place where only hangers-on were left clinging to their old home as the modern world passed it by. Plenty of other towns along Route 66 are like that. But Peach Springs is not dying because it's in fact the capital of the Hualapai Nation, and that's why were were there. We were looking for a permit to drive a tribal road down a side canyon to the banks of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon
Alas, much like we found with the Navajo Nation two nights earlier, the Hualapai Nation has mostly closed to outsiders because of the Coronavirus. It was a disappointment to us, but we understood & respect their decision. We bought gas and snacks at their filling station and finished our drive on to Kingman, where we're taking it easy for the rest of the day.
100,000 Tomorrow! (If We Make It)
Our car's odometer was at 99,924 miles when we arrived at the hotel in Kingman an hour ago. Hawk's adding a few more miles visiting a few gem shops around town, but that shouldn't put us above about 99,950. That means tomorrow we cross the 100,000 threshold, en route to the Grand Canyon Skybridge on Hualapai Indian lands north of here. (Yes, the Skybridge specifically is open to visitors even though the rest of the territory is closed. Think $money$.) And yes, the SERVICE ENGINE SOON light is still on. 🙄
After stopping over lunch for a surprise hawk show earlier today we got back on the road to Kingman, Arizona, our stop for the night. We drove AZ-64 the rest of the way south to Williams then turned west on Interstate 40. We could've taken I-40 the rest of the way; it would've been the shortest and fastest. But instead we took a slight detour on old Route 66.
Click to viewRoute 66 is the stuff of legends in the US. It was built in 1926, running nearly 2,500 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles. It immediately became a symbol of mobility, first for affluent car owners in the 1920s, then for Dust Bowl emigrants in the 1930s, then for post-WWII growth and expansion in the 1940s and 50s. The road has been the subject of several songs and has appeared in TV shows and movies.
The heyday of Route 66 started winding down in the late 1950s, with the building of the Interstate Highway System. The interstates were higher quality roads, wider, smoother, faster, and generally took faster routes between major cities. By the late 80s Route 66 was officially de-designated.
Route 66 today is a relic of a bygone era. The towns that grew and thrived around it saw their fortunes wane over the course of decades as traffic shifted to the interstates. Many are now like modern-day ghost towns, with boarded up and mostly abandoned buildings and few residents anymore except for a few stubborn hangers-on.
But many towns have found new life as centers of nostalgia. They're full of kitsch and repackaged memorabilia, aimed at people who thirst for a sanitized, chrome-plated version of life in the 1950s. The little town of Seligman, AZ we drove through is like this. It's all vintage highway signs and old-fashioned shops designed to appeal to the (fictitious) nostalgia of the Boomer generation. For me, it just gives me hives.
Burma Shave
Well, there was one bit of repackaged memorabilia that didn't give me hives. Along Route 66 are several sets of old-style Burma-Shave signs. Burma-Shave was a brand of shaving cream that became popular in the late 1920s for its rhyming roadside signs. The brand became defunct in the 1960s due to corporate acquisition and the signs were removed. But now they're back, presumably erected and maintained by one of the many Route 66 nostalgia organization out there. Here's an example I shot video of:
Peach Springs
Driving Route 66 was not an end in itself. It was a necessary route to the town of Peach Springs.
"We're going to Radiator Springs," I said at one point to Hawk. She didn't get the joke.
Radiator Springs is the old Route 66 town used setting in the animated movie Cars. It's a fictional town, and it's most likely not based on Peach Springs.... Radiator Springs was an example of a near-ghost town, a remnant, a place where only hangers-on were left clinging to their old home as the modern world passed it by. Plenty of other towns along Route 66 are like that. But Peach Springs is not dying because it's in fact the capital of the Hualapai Nation, and that's why were were there. We were looking for a permit to drive a tribal road down a side canyon to the banks of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon
Alas, much like we found with the Navajo Nation two nights earlier, the Hualapai Nation has mostly closed to outsiders because of the Coronavirus. It was a disappointment to us, but we understood & respect their decision. We bought gas and snacks at their filling station and finished our drive on to Kingman, where we're taking it easy for the rest of the day.
100,000 Tomorrow! (If We Make It)
Our car's odometer was at 99,924 miles when we arrived at the hotel in Kingman an hour ago. Hawk's adding a few more miles visiting a few gem shops around town, but that shouldn't put us above about 99,950. That means tomorrow we cross the 100,000 threshold, en route to the Grand Canyon Skybridge on Hualapai Indian lands north of here. (Yes, the Skybridge specifically is open to visitors even though the rest of the territory is closed. Think $money$.) And yes, the SERVICE ENGINE SOON light is still on. 🙄