Get Your Kicks on Route 66

I believe today is shaping up to be Homage Day. I've been getting my kicks on Route 66 from Flagstaff Arizona (don't forget Winona) to Gallup New Mexico, and I've been standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. And, now I'm sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Gallup and it's a bit bizarre: me, the owner, his son, and a six-piece stringband that just busted into some Creedence:

Big wheel keep on turning,
Proud Mary keep on burning,
Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river

Six distinguished, older countryside gentlemen rocking their hearts out: four acoustic guitars (three finger-pickers and one slide guitar), one conga drum and one guy playing the "bass" on a homemade one-string instrument where one end of the string is tied to a large up-side-down brushed steel vat (for resonance) and the other end tied to a six-foot wooden pole, which he moves back and forth to control the pitch by adjusting the tension of the string. Just brilliant. I wish I hadn't left the camera in the car!

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. I took off from home a few minutes after seven this morning, and put on some Sufjan Stevens tunes for the departure. An iPod filled with goodies in a car filled with anticipation. Fought my way through the usual morning traffic on the 101 and headed north on the familiar 2-hour and 7,000-foot (~2,000 m) slow incline to Flagstaff. As I turned eastward on I-40 – with Flagstaff and the snow-covered San Francisco Peaks in my rearview mirror I realized I was covering new ground. Although, the flat, dry, yellow, high prairie, interspersed with protruding rust-colored earth and rocks felt familiar, as I’ve driven through the Painted Desert, closeby, before, on my way to the Grand Canyon.

Next stop: Metor Crater, maybe a half-hour east of Flag. Quite an impressive sight in the middle of the desert. The crater, created by a 150-foot (45 m) meteor impact some 50,000 years ago, is nothing but massive. 700 feet (~200 m) deep and 4,000 feet (1,200 m) across. You can't walk into the crater, but you can walk around the rim and look down into the center using several well-placed telescopes, one of them pointing to a life-size cutout figure of an astronaut(!) at the bottom, and it really helps you understand just how large the crater is.



Back into the car and on to Winslow. The old Route 66 was built in the 1920s and connected Chicago and LA, but has now been replaced by Interstate Highways. Officially, Route 66 is no more, but in several places, the old highway is now marked with signs for Historic Route 66. Well, Historic Route 66 goes right through Winslow, which is known to most people through the Eagles song Take It Easy:

Well, I'm a standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona,
and such a fine sight to see
It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford,
slowin' down to take a look at me

And, here it is.



After Winslow, I drove to the Petrified Forest: a National Park 225 million years in the making. During the Triassic Era (apparently the one just before the Jurassic) this area was a rainforest (and all the continents still connected - Pangea) and trees that were washed away in a flood, were buried in sand gravel and sediment. Then, over millions of years, silica crept into the cellulose and crystallized and replace the wood cell by cell; forming rock, quartz, amethysts and other semi-precious stones. More recently (geologically speaking) erosion ate away from above and exposed the petrified trees so we can see them now. Unfortunately, over the last 100 years or so, people have been removing (stealing) much of the petrified wood. Even though the park is protected by park rangers, they estimate that visitors steal about 1 ton every month.

In addition to the petrified trees, the landscape in several areas of the park is very interesting: badland hills, mesas, crazy rock formations in layered colors. Impossible to describe, really, and unfortunately hard to capture in pictures. Here's one.

Then I drove to Gallup, NM, where I plan to spend the night before going into Navajo Nation tomorrow. Oh, I just noticed that the band has a new member - a woman on double-bass. And, one of the finger-pickers has switched from guitar to the banjo. Now I just need to figure out whether I'm having the time of my life or whether I need to prepare to squeal like a pig. Weeeeee! (If you're confused - don't worry. It just means you haven't seen the movie Deliverance. Consider yourself lucky.)