Day 4 (Part 1) Route 66: Kingman to Cool Springs, Arizona

With a brilliance as it seems to do almost everyday in Arizona, the sun rises and illuminates our simple, comfortable, and affordable Motel 6 room next to Interstate 40 in Kingman, Arizona.

A non-rush morning for Bro Mark and I. We packed our bags and readied our bikes for this final day of riding Route 66 to the Colorado River/California border.

At least an hour ago, James and Bryan set out on their bikes, heading about 6 miles (10 km) east across Kingman in search of the bike shop possessing the essential tubes we require for our desert transit today.

(I learned later that James and Bry wisely stopped at the local Carl's Jr. and stocked up on breakfast carbs as well.)

Mark, Ben, and I walk across the motel parking lot and enjoy the cuisine at the local restaurant where we had supper last night. I enjoy my favorite breakfast of a large bowl of oatmeal.

About 9 am, James and Bry and tubes return. James bought a whole box of tubes. Ten tubes in all, I think.

I can't recall who exactly, but a couple of riders in our party decided to take the preemptive action of replacing a few heavily patched tubes from yesterday. I also believe James bought some of the gooey liquid you squeeze into the tires that magically plugs holes as they happen. Given the frustrating experiences of yesterday, this makes sense.

(In retrospect, these were good decisions. I recall a few flats would be ours for the fun of it today; but nothing like yesterday's extreme experience.)

So about 9:30 am we are seeking our kicks on our last day (of this ride) on Route 66.

Heading south out of Kingman we find our expedition facing a long haul, about 20 miles (32 km) across Golden Valley, elevation 2,800 ft.

For those of you who enjoy elevation data, here's our journey today:
Starting at 3,333 ft (1,016 m) in Kingman.
Traveling through Golden Valley 2,800 ft  (854 m).
Climbing to Sitgreaves Pass at 3,550 ft (1,082 m).
Ending at Colorado River at 500 ft (152 m).

So once again I engage the psychological warfare of cycling facing down at least 20 km (12 mi) of gradually inclining road towards the last major geological barrier of our journey -- the Black Mountains. (Which could have been named the Dry and Brown Mountains.)

I get a bit tired just watching this upwards of over 5,000 ft mountain range towering larger and larger as we pedal closer and closer. I believe fewer sights are more psychologically challenging than seeing a mountain range rising from a flat desert floor.

After a couple of hours of riding, emerging from a bend in the road, I come upon a place that will release the wonder and magic of Route 66. One of The Road's truly legendary sites.

Sitting here, alone in this desert, in the late morning sun at the base of these mountains, stands a solitary building as old and captivating as 66 herself -- Cool Springs Gas & Cabins.

I nominate Cool Springs as Quintessential Route 66. This establishment represents a beautiful restoration of Historic 66, as does it's history capsulizes the entire Mother Road.

In the early 1930's, just a few years after Route 66 was commissioned, the Walker family of Indiana built a gasoline station and restaurant right here on Route 66 ("the Oatman Road") at the base of the Black Mountains.

Smart move. What are the three key principles in small business success? Location, location, location.

Thousands of travelers from the west would be arriving from Oatman and Los Angeles and all points in between. They would need gas, food, and perhaps a place to sleep. And even back then, much like today, there weren't very many businesses providing those vital services.

And guess what else? There would be tens of thousands of travelers arriving from Kingman and Chicago and the American East Coast and all points in between.

Cool Springs prospered with these conditions and a lot if hard work. And from a counsellor's perspective I wonder if all the hard work (and living out in the middle of nowhere) didn't take a heavy toil on the Cool Spring's owners.

Apparently, Mr Walker moved back to Indiana leaving Mrs Walker in charge. Mrs Walker married Mr Spidel and continued operating the intense business which is now whipping out daily chicken dinners faster than you call say cockadoodle do. 

