Day 11: Gallup, New Mexico to Holbrook, Arizona

20 September. Holbrook, Arizona. 10pm. [No internet here, so we won’t be able to post this until who-knows-when – but at least I can get up-to-date.]

Executive Summary: Gallup, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Holbrook. An easy day distance-wise, though this was our first day encountering heat that approached uncomfortable in the Skyliner sans air conditioning.

Dad and I slept in until after 6:30 this morning, moving to the hotel lobby to relax and visit with the Harley riders as they prepared for their 8am load, briefing, and 8:30 departure. We listened in on their briefing, amused to hear that they would be hitting many of the same sights as we on their way west – although we already knew that our paths won’t likely cross again on this trip. They plan to make Williams tomorrow, where they’ll stay a couple of days to visit the Grand Canyon before heading north into Utah before continuing to Los Angeles via Route 66, reaching Santa Monica Thursday, likely a day behind us. But hopefully we’ll stay in touch with a few of them. They were a fun, friendly group who added greatly to our Route 66 experience!

Mom, Dad, and I left around 8:45 to attend mass at nearby St. Francis church in west Gallup. The church reminded me both of St. Paul’s in Big Rapids (in size and style) and Dolores Church in Austin (in its bilingual congregation and humble atmosphere), and I enjoyed the music: a small group with a keyboard, guitar, and a few voices led by the talented guitarist/singer. They did mostly familiar songs like Sing a New Song and On Eagle’s Wings, and the offertory was the same Servant Song that I first heard and loved earlier this summer in Moose Lake; the singer sang the very harmony that I’ve been hearing in my head when I play it at home!

That song is one that struck an immediate chord with me the first time I heard it; it's one of those pieces that seems to present the perfect marriage of lyrics and music, and I love its haunting simplicity, particularly on the guitar:

Servant Song (Donna Marie McGargill, OSM)
What do you want of me, Lord? Where do you want me to serve you?
Where can I sing your praises? I am your song.
Jesus, you are the Lord. Jesus, you are the way.

I hear you call my name, Lord, and I am moved within me.
Your Spirit stirs my deepest self. Sing your songs in me.
Jesus, you are my Lord. Jesus, you are the way.

Above, below, and around me. Before, behind, and all through me,
Your Spirit burns deep within me. Fire my life with your love.
Jesus, be the warmth of my heart. Jesus, you are the way.

You are the light in my darkness. You are my strength when I’m weary.
You give me sight when I’m blinded. Come see for me.
Jesus, you are my light. Jesus, you are the way.

Returning to the El Rancho, we loaded up the camper and checked out around 10:30, retracing the main street back to an interesting-looking diner that Tom and I had noticed on our way in last night, the Railroad Café. There, we all stuffed ourselves with an enormous breakfast. Tom ordered the "Not for Sissies" combination, about which we all teased him, while my mouth was set aflame by the huevos rancheros, so hot that my lips were burning for an hour afterward. Tom at least finished his breakfast, apparently confirming that he is not a sissy.

Following Route 66 west from Gallup (not entirely intentionally: we had intended to hop on the interstate – something you wouldn’t think should be difficult, but wound up being tricky), we enjoyed a scenic stretch near Manuelito, where the road climbed and clung to the sheer side of Devil’s Cliff, beneath precariously-balanced boulders (held back by a protective mesh fence), after which we drank in a grand view of Route 66 and the Rio Puerco as they squeezed between rugged mesas into Arizona.

We entered harsh but beautiful countryside with clear, unspoiled vistas featuring mountains rising spectacularly from a flattened landscape, visible long before the road finally curved toward them. This felt like true cowboys-and-Indians scenery straight out of a western movie.

