Driving Historic Route 66

Route 66

Small-town pleasures and characters still abound on the Mother Road THE SUN IS NOT YET UP, but Angel Delgadillo is bustling around his barbershop, broom in hand, preparing for the day's business. As his wife Vilma straightens stacks of correspondence and souvenirs, the octogenarian steps out onto the sidewalk and gazes up and down Historic Route 66, taking in the cool highland air. "This is just the way it ought to be," he says, smiling a Cheshire-cat smile and looking benevolently out upon his native, still-asleep town of Seligman. "I hope they leave it just like this. This is what the world seems to love-America as it was, just like this."

As if on cue, two earlybirds enter the barbershop, which doubles as an informal museum, tourist-information booth and gift shop. Visiting from Germany, the two are heading west on the famed highway. Angel gladly advises them on what to see along the way. There's no better guide, as Route 66 hands know, for Angel once logged many thousands of miles on the road with his family's big band, once a mainstay of entertainment in little towns throughout northern Arizona. After calling on the Delgadillos and tucking away coffee and eggs, photographer Terry Moore and I leave Seligman and begin our leisurely journey along the storied highway. Crossing the northwestern corner of the state, this stretch of asphalt seems tailor-made for unhurried travel, though it wasn't always such a quiet place. Until the coming of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, Route 66 was the main artery between Chicago and Los Angeles. During the Depression, thousands of Midwesterners took to the road to try their luck in the farms and factories of California, the stuff of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Night and day, towns like Seligman shook with the rumble of traffic.

On this cool October 1 morning, though, we have Route 66 to ourselves. We edge westward, watching as the sun fills the broad grassy valley that lies beyond Seligman, my truck the only vehicle on the well-tended ribbon of road even as hundreds of cars and trucks fly by on the just-visible interstate.

A Cooper's hawk wings

travel tips

Vehicle Requirements: Two-wheel-drive vehicles are acceptable for this route.

Additional Information: Route 66 Museum in Kingman, toll-free, (866) 427-7866; www. kingmantourism.org/contact-us/ index.php.

COMPASSIONATE COWPOKES

A rodeo cowboy tries to rope a steer at an October 1 fund raiser for charity near Grand Canyon Caverns in Peach Springs.Across a field, chasing a cloud of flickers. An immature bald eagle, sitting on a fencepost, stretches his wings in the glow of the rising sun, prompting us to pull over to have a closer look. Perhaps knowing he affords a sight worthy of entry on a birder's life list, the eagle flaps away a millisecond before we can wrestle our cameras out of their bags. Undeterred, and elated to have seen the sight, we scan the looming cliffs for signs of condors, reintroduced in 1996 along these great rock reefs bordering Grand Canyon country.

The day warms as we climb out of the Aubrey Valley to Grand Canyon Caverns, where a few dozen pickups stand parked alongside a pipe corral. We pull in to find an old-fashioned rodeo in progress. Well, perhaps not so old-fashioned, since I hear one young vaquero say to another, "What's happening, dude?"

Once upon a time, "dude" was a fighting word, but none of the cowboys and cowgirls blink. They have other things on their minds. They have come to rope calves and show off their horses on this fine day for a fine reason: At another rodeo a year earlier, a toddler fell 20 feet from a grandstand and was hurt. He quickly healed, but now there are doctor bills to pay. Thus the rodeo, a fundraiser drawing participants from four counties. Terry and I watch the riding and roping for an hour, visiting with the cowpokes, proud that the tradition of taking care of friends and neighbors is alive and well.

We head west a few miles farther to Peach Springs, the capital of the Hualapai Indian Reservation, with fortresslike stone government buildings standing as a monument to a troubled frontier. A quarter-hour later we descend into the rocky hollow called Crozier Canyon, whose steep red walls and winding course once challenged the builders of Route 66. On the northern horizon, we catch a glimpse of the Grand Canyon.

In the shadow of the Grand Wash Cliffs, another monument to a bygone era ROAD MEMORIES Cool Springs, built as a restaurant and gasoline station in the 1920s, served travelers before they braved the curving road westward into the Black Mountains. The rest stop made of rock shared its heyday with Route 66, and now functions as a museum and gift shop.

SIGN OF THE TIMES Established in 1926, a major western migration path, a nurturer of communities, economies and spirits, Route 66 originally spanned more than 2,400 miles. The well-beaten path was officially decommissioned in 1985, replaced by the Interstate Highway System. Signs (right) directed travelers to multiple cities. CLIMBING CURVES One of the more striking stretches on picturesque Route 66 climbs slowly into the Black Mountains, hugging the mountainside as it winds toward Sitgreaves Pass.

Awaits us in the desert hamlet of Hackberry. Over the years and a couple of changes of ownership there, an old Mobil station, still selling gasoline, has been remade into an impromptu Route Route 66 museum, a destination guaranteed to thrill antiques aficionados and old-time rock 'n' roll enthusiasts alike. There's even a modest shrine to Elvis, although most of the visitors seem more interested in the petting zoo of old cars and roadside signs that rings the station.

Twenty-five miles later, we pass through the fast-growing city of Kingman, where big rigs and city traffic fill the old highway. Contrails and parachutists decorate the sky, courtesy of an air show at the Kingman Airport. Rattled by the hubbub, we seek the cool sanctuary of the city's new, artifact-packed Route 66 Museum, where we stop for a soda before heading out on the final leg of our journey.

That segment takes us another 25 miles southwest of Kingman and over the foothills of the rugged Black Mountains, which offer some of the most challenging territory of the whole length of Route 66. The terrain sets a flatlander to wondering whether the migration west was worth the effort. Many a jalopy drew its last breath on this twisty stretch of road, which may explain why the last building before the highway climbs into the rocks is another old service station.

Modern vehicles negotiate the grades out of Cool Springs more easily than those old-time machines, which prompts station caretaker Jacqueline McGraw to grumble good-naturedly, “It's mostly folks from southern California that go by. They drive so fast that they don't stop to look at the beauty-and this is really a beautiful place. The sunrises are spectacular, and you can hear the birds sing. It makes me know why I was put on Earth.” It is a beautiful place, to be sure. As we climb up the rough mountains above Oatman, the sun begins to set, filling the deep canyons that line the Colorado River far below with shadow, yielding a view of one mountain range backing onto another, and another, and another, straight out of a Japanese landscape painting. Terry and I stand quietly, watching flights of birds, enjoying the now-cool breeze.

The silence is broken by a braying wild burro, then a half-dozen of them, clambering down from the rocks for a look at us strangers. Doves coo loudly, punctuated by the keening of a passing hawk. An old Volkswagen bus putt-putts up the western face of the mountain, its Quebecois driver pausing to call out a cheery Bonsoir and receiving a howdy in return.

Highway noises of the best kind, those. It is just the way it should be, as Angel Delgadillo told us at the beginning of our daylong journey along a fabled highway that safeguards America as it was. Al