Eventually Mrs Walker leaves Mr Spidel. He continues to operate the business serving those chickens and pumping that gas though the depression years, WW Two years, and "America in love with her cars and roads years" of the late 1940's and early 50's.

Then came the first blow. In the early 1950's Route 66 was officially "realigned" (That is road talk for "moved") to pass through Yuma. Ouch. That cooled off Cool Springs several economic degrees.

But the big chill came just a few years later with the replacement of the "new" Route 66 with construction of Interstate highway 40. Very few travelers opted for the white-knuckle switchbacks of the Black Mountains anymore.

Still determined, however, Mr Spidel, with the help of his niece and her husband, continued the business. But a fire broke out in the mid 1960's and burnt the building down to its stone foundations. The owners walked away from the ashes. A tragic event, but not the end of the story.

For years, until 1991, the stone ruins shared the quiet desert and quiet highway. Then steps in Hollywood from stage left, right, and center. A movie needs filming. There's need for a desert scene in which a building gets blow up. So the set designers build a fake Hollywood frame around the ruins of the Cool Spring stone remains, and then blow the building to smithereens.

And so we have a scene in the motion picture, "Universal Soldier" (which I've not seen but am looking for a copy just so I can see this scene).

And once again the smoke clears and Hollywood leaves and quiet claims this spot of history. Until the late 1990's. A nice man, Ned Leuchtner, who has an appreciation for history and restoration, stops at these ruins for a brief break one day.

The spirit and magic of the place captures his imagination and pocket book. He wants to buy these ruins and breathe new life into them so they can tell the story of Route 66.

He makes many offers of purchase to Mr Spidel's niece. But she is attached to this place and doesn't want to give it up for sentimental reasons. Eventually she recognizes Ned's kindred spirit for the old place and they make the transaction.

See Ned. See Ned work. See Ned work for about 5 years.

See Ned. See Ned smile. See Ned smile in 2004 when initial restorations are complete and for the first time since the mid-1960's the electricity is turned on and the lights blaze and Cool Springs is visibly back on the map.

So on September 17, around lunch time, I find a first class authentically restored gas station and restaurant. (Although no gas is pumped out of the antique vintage Mobile pumps and no food is served in the restaurant-now-turned-local-history-museum because food service regulations in modern America are a bit steep for the goals of this restoration).

But ice cold Dr Pepper is served. So I give this establishment a 5 Star Rating :-)

After my life restoring Dr Pepper, and yet another cancer thwarting skin saving application of sunscreen (the sun is bright and temps climbing into the high 30's C / high 80's F), I pedal up and around the first of many switchbacks and into what I will remember as the best magic Route 66  offer.



Getting ready to roll on our final day of Route 66

Mark and Ben sleep walking to breakfast

Pre-trip preventative tube replacement party. Bryan is trying to untie his arms.

Train coming into Kingman. Riding Route 66 is a train lovers dream. We see at least a half dozen each day.

Gentle descent into Golden Valley from Kingman.

Bro Mark historicalizing for the camera. See those mountains in the background?
We will be standing at the Pass in a few hours. Funny how Mark never says, "It's all uphill from here guys."

What are Bryan and Ben smiling about?
They are holding Mark's bike. Perhaps that's a clue.

James historicalizing for the camera.

Mark and Bryan and James or Ben (in the distance) making their way across Golden Valley.

Mark and Bryan cooling off at Cool Springs.

El Capitano enjoying the shade. It will be the last we have for several hours.

Thumb Butte, I believe. Created by a volcanic core a bizzilion years ago.
Geologic history awesome around here. Once upon a time this place was all underwater. Then it had Lava Rivers.
Now a desert.
Proof positive that all you have to do is live long enough in one spot and you will see a lot of changes :-)

You know, some of these vehicles don't look all that old to me.
What does that mean???

