| roadtrip@internetdrive.com |
...
Route 66 Motel - Seligman, Arizona
Distance Today: 289 miles - Total Distance: 4410 miles
Ah, another day of sleeping in a bit late. I woke up to the desk clerk calling to remind me that I had to check out no later than 12:00. I looked at my watch...
1147
I miss sleeping in my own bed, not having to have to wake up and leave my apartment by a certain time and... wait a minute. That's what having a job is like. Nevermind.
I half-meant to check out the campus of Arizona State University this morning... er... afternoon. A while back, I was thinking of attending college there, but I never ended up going for reasons too vague to explain. I figured as long as I was a few blocks away, I'd check it out. Well, I never really got to see it. Trying to learn your way around a completely new city is a bit frustrating. I think I passed the same Texaco three times.
I eventually gave up on the idea (figuring I'll just visit their website when I get home) and I found my way to Scottsdale, an area whose commerce seems as strong, if not stronger, as it was when I visited this area in 1991.
If you're planning on visiting this part of Arizona and have some serious moolah to spend on luxury accomodations, "The Phoenician" is the place to be. It's much more beautiful and a lot bigger than I remember. (My family stayed here once about seven years ago.) Room rates are in the hundreds and up, and if you saw this place, you'd understand why.
After reminiscing a bit and looking through the gift stores, cafe, pool, hot tub, another pool, water slide, golf course/putting green and -- well, I could go on and on, I eventually hit the road once again and turned towards Route 93 heading north. If you happen to have a map of the U.S. nearby, you'll notice that 93 seems kind of empty. Well, it is. But it's a beautiful drive back up to Route 40 (ending up 100+ miles west of Flagstaff), and I thought I'd go for a different view heading north than the one I saw driving south.
I'm buzzing along, minding my own business, when bright lights start flashing behind me. A cop. Oh joy of joys. I find a spot on the side of the highway and pull over. It turns out I was going 65 in a 55, but I swear I didn't see the sign. The speed limit had been 65 just moments ago, and I didn't realize it had changed. Officer John Turner of the Arizona State Highway Patrol was the one who stopped me, and while he was writing, he inquired about the website address posted on the rear window of my car.
http://travel.to/roadtrip
I told him where I'd been, and where I was headed, and suddenly, he seemed a lot more interested in my trip than pulling me over for speeding. We ended up talking about the trip for a good ten minutes or so, and by the time we went our seperate ways, I almost felt like I'd made a friend. I asked him, before he left, if it would be at all a strange request to take his picture since he was part of my whole roadtrip experience now. "Trust me. I've had much stranger requests." I didn't dare ask. Very, very nice guy, especially since he let me go with just a friendly warning.
Roughly an hour or so into my trip, I passed a small town. Very small. Very, very, very small. Nothing, Arizona. Yup. Nothing (Population: 4) is very appropriately named. There's nothing there. Nothing to do. Nothing to see. It consists of three or so small one-story run-down buildings, the main one of which is a ratty old store. I popped my head in to take a look around and was a bit startled when something in a nearby chair moved. A rather weathered looking man was reading a newspaper, wearing plaid clothes that had blended in perfectly with the plaid chair he was sitting in. I noticed a vending machine to his left, and bought myself a Coke.
We got to talking a little bit, and I asked him where the town got its name from. He explained in a raspy voice that was a bit hard to understand, "Well, I'm near 80 years old, and this happened about 20 years so," his voice drifted as he looked up at the ceiling for a moment and continued, "I'm not quite sure if I remember this right." He told me a brief story about a man who used to own this area, and wanted to sell it. A prospective buyer was asking about the town, and what was there. "Nothing," came the answer. Of course, he meant there really was nothing there, but somehow, it stuck. That's the best I can recount the story.
(Note: It turns out the man I spoke with, Les Payne, was the subject of a $5 million dollar national ad campaign! Click here to find out more.)
Tonight brings me to the town of Seligman (pronounced Slig-men), birthplace of the movement to change Route 66 into a national historical treasure. Everything here closed at nine o'clock tonight, except for a 24 hour gas station two miles down the road and the Black Cat bar. From what one of my travel books tells me (Road Trip USA, Jamie Jenson, Moon Travel Publishers), Hollywood actor Nicholas Cage has stopped in for a drink once or twice.
|
According to Vicky Lawrence (Not the celebrity, and correct me if I spelled it wrong, Vicky) who was acting bartender this evening, she's never heard of Cage stopping in. Actually, no one seemed to know concretely who Nicholas Cage was. They knew the name, but couldn't remember what he looked like. Possibly because there's not a movie theater or anything within 75 miles of Seligman. This doesn't stop the fact that this tiny town is a tourist magnet. I guess that's the price you pay for being a stop along world famous Route 66.
A very friendly woman who goes by the nickname "Fluffy" (I didn't dare ask why) started talking with me about the things that go on around here. She works at The General Store just a block or two down the street, and she's had people from all over the world come through. She kept mentioning Germans and Asians, specifically what almost became an "international incident over a foot-long hot dog" with some Asians. Again... don't ask.
Vicky brought a folder over and showed me what I called her "Seligman Scrapbook". Inside was a xeroxed copy of the bar's liquor license, issued in 1937, making that particular bar the first one to receive such a license in the entire state of Arizona. She also brought over the September 1997 issue of National Geographic, which had a lengthy article on Route 66. The portion on Seligman took a good chunk of the story, and she excitedly pointed out the roof of her house in the background of one of the pictures. Fluffy added, "She's famous!" and they got a good chuckle out of that.
At one point early on in my visit, a man and woman who had seemed engulfed in conversation with everyone else, suddenly got up from the bar and started dancing while the jukebox played in the background. It brought a tiny smile to my face to think that sometimes, for no real reason at all, somewhere in America, people are dancing in a bar to a country song.
See you on the road...
