Seligman

At 8.45am, we joined the scrum for breakfast, then returned to our room for some much needed admin. We booked accommodation for Sunday night & topped up our pre-pay card.

First stop of the day was Walmart for another slab of water & to try & buy a new strap for my Fitbit, but couldn’t. All our hikes are not getting the recognition they deserve! I had 3 locations to visit in Flagstaff before we left. The 1st was the Weatherford Hotel in the Historic Main Street, which we achieved.

The Weatherford Hotel dates back to 1897 & is apparently haunted by a young newly wed couple. The husband went out hunting & didn’t return when he was due. The bride assumed he had been killed, so took her own life. The husband then returned belatedly, discovered the fate of his new wife, then killed himself.

Next was Louis the Lumberjack, who was 10ft high, which we had seen once but didn’t have a camera available. We drove round twice without seeing him.. The traffic was starting to get busy so we abandoned our search & cancelled a visit to my 3rd Lowell Observatory.

Instead we picked up Highway 89A southbound, which took us through the ’scenic route’ into the bottom of Oak Creek Canyon. It was a lovely route, but very narrow & too busy. It seemed to be a popular destination for hikers & campers. We would probably have been more impressed if we hadn’t already seen so many Canyons.

Thirty odd miles later we arrived in Sedona, I had visions of it being a classy town surrounded by mountains. Instead it turned out to be a characterless, man made tourist trap heaving with people. I had planned to stop, but nothing could persuade us. It was a real disappointment.

We continued south on 89A & turned off & drove through the Historic Districts of Cottonwood, Clarkdale & Jerome. They were very appealing & we stopped for the odd photo, including at Verde Canyon Railroad & Haunted Hamburger, but we were now on a mission to get to Seligman, back on Route 66.

We climbed up through the Mingus Mountains to Prescott Valley, then north to Chino Valley. Eventually we arrived at Ash Fork & headed west on Interstate 40. At 2.40pm we arrived at our motel for the night. It is called Stagecoach 66 Motel, which Jackie booked a couple of days ago, I think in a state of delirium, because she booked the Cowboy Bunk House room. As we pulled up we said hello to a long blonde haired biker ‘chick’ in her leathers, unfortunately she was about 70 years old!

We checked in & were given our room key. We opened the door to our room & walked into a Western Saloon Bar with beds. It was fantastic, all decked out in cowboy memorabilia. It also had (what I thought was) an old VHS video player & Western Movie videos. This made a nice change.

We dropped the rucksacks off, then drove the mile into the town centre of Seligman. In 1987 Seligman gained its name as the "Birthplace of Historic Route 66" due to the efforts of Seligman residents. It is also the inspiration for the animated feature movie ‘Cars’ from Pixar Studios.

We parked up & started at one end. 1st stop was Delgadillo’s Snow Cap, which served fast food & shakes & had several cars resembling those from the cartoon movie. Next was Delgadillo’s Route 66 Gift Shop & within was Angel Delgadillo’s Barber Shop. Angel Delgadillo is 91 years old & is considered to be the driving force in getting the old Route 66 christened as Historic. He is a celebrity locally, particularly after appearing on ‘Billy Connelly’s Route 66’ & has been interviewed over a thousand times. I had previously seen & read about him in my USA trip research.

In the gift shop, I enquired as to whether they still do haircuts in the barbers, because I was seriously in need of a haircut & where else could be better? The really nice sales assistant, who later turned out to be Mauricio, Angel’s son-in-law, said they did but only 1st thing in the mornings. I asked if that included Sundays & was told Angel himself could cut my hair before 9.00am tomorrow. WOW, I made an appointment for 8.30am. He said coach parties arrived from 9.00am onwards & took photos of Angel & his subject. Mauricio said it was off putting for Angel. Jackie has suggested he also gives me a late cut-throat razor shave!

With a smug spring in my step, we walked up Seligman high street, stopping & photographing all the Route 66 establishments. These were Deluxe Inn Motel, Roadrunner Bar & Gift Shop, Return to the 50’s Gift Shop, The Rusty Bolt, Copper Cart, Route 66 Historic Seligman Sundries, Black Cat Bar & Seligman Grocery. It was all a sight to behold.

Outside of Return to the 50’s Gift Shop a large group of bikers had gathered on Harley Davisons. All of a sudden they started cheering & our biker chick drove up on a big Harley with a Norwegian flag 🇳🇴 on the back, stopped & started chatting to them.

We returned to the car & drove up a bit further to check out the breakfast menu in the Road Kill Cafe & look/photo the other Route 66 buildings. Road Kill Cafe will be our post haircut breakfast. We returned to our motel & all the Harley Davison’s were parked up outside The Pizza Joint at the front of our motel.

We sat in the sun for an hour or two enjoying a small beer. All of a sudden, there was a racket outside The Pizza Joint. The bikers were worshiping our biker chick. I grabbed my camera & sauntered over. She was giving a speech to them, then she jumped on her bike for a photo opportunity. They were all having selfies with her.

At 7.00pm we went to The Pizza Joint for our tea. We asked the waitress about the biker chick & the bikers & she told us that the bikers were Norwegian & on an organised tour. The blonde lady is the owner of our motel, but she is a minor celeb amongst the Norwegian biker fraternity. She meets them in town, escorts them back for a Pizza then sends them off on their way. I googled her & her name is Anne-Lise Finnbraaten.

There was live music playing in the side room, but it wasn’t very good, so after our shared medium pizza, we went up to pay. The waitress had gone AWOL, but in walked Anne-Lise to deal with our check. She was now in civvies, had removed a lot of makeup & Jackie thinks removed a wig. She looked her age, old!!

We returned to our room to watch The Outlaw Josey Wales on video. Unfortunately although we had the video cassette in our room, we didn’t have a video player, but a DVD player to play it on! With the WiFi pathetic & next to no mobile data, we called it an early night. After all, tomorrow I had an appointment with an Angel 😇

Song of the Day - Cars by Gary Numan.Read more