(To Be Continued In "Day 4 -- Part 2" Coming Soon)

Route 66 Day 3 September 16 2012

Day 3
Route 66 Cycling Adventure
September 16, 2012

(Note to Reader: Because I was sitting hot, tired, and slightly bored on the outskirts of Kingman, Arizona, for a long period of time, most of this blog was actually composed on this date, in real time. I have added a few sentences for clarification and enrichment, but most of the following is what I wrote in the late afternoon on September 16.)

It is 4:30 pm local Arizona time and I am sitting under a beautiful shade tree in front if a Motel 6 just on the edge of the town of Kingman, catching the smell of diesel from the nearby Flying J truck stop.

(Even though I hung up my long haul trucker keys almost four years ago, I still have pleasant thoughts about my six adventurous years behind the wheel, and many memories triggered by diesel fumes :-)

80 km (about 50 mi) ago at about 9:30 am, we left the comfort of our three star motel / casino in the barely in existsnce town of Peach Springs. (Take away the casino and you've got a ghost town.)

We rode through fascinating yet heartbreaking "towns" that were essentially deserted. Abandoned, deserted homes, restaurants, stores, and gas stations.

But out of these ruins it was easy to imagine the vibrant communities energized by the constant traffic which utilized this road which was in fact "the" main highway linking and connecting east and west American commerce and trade.

All along this road and throughout this bike ride, I had to frequently remind myself that Route 66 was created in a different age and for a specific purpose; and one reason it is fading history is because that purpose and reason and time no longer exists.

Think about it. In 1926, cars were common, but a relatively new form of transportation. Recall that only after WW 1, did the automobile became a more common household item.

Most of the roads those cars were using had been trails for horses and horse drawn wagons.

When Route 66 was commissioned by the federal government of the USA in 1926, only 800 miles (1,300 km) of the total 2,448 miles (about 4,000 km) of the bits and pieces of roads they strung together to create the Route were paved.

(Much to the credit of the many Americans who found employment through the government's massive public works economic stimulation package, the entire route was paved by 1937.)

Trains were the reigning, but fading king of mobility. But the automobiles, though small, were increasing rapidly, and offered a personalized do-your-on-thing-at-your-own-pace option that even Lord Locomotive could not suppress.

Air planes were hardly more than the features of circuses and stunt shows. (Though they had displayed their serious side in the battles and recognizance flights of WW 1. )

So Route 66 became to the car what tracks were to trains and rivers were to boats. And it became so just in time for a "modern" environmental ("The Dust Bowl") and economic (The Stock Market) disaster that sent millions of Americans in search of survival and a better life.

So when a desperate America began traveling west in search of hope and life, the roads and towns and people working and living along it were there to help, serve, and reasonably profit in the spirit of American free enterprise.

Those people are gone. Yet the abundance of rusting cars and abandoned building still dotting the landscape along the cracked and usually deteriorating road testify to their once powerful presence.

Earlier today I counted five abandoned motels in one such wide spot in the road called Truxton.

Other clusters of buildings whose names do not appear on the new maps echo the same story.

And we are witnessing this with great intensity as we ride this remote stretch of the Route - the most distant from Interstate 40, which began bypassing these communities in the late 1950's, and then completely and finally in the 1970's.

This stretch of 66 presents as a
combination museum and neglected cemetery.

Speaking of museums, we stopped at the locally famous Route 66 attraction known as the Hackberry General Store, located about halfway between Peach Springs and Kingman. Pretty much the only thing between Peach Springs and Kingman.

This store is as unique as it is isolated. It is a vintage old Route 66 cluster of buildings turned into a delightfully air conditioned tourist trap.

Shockingly, I arrived at the hackberry store first. (The other hogs, I later found out, were delayed by a few flat tires.)

I spotted the store not because of its Knott's Berry Farm motif, but because it had about 25 motorcycles parked in front of it.

As I walked around and stretched my legs I wondered if I had accidentally walked onto the film shoot location of "The Walton's" 1970 TV show.

I also learned I was standing in the midst of a "supported cycling tours" -- a big business along Route 66.

