Friday, October 25, 2002 P.M.

Sitting in bed in Wigwam #12 on Route 66 in Holbrook, Arizona.

Last night was beautiful with a large almost full harvest moon shining on us all night. I did not, however, sleep very well due to a very annoying little bug that insisted on buzzing around my ears all night.

We did have a gorgeous sunrise this morning with the sun reflecting orange and pink off the cirrus clouds. We got up and were quickly packed and on our way. We went back to Oatman, walked around and saw some more wild burros. Everything was closed but some of the locals were about, starting their morning routines.

We left Oatman and continued our Route 66 eastward trek. We drove through Kingman and on to Seligman where we saw Juan at the Snow Cap and his brother, Angel, at the barber shop. We hung around an extra 45 minutes so Steve could get an authentic Angel Delgadillo haircut. The Delgadillo's are such friendly people, so well suited to the roles they have adopted. We also stopped at Roy's in Amboy and the Hackberry General Store. The Route 66 thing really is an entire culture. Angel told us that more and more people are coming back and they're doing pretty well.

We stopped in Williams to take a picture of the sign with our last name on it. We drove through Flagstaff, taking the detours to drive as much of 66 as possible.

We got off the interstate at Twin Arrows but the entire parking lot was blocked off so we didn't stop. We did stop at Two Guns and explore some amazing ruins that were accessible by an old bridge which must have once carried Route 66 traffic. Now it's dirt covered, cracked and in a charming state of disrepair. The ruins were quite extensive and reminded both of us of Mary Colter's architecture. There was at least one building that resembled her watchtower and a number of kiva like structures. I'd love to know who built them and why. There was another building that had housed mountain lions as a kind of zoo. It was all quite fascinating and photogenic.

After Two Guns, we continued on to Winslow where we toured and ate dinner at La Posada. It was very good and fairly reasonable. I had the halibut and Steve had the pork carnitas. With tax, tip, wine and dessery, dinner came to $71. We would have liked to have stayed there but it was sold out due to the re-opening of the Rialto Theater and the Inaugural Winslow Film Fest.

So we continued on to Holbrook where we were just in time to get a Wigwam. The proprietor is the son of the original owner and it was a bit of an eerie, surreal encounter. He was very solicitous and just a bit off. The office doesn't open until 3 in the afternoon and he closed around 9 p.m. We rolled in just before 9. He gave us a room key and had us inspect the room before renting it to us, also providing us with instructions on how to work everything and on what the layout was. He also mentioned a couple of times that the Wigwams were on the National Historic Registry. They were very well maintained and comfortable in a dated funky way.

Tomorrow we're going to Taos to see Bruce and Melissa who are visiting Melissa's dad there. We might also stop in Albuquerque to see Aunt Pat.

Oh boy, a train is going by and the bed is shaking. Whistles and vibrations all night long!