Apache County

In my early twenties when I was traveling the US and meeting gun toting crazies heading towards Alaska or wandering the streets of Phoenix Arizona Route 66 hadn’t quite reached the legendary status it has now and a lot more of it still existed then so I feel fortunate to have traveled a good part of it before the extinction of most of the original route happened.

Now days every second person you meet and their pet budgie wants to travel Route 66, it’s one of those bucket list dreams people have.
I’ve pointed out that it doesn’t really exist any more, its been carved up by interstate highways so there are only a few intermittent sections left and the businesses along these parts milk it to death.
This is a good thing though because in places they have left a lot of the old stuff there like the motels that haven’t changed since the sixties, probably the sheets haven’t either.

There are a lot of old fool bikers out here too on those few remaining segments they are trying to relive that era. The open road, the freedom, the wind in their hair... if they had any or what they had just got blown off.
Now they can finally afford that Harley and all the leather gear to go with it, trouble is it all looks just a little too new, the bike, with no real street cred, the new leathers squeaking when they walk or maybe thats just their bones making the noise.

But we can’t have a go, us smug bastards in our luxury RV, road tripping America with all the comforts of home compared to years ago when I mostly hitched or splurged on a Greyhound bus then booked into the cheapest hotel in the worst part of town, thats if you could afford one, if not you slepted by the road. We didn’t realise we were living a Jack Kerouac novel for real.

Jack’s mate, the poet Alan Ginsberg also lived that life and many years later he tried to relive it all so as to rediscover the America they once new.
He got a train to the outskirts of New York and stood hitchhiking for about 5 hours in the rain. No one picked him up, so totally drenched he caught the train back home.
The experience didn’t go to waste though, it gave him plenty of material to write about, especially the loss and decline of America. Personally I don’t think you need get totally soaked holding you thumb out and get puddle splashed to become enlightened about that.

Now with life on a shoestring a distant memory we sit back as this V8 monster regularly cruises at 85 miles per hour, thats a lot of kilometres and at this speed we reached the Painted Desert Inn one of the original stops on Route 66 and one of the first fast food restaurant chains in America.
It was started by a Mr Fred Harvey because he was sick of getting bad food when traveling.

So then you set up a fast food chain to get healthy food, imagine... ”hey boy get some meat on ya bones, you’ll looking a mite poorly... here eat this tub a lard, if ya dig deep enough ya might just find ya’self a few fries but the real nutritions in that there lard”.

I think old Fred has a lot to answer for, he’s inspired a whole food culture and each town entrance is plastered with their signs. So many you have no idea of the name of a town so instead you say “yeah I came along Highway 40 through Popeyes then on to Crispy Creams, took a left at Dunkin Donuts to Arbies All You Can Eat then a right at Puffy Pizza then straight down the highway to Extra Big Footlongs so now here we are we’ve finally arrived at destination, Fat Arse Waddleville”.Read more