These groups of riders would travel the road, followed by a huge truck and trailer. Among all kinds of "support," the trailer was loaded with lots of cold drinks for the hot motorcycle drivers.

Not only did I find ice cream bars and Dr Pepper in the store, I also found Elvis. I just knew he wasn't really dead. I will post a photo to prove this is so.

After leaving Hackberry, we just pedaled and pedaled on long straight roads in the hot hot sun. But "This is the adventure we wanted," I keep telling myself.

But not so much the "adventure" that I am about to describe.

Your curiosity is killing you, right?

You might wonder why I sit in the shade on Route 66 just on the fringe of the town of Kingman?

And where are the other 4 members of our gang?

Answer: Flat Tires.

Everyone has gotten at least one today, except me. And even I have a huge thorn stuck in the side of my front tire, mocking and teasing me with every rotation of my tire.

Flat tires are not unusual in this type of touring, especially in Arizona; just annoying.

But the problem developed when Jack Rabbit (Ben) got his second or third or fourth or whatever flat of the day about 6 mi (10 km) back down the road.

Again, this would not be a problem, except, since Ben is last in the line of many flats today, it appears that we have used up all the new spare tubes we brought along. And we brought many.

So Boss Hog (Mark) -- alerted to this serious equipment issue by cell phone -- has gone into the Motel 6 I am sitting in front of and used their laundry room to repair one of our previously punctured tubes. (A sink required.)

Mark has left me sitting here with a bunch of equipment. He is now retracting his path away from town in search of Ben and his deflated tire and his probably and understandably deflated sense of adventure.

So here I sit, guarding equipment in the shade getting wisps of pot from somewhere waiting for the gang to appear.

Eventually, the rest of the expedition appears. A few in our party are understandably having a challenging time finding the fun in this present experience. I wanted to say, "Come on guys, enjoy the moment," but those words, I thought, might not contain an appropriate quantity of empathy.

I think Ben has had 6 flat tires today. That is enough to challenge even a saint.

Why so many flats? Who knows. Arizona is the land of thorns and needles.

Seems like every thing growing in this region has a prickly attitude. Even a mild mannered plant gets a bit sharp after sitting out in the hot sun day after day.

Yet we find a little cheer knowing our motel is somewhere in the boundaries of this not-too-huge town of 28,000 people. (If you include two not too distant communities, the regional population is a respectable 66,000.)

Kingman is by far the one of the most robust towns on Arizona's Route 66. Of course it is. After all, it got its name in the famous song. (Flagstaff to the east would be the closest other robust population center.)

Kingman, unlike other Route 66 towns, has been fortunate to experience what any town in the middle of nowhere desires, economic diversity.

Over the years Kingman has enjoyed two major mining operations, an active military base during (training facility) and after (aircraft graveyard) World War 2 (with up to 35,000 troops), a major cable manufacturer, an automotive proving ground for two major auto companies, and for decades a strategic location on Route 66 and Interstate 40 for railroad and automotive tourism and industry.

Hence, Kingman is a unique and healthy town on Route 66.

Kingman's motto is: "The Heart of Route 66." And if you consider that Lt. Beale and his troops and their camels actually cleared Kingman's Main Street (Route 66) when their was no Town of Kingman and decades before the road would be identified as Route 66 , then they seem to have real claim to that title.

We pedal through modern day Kingman with its mall and Wal Mart.

We pedal into old Kingman with its vintage Route 66 buildings.

Our motel 6 is not vintage. It is right next to Interstate 40 and pleasantly modern.

The young hogs get their room. (Which they immediately switch for a different room because it smells like cat pee.)

Mark and I get our own room.

Showers begin.

I opt for a dip in the pool.

We agree to supper at the cafe next to the motel. Good carbs enjoyed by all. Truly appreciated after living off power bars for the whole day. There aren't many places to really eat between Peach Springs and here.

We walk to a nearby convenience store and purchase the many bottles of sport drink we will need for our first 40 km (26 mi) in the morning (until we reach the old mining town of Oatman.)

