After living in SoCal and utilizing a car for anything but fun, it wasn’t until halfway through today that I really relaxed into the pleasure of the open road. Which is good, because we covered a lot of road, Molly at the wheel the whole time. Thanks, M! Perfect weather, minimal traffic, big sky/puffy clouds — and honest-to-god tumbleweeds crossing our path, even.

After getting our heinies out and away from Needles, the Arizona border came up fast. We made good time to Kingman, where we started our day (another beige meal) being cliches at a cliche diner.

This is where the Route 66 souvenirs began coming at us fast and furiously and, as of Flagstaff, have not let up one bit. Little did we know that Kingman is the, well, king of the 66-themed merchandise — great selection and even better price. I came away with a few treasures, including this 66 addition to my state bracelet.

We got to Seligman, where I was very pleased to witness Molly’s first encounter with rattlesnake eggs at the gift shop. Not often can you still find someone that has not experienced that particular thrill. I can say no more about that. If you haven’t had the pleasure, I shall remedy that upon my return.

Here we strayed from the freeway and made the Seligman-to-Williams historic Routh 66 loop. Lots of beautiful decay, glimmers of the roadside meccas that used to be .. and depressing towns that were still trying to stay alive, in the middle of nowhere.

It was high time to get into a hole in the ground. Good thing the Grand Canyon Caverns popped up on the landscape!

You can see the many, many photos of the Caverns (as well as painful amounts of photos of sky, and clouds, and train, and more sky, and clouds, etc. etc.) on my flickr photoset.

But really, the most interesting picture of the day was outside of the Caverns, atop the tail of a T Rex:

After getting back on the road and rejoining the 40, we pushed on (as I took more shots of sky! and train! and clouds!) and made it to Flagstaff.

We landed at the Americana Motel, the most clean-smelling and least serial-killer-looking place on the usual strip (or so we thought). It was there we played the protagonists in a short farce of room changes, forgotten keys, and one frazzled manager. We had to change our room because we were first placed adjacent to a man who was very loudly having a meltdown in his room. Molly heard him actually growling inside. Apropos of nothing (or everything?) Molly and I noticed (while hightailing it to another, possibly-safer room) there was a pack of raw steaks on top of his car outside his room. Americana, indeed!

After a cocktail at the Starlite bowling alley, we had a blissfully non-beige meal at a brewpub in downtown Flagstaff. We saw our frazzled motel manager a couple tables down and sent a beer over to him. Everyone in Flagstaff (except the poor growling sociopath in room 109) appears to be charming, nice, and happy. Which is totally WEIRD.

Off to the Southern leg of our trip. Wish us luck!

Last night’s dream: I was forced to scootch atop of a railing of a balcony, balancing a beer between my feet.

Molly’s quote of the day:

Semi on a stick!

And here’s your proof. A semi on a stick.

See whole flickr photoset

Go to day three