Route 66

Katherine today.  

I'm bridging a gap between too many hours in the sun by a pool (yummy indulgence) and a Rockies spring training game tonight by thinking about our trek here on the remnants of Route 66.  The drive is rife with memories and tedium and nice little private jokes with Jim.  Jim contends that large numbers of private jokes are a prerequisite to a good marriage.  I'm not sure if he's being descriptive or prescriptive or ironic.  We are an interesting pair--I seek sympathy and need to vent.  He offers solutions and a good ribbing.  I love him.  I need him these days.

My mom has Alzheimer's.  My brother and I are moving her to assisted living memory care.  It's awful.  I am immersed in memories of her (wonderful and truly awful) and full of empathy and realizing all my fights to keep her independent have been wrong.  Her decline has been precipitous and I am a sad little girl.

In the midst of all this, I ran away from home to Rockies Spring Training in Scottsdale Arizona.  I'm a master at running away.  My mom is brave, but not me.  As a little girl I ran away to Stapleton Airport.  I got on a real live plane once.  We lived within a mile of the airport and I ran there often.  The stewardesses at the check-in gates learned to call Mom as soon as they saw me.

Even though I've been good and done my bit helping Mom,  I ran away from home and  I feel guilty and I am here in Scottsdale and enjoying the amazing sun (how I love it) and the Rockies and everything.  I digress.

I want to talk about Route 66.  It is an interesting road an a part of our journey from Denver to Scottsdale.  I've been on that road off and on since I was eleven years old.  I thought about it this time.

We have done this trip enough that I consciously try to think of a new way to look at it each trip. I decided I'd focus on Roadside Attractions this trip.  I was thinking about Mom and her adamant and forceful battles with Dad about stopping at stupid Roadside Attractions.  She always won.  I remember thinking how weird it was she wanted to see the Shoshone Ice Caves or the largest piece of lava in Idaho ("Lave is free--make your own soap!").  I learned as a traveling parent that moms and kids need to pee and move about and her fascination with the Roadside Attractions was more about parenting than curiosity.

I figured this Roadside point of view would be fun when we passed a place in Larkspur that offered miniature golf and goat rides.  But that was it until Santa Fe.  There was an Italian restaurant in Trinidad with singing waiters and since Trinidad is the sex change capital of the country, I contemplated the singing wait staff as a Roadside Attraction.  I decided not to go there.

The only other Roadside Attraction of note was the NRA Wittendon Center just south of Raton, New Mexico.  I don't think Mom would have battled for a stop here.

We stayed the night in Santa Fe and headed off on the highway that would begin to follow the Route 66 my childhood.

It wasn't long before I realized that there are no more family Roadside Attractions.  They are almost gone.  Grown-up things have taken over.  Kids watch movies in the backseats of cars and Roadside Attractions are casinos on Native American Reservations.  My least favorite Roadside Attraction was Knife City.  It had a ton of signs about the various lethal weapons they offered (high capacity clips were offered as well) and only one sign mentioned kitchen cutlery.

There was a 90 mile stretch of Arizona just after we entered the state worthy of note.  The roads in Arizona stink compared to New Mexico and Colorado.  I'm sure the tax rate is lower though.
Also, that part of the road is on the Navajo Reservation.  It was also one of the few parts of the road that echoed my memories of Route 66.  There were competing "Indian Villages" with jewelry and moccasins and tepees (one to smoke in), beaded belts, and fireworks.  The signs were bright and competitive.  I somehow wanted to stop.  Just for old times sake.  Jim would have stopped for me.  He'll do almost anything for me.  I couldn't even explain why I would and never said a word.  I don't want to stop on the way back either.  I'm pretty much over the Roadside Attraction thing.

In Gallup, New Mexico, we passed the El Rancho Motel.  We had lunch there once and might do so again on the way back.  It's where John Wayne stayed when he made movies with John Ford in Monument Valley.  It's really cheesy.  That's the point.  The burgers were okay.  That's the most I would recommend and that's iffy.

There's not much else to report.  We saw our first Saguaro near Bumble Bee Arizona (no services) and shortly after that there was a "Scenic View with Vending Machines."  What--no Wifi?

I have had a wonderful time in the sun here in Arizona.  I have seen a Rockies game and am headed to another tonight (this is when they seem to do their best) and yesterday I spent a day at the spa at the Camelback Inn.  I had dinner at the sports bar at the Four Seasons in Carefree last night.   When I run away, I run away.

My mom ran way from home because she was trapped at home.  I run away from home because home is hard and I need to take a deep breath before I face the next battle.

The Route 66 of my childhood was a road dotted with one-story motels.  Most of them had swimming pools and metal pool chairs that semi-rocked and parents who drove like madmen all day long to collapse in those chairs while they watched their kids use up energy in those pools.  I loved checking into the motels.  My mom would carry in a "beach bag" that was filled with gin and tonics for her and Jim Beam for my dad.  My brother and I were ordered to the pool and we dove in with glee and Mom and Dad got tipsy and happy and life was good on Route 66.

Travel well.