The visitors’ center at the state line was anything but welcoming. An unsmiling attendant wordlessly flicked a flyer at me when I cheerfully asked if they had an Route-66-specific information, explaining that we’re taking a Route 66 trip. When I asked for extras for the others in my group, she told me that we could only have three. When Dad went up to ask for one for him and Mom, she asked suspiciously, "Are you part of that group of 5?", demanding that he sign in before she grudgingly flicked another flyer at him. Wow – what a terrible ambassador for the state! I’m sure that Mikey’s mom (now governor of Arizona) would not approve, if she knew!
So – without any real additional information about Arizona other than a rude impression of unfriendliness – we continued on the interstate a ways, passing Lupton, Allantown, Sanders, Houch, Chambers, and Goodwater, deciding to make straight for the nearby National Park (you can never go wrong with those, no matter what state they’re in!). There we spent the next few hours happily exploring the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. The park rangers were friendly, the literature was helpful, and the scenery was spectacular. After our first awed glimpse from Tiponi Point, we walked the short Desert Rim trail from Tawa Point to Kachina Point, from which I sauntered back to drive up in Tom’s car, followed by Mom (who had stayed behind to rest in the truck, out of the hot sun) to pick up the Stich brothers. Continuing on around the northern loop of the park road, we stopped to take in the views at Pintado Point, Nizhoni Point, Whipple Point, and Lacey Point, as well as at a Route 66 marker. There, we were overtaken by a tourbus full of older folks more eager to photograph Tom’s car than anything else. A shout went up when he humored them by putting the top down, and the cameras were still clicking as we rolled away, waving merrily and feeling like movie stars. Our next stop in the park was Puerco Puebla, a partially-stabilized 100-room pueblo built about 1250 that may have housed nearly 1200 people, with a short trail offering wayside exhibits and petroglyph views. Next, we used spotting scopes to see hundreds of petroglyphs etched into stone at Newspaper Rock, paused to photograph the Tepees (layered blues, purples, and grays created by iron, carbon, manganese, and other minerals in cone-shaped formations), and drove the Blue Mesa loop overlooking views of b adlands, log falls, and pedestal logs. One highlight was the Agate Bridge, the result of water eroding rock under a 110-foot-long petrified log. In 1911 a concrete support was added to support the "bridge," and a concrete beam was placed under it, supporting it effortlessly for nearly 90 years. A sign nearby explained that if the log were to be discovered today, it would be left in its natural state rather than supported, which I found interesting. Another lookout provided views down over Jasper Forest, where the erosion of a high rocky bluff has left hundreds of petrified logs, once encased in the bluff, strewn across the valley below.

Farther along, the Crystal Forest and Trail took us on an easy paved trail through a moonscape-like landscape of exquisitely colorful petrified logs that once held glassy amethyst and quartz crystals. The petrification process occurs when silica-laden sediment filters through fallen timber, encasing organic matter with minerals over time. I was disheartened to read accounts by early pioneers about how they blithely packed out as much of the petrified forest as they could carry; some actually used dynamite to blast apart giant logs into smaller, more manageable pieces. And I was disgusted by thoughtless fellow tourists who even today (literally – while we were there!) continue to endanger the place by deviating from the clearly-marked trails and handling the petrified wood. Before leaving, we made one more stop at the southern visitors’ center and walked part of the Giant Logs Trail to see the park’s largest log, known as "Old Faithful," behind the museum.

It had been a hot afternoon in the Skyliner, which has no AC, and Tom was especially eager for "Miller Time," noting, "It’s 5:00 somewhere." (We had been discussing our having changed time zones upon crossing into Arizona, which doesn’t recognize daylight savings time and as a result is on Pacific Standard Time during the summer.)

It wasn’t far from the National Park to Holbrook; an easy 15-minute drive along state Highway 180 to the northwest. There we would be splurging tonight to stay at the wonderful Wigwam Motel #6, one of seven Tepee-styled motels, the brain child of Frank Redford. The 1950 wigwams have a steel frame covered with wood, felt, and canvas under a cement stucco exterior. Each wigwam is 14 feet in diameter at the base and 32 feet tall. They proved to be bigger – far bigger! – on the inside than they look. I lamented that we all could comfortably have stayed in a single teepee rather than spending twice the money on two – but it was a fun splurge, and a nice treat for everyone to have their own bed for the first time on this trip.

An older woman named Elleanor whose native American dress seemed to blend perfectly into the atmosphere of the Wigwam Motel greeted me when we arrived to check in. The Wigwam Motel apparently has been owned by the original family since the teepees were built in 1950, and many of the family’s old cars are parked by the Wigwams to add a 50's feel. Dad observed that that added as much to the place as did the teepees themselves, perhaps even more.

The Wigwam Village was everything I had hoped it would be, and more. The 5 of us pulled around benches and a table and happily passed a couple of hours relaxing in front of one of our teepees, enjoying the cooling afternoon, the views of the teepees, and each other. We toasted another great day – and laughed heartily (if ruefully) when we realized that there were train tracks about 100 meters behind the Wigwam Village; we counted 7 trains passing during just the first hour and a half we sat there, wondering how often they would rumble past during the night. We noted that the ground shook when they did so.

