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kevin_standleeToday's trip was relatively short, only a bit over 200 miles, and with good weather it only took around four hours even with side trips and a stop in Flagstaff to get some coffee/hot chocolate/sandwiches at Starbucks. This is mostly a deliberate plan on our part, as our experience of our road trips is that in the later stages, we have to make the segments shorter.
Leaving Winslow, we set out west, with mountains in the distance and the BNSF line paralleling us much of the way until after Williams, where the railroad swings north along the route of old US-66 (now AZ-66).
As I mentioned, we stopped in Flagstaff. On our way out of town, we passed by the Amtrak station.
When we reached I-17, we completed the first of the two "retraces" of this trip, where we return by the same route as we set out. For the most part, this is a "circular" trip where we're taking a different route outbound than for our return.
At Williams, we exited to the local road, which was the final piece of US-66 not bypassed by Interstate 40. Lisa drove this road in the days before US-66 was decertified in 1984.
Speaking of Route 66, we briefly exited I-40 to go look at the railroad in Seligman. This is also the way to the longest stretch of historic US-66, now preserved as Arizona Route 66.
The road crossed over the railroad at Seligman Yard.
We did not actually stop here, as we have a bad feeling about this town. On a previous trip, we were running low on gas and refueled at this gas station. The next day, I got a notification that my credit card that I'd used on the pump there had been used in Florida. My credit card company spotted the use, stopped the card, and I was not out anything. I suspect that there was one of those "skimmer" devices in use here.
This is a junction that we've gone through a few times, as US-93 comes up from Phoenix to join I-40 here before continuing north from Kingman. If Interstate 11 is ever built out as planned, it should join I-40 here.
Soon enough, Kingman hove into view.
We reached Kingman before sunset, and my Spire status got us a mini-suite upgrade. Not as big as the separate-bedroom combo we had in Rancho Mirage, but comfortable.
Lisa liked this room very much. It has a comfortable bed, and a heating/air conditioning unit with a continuous fan.
There's a middle area with a sofa, dining table, and refrigerator. The "kitchen" portion has no mini-sink the way some suites do, but just a blank area.
The bathtub/shower has something Lisa really likes: a variable-volume faucet. Many hotels' bathtubs have only two possible "speeds" on the water: on and off. A variable-volume faucet can deliver water at a trickle, not just a torrent.
Although there is a new Black Bear Diner here in Kingman, so we could have collected a new stamp in our Passport, we were both tired enough that we wanted to just take food back to the hotel and eat dinner there and get some rest. We refuled at the Flying J, picked up some milk and snacks at Basha's grocery store, and returned to the hotel. I then ordered a pizza and while Lisa did some in-room washing out of clothes, I ran down to Pizza Hut to collect the food.
Tomorrow's trip is also relatively short by the shortest route, but we'll probably lengthen it, and we have some planned errands in Las Vegas that will probably make it even longer before we get to the hotel. But I know from sitting at the work space here in Kingman that the chair won't attack my back the way the seat did in Winslow.
Leaving Winslow, we set out west, with mountains in the distance and the BNSF line paralleling us much of the way until after Williams, where the railroad swings north along the route of old US-66 (now AZ-66).
As I mentioned, we stopped in Flagstaff. On our way out of town, we passed by the Amtrak station.
When we reached I-17, we completed the first of the two "retraces" of this trip, where we return by the same route as we set out. For the most part, this is a "circular" trip where we're taking a different route outbound than for our return.
At Williams, we exited to the local road, which was the final piece of US-66 not bypassed by Interstate 40. Lisa drove this road in the days before US-66 was decertified in 1984.
Speaking of Route 66, we briefly exited I-40 to go look at the railroad in Seligman. This is also the way to the longest stretch of historic US-66, now preserved as Arizona Route 66.
The road crossed over the railroad at Seligman Yard.
We did not actually stop here, as we have a bad feeling about this town. On a previous trip, we were running low on gas and refueled at this gas station. The next day, I got a notification that my credit card that I'd used on the pump there had been used in Florida. My credit card company spotted the use, stopped the card, and I was not out anything. I suspect that there was one of those "skimmer" devices in use here.
This is a junction that we've gone through a few times, as US-93 comes up from Phoenix to join I-40 here before continuing north from Kingman. If Interstate 11 is ever built out as planned, it should join I-40 here.
Soon enough, Kingman hove into view.
We reached Kingman before sunset, and my Spire status got us a mini-suite upgrade. Not as big as the separate-bedroom combo we had in Rancho Mirage, but comfortable.
Lisa liked this room very much. It has a comfortable bed, and a heating/air conditioning unit with a continuous fan.
There's a middle area with a sofa, dining table, and refrigerator. The "kitchen" portion has no mini-sink the way some suites do, but just a blank area.
The bathtub/shower has something Lisa really likes: a variable-volume faucet. Many hotels' bathtubs have only two possible "speeds" on the water: on and off. A variable-volume faucet can deliver water at a trickle, not just a torrent.
Although there is a new Black Bear Diner here in Kingman, so we could have collected a new stamp in our Passport, we were both tired enough that we wanted to just take food back to the hotel and eat dinner there and get some rest. We refuled at the Flying J, picked up some milk and snacks at Basha's grocery store, and returned to the hotel. I then ordered a pizza and while Lisa did some in-room washing out of clothes, I ran down to Pizza Hut to collect the food.
Tomorrow's trip is also relatively short by the shortest route, but we'll probably lengthen it, and we have some planned errands in Las Vegas that will probably make it even longer before we get to the hotel. But I know from sitting at the work space here in Kingman that the chair won't attack my back the way the seat did in Winslow.