Back at the motel, revived by supper, we have a tube patching party. After patching all patchable tubes we make a sobering discovery: We are dangerously low in the reliable tube department.

Meaning, if we strike out tomorrow on our final 90 km (58 mi) to the Colorado River, and have another day of flat tires anything even close to today's experience, we will be in big trouble. Someone may end up walking dangerously long distances across what will probably be our hottest and most rugged day of travel.

To depart on our trip in the morning without enough tubes would be like paddling off across the ocean without a spare oar.

Bryan, James, and I early in the day a long way from our way from Kingman.

So we strategize as to how to eliminate or radically reduce this risk. We come up with a plan and two brave volunteers.

We must get a fresh batch of bike tubes. We google and discover that Kingman has a bicycle shop that opens at 8 am.

Realizing that our ride tomorrow requires us to be on the road no later than 9 am, James and Bryan volunteer to get up at 6 am and pedal at least 6 miles across town so as to be waiting on the steps of the bike shop when it opens at 8 am. They will return with the tubes and we will hit the road.

What these men are doing is signifcant. They are adding an additional 12 miles (20 km) onto what will be an already long and challenging day.

With plan in place we call it a day.

And, indeed, and in many ways, we will discover that tomorrow will be perhaps our most interesting day of the journey.

Another vain attempt to capture Amazing Arizona in pixels

This vehicle and my 13 year old VW bug share a lot in common. Mostly rust.

The only visible business establishment remaining in Truxton. To right of picture is the bar and grill.

See. I told you. Elvis. As big as life. In the Hackberry General Store of all places. The conversation was excellent, albeit rather one-sided. He said he liked my outfit and could have used something like that for one of his Las Vegas gigs.

Hackberry General Store

Have you met Javie, our Javelina Mascot? He rode with me for the entire 350 + kms. Never complained once. He now lives is Goderich, Ontario, Canada and plays with my grandson Caleb. Javie will eventually have to decide if he wants to ride again with the Wild Javelinas Biking Gang on their next trek on Route 66 from Needles, California to Santa Monica, California. A mere 650 + kms (400 miles).

Bro Mark demonstrating his professional tire repair skills.

Hackberry General Store

This must be very early in the day and near Peach Springs. Because we sure weren't wearing long sleeves later on in the day.

James, Bryan, Ben, My Bike Without Me, and Mark

Downtown Peach Springs. Not so prosperous anymore.

The Ever Awesome Older Shelley Brothers. The reason I look a little plump is because I have drank a bizzilion bottles of Powerade over the past two days. What else could it possibility be?

Truxton, Arizona

Hackberry General Store

Hackberry General Store

Downtown Peach Springs

Route 66 Through Peach Springs

Me

Just south of Kingman I noticed this bridge across the canyon. This would be an original Route 66 bridge that has been left behind when at some point in time a newer section of Route 66 was created nearby.

Canada Mart of old Kingman was closed when we rolled into town this evening. So I never did find out what was so Canadian about the Mart. My guess is the high gasoline prices (A very Canadian tradition). But you can google this store and read their motto: "Get Your Gifts on Route 66." Double cheesy or what?

Bryan, who lives a stone's throw away from Lake Huron, Canada, couldn't resist checking out this boat sitting in the middle of the desert in Truxton.

My wife, Debbie, is in the real estate business. She would call this a "deferred maintenance issue."

This beautifully preserved locomotive in old Kingman drew James and Bry in like a giant magnet.

Route 66 weaving through a pass between Kingman and Hackberry.

Peach Springs

Getting ready to roll out of Peach Springs. Ben is saying, "Where is my helmet? I had it here a minute ago." Ben eventually found his helmet.

"See," says Bro Mark as he does his Burl Ives imitation, "It is all downhill from here."

Deer (on wall) and James (on floor) in motel lobby, Peach Springs.

"Yes! I'm close. I can almost feel it."