As the beer flowed, I enjoyed listening to Dad and his brothers reminiscing about old cars, old friends, and old times, from Dad’s memories of living in a Moorhead dorm on a floor with a bunch of Korean vets matriculating pursuant to the GI bill who mixed screwdrivers using an inverted light fixture as a bowl, which they passed around with plenty of vodka and very little orange juice; to Tom’s experience somewhere in the southeast where he swam everyday in a lake infested at night by water moccasins that spent the day up in trees overhanging the water – which he learned only after having spent many an afternoon swimming beneath them, blissfully unaware. All three of them have a plethora of hilarious stories to share, which they tend to freely do when the day on the road ends and they have a chance to relax together.

I luxuriated under a scalding-hot shower with great water pressure in a bathroom and shower that felt enormous after the one last night, and I’m now sitting here typing in bed with the wigwam door wide open to let in the cool evening air. Everyone else is long asleep, as I soon will be as well – and it’s only 11pm! I’m excited at the prospect of getting some extra sleep, feeling exhausted from too many late nights and early mornings in a row: I tend to be awake a couple of hours after everyone else, and to waken when the first of our group stirs each morning.

Tonight everyone has their own queen beds: Tom and Don in teepee #5, Mom and me in teepee #4, and Dad in the camper. He voluntarily went over there to sleep so that Mom could sleep, since she complained about having been unable to do so because of his snoring last night. So I’m amused now as I listen to in the bed across from mine, snoring right now. But it won’t bother me – and she needs a good night’s sleep: she’s been battling a cold for most of the trip, which cannot be fun at all on the road. She’s starting to sound better, though, with a less scratchy voice, and an improving mood; hopefully she’s on the mend and a good night’s sleep will put her over the hump.

A short while ago I spoke with Bernie, who is going to try to meet up with us next weekend and at this very moment is trying to coordinate tickets to Vegas and a rental car to traverse the 115 miles from there to Lake Havasu, where we’ll be heading with Don, Dianne, and their kids and grandkids after we reach Los Angeles. It should make for a great weekend all around to cap off an already-great adventure. I can’t wait!

I feel some distress at the poor quality of the writing of most of these entries – I don’t imagine they’re a picnic to read. We’re going so long each day (and my laptop battery is dead, meaning that I can only use it when actually plugged in) that there’s no opportunity to put anything down en route, so I find myself at the end of these days, already exhausted and reeling with sensory shock, mostly just trying to catalogue a list of what we’ve seen and done – if only to help us sort out the hundreds of pictures we’re going to have between us by the end later, when the long line of Mom-and-Pop motels, cottage gas stations, peeling signposts, neon lights, pavement markings, and panoramic vistas will inevitably tend to blur together. Already we have several times found ourselves trying to recall whether a particular incident occurred in Illinois – or was it Missouri? – that seems so long ago... Even sitting in church this morning, it took me a moment to remember where we were for mass last week (Marshfield, Illinois, the hometown of Dr. Edwin Hubble). We’ve come quite a way since then!

This trip is shaping up fine logistically, which is a huge relief to me. As our numbers shrank before our departure, I wound up backing off from my initial inclination to carefully plan the details of each day’s itinerary: with changing numbers, it was impossible to make reliable reservations, etc., and with the group becoming smaller instead of larger and this being the off-season, my instinct was that it should be okay to sort of go on the fly (something I much prefer when traveling alone, but often impossible with any size of a group). So we’ve been winging it, most of the time not firming up a day’s plans until the night before. Everyone in the group is easy-going enough that that works, especially since we don’t have a lot of preconceived notions of things we definitely must do – or when we do, they tend to jive. I found myself particularly relieved that today shaped up so nicely with us all enjoying the National Park so much, making our 90-mile target travel distance too short to feel like a full day. But it wound up feeling just right, and it was a nice treat to finish early with plenty of time to enjoy simply hanging around the Wigwam Village – which, after all, is one of the highlights of the entire trip; perhaps the one thing that everyone had in mind as a thing-to-do before we even began.

We passed 2000 miles today since the Route 66 starting point in downtown Chicago; Dad announced the milestone as we were driving the Blue Mesa loop in the Petrified Forest National Park. Obviously our Route 66 trip will be longer mileage-wise than a straight shot without deviations, given our many detours and backtracks (intentional or not). Hard to believe we’ve come that far already! Longer-than-original or not, I can’t imagine the early travelers coming so far by horseback, wagon, or on foot...