Thursday, 4 June 2009. I had a late start on the morning as either I didn’t hear the wake-up call or it didn’t happen. In any case I had just enough time to get my things together and head over to the Silver Spoon Restaurant with Jim and Bill The chap who works part-time with him. We had a very nice breakfast, may even nicer by Jim picking up my tab, THANK YOU, JIM, and a very nice conversation.
On the way back to the motel I got some pictures of the Silver Spoon Restaurant, Hilltop Motel and a couple other places I wanted to record.
At the motel I arranged to stay a second night and would call to get a room in Needles tonight.
I headed over to the Powerhouse Museum. While I had a free entry pass, the museum would have been well worth the admission fee. It has an excellent historical display of the opening up of the countryside around and to Kingman. Besides being an excellent Route 66 Museum, it has a very interesting display of the effects of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. The historical portion traced the various exploratory expeditions across the territory in order to find the best route to the West Coast. I must’ve spent about two to three hours in the museum, and they were well worth.
There was an excellent film on Route 66 as it pertained to Arizona. Unfortunately, the film had seen better days. Both the color and sharpness of the film had degraded. Upon speaking with one of the museum guides she noted that they had tried to get a new copy but did not know how to get in touch with the producer. I pointed out that Scott Piotrowski, who had produced the film was a member of the e-group and I had given her the card for the Route 66 e-group. I also happen to have on my cell phone Scott’s cell and home phone number which I gave to her. Here is hoping that the museum will be able to obtain a new copy of the film either on tape or as a DVD.
One of the fun things about driving or being on Route 66 are all the neat people one meets from all over the world. I ran into several groups from the Netherlands, a couple from France and another couple from Italy. Not all were doing the Route but all were sampling the road having heard of it.
From the museum I headed over to the Bonelli House which dated from 1915. Much of the furniture, pictures, day-to-day items, things like the stove, etc., were all original to the house. Many of the items had been returned by family members when the house was being turned into a museum. The tour of the House was quite fascinating and worthy of the small donation I gave.
As it was still fairly early in the afternoon, I drove up to White Cliffs Trail Park. The park is on the north side of town, and after parking my car where the paved portion of the road ends, I hiked up the trail to where one can easily see the ruts cut into the rock by the wagon wheels as they went up and down the hills between the town and the mines. One also notes the depressions on the side of the road that were used for stubbing posts and ropes to assist the wagons up and down the steep hills. It was obviously rough work in very rough country.
I retired to my room to regroup and then headed out for dinner. I first stopped off to say hello and goodbye to Jim. We had a nice discussion of what see and others in the Kingman area were doing to promote Route 66 and save historical buildings.
Up the Hualapai Mountain Road to the Hualapai Mountain Resort for dinner. I thought about saying up there but not only was it much more expensive, the review of the motel or rooms there indicated that they were nothing special. The difference in price easily paid for my meal.
It was interesting to compare the two dinners over the last two nights. The food at the Brunswick Hotel was quite good, especially the mushroom soup and the service excellence. At the Hualapai Mountain Resort the food was excellent, but the service left much to be desired for an upscale restaurant. I got the feeling that as I was alone and not dressed to the nines, the waitress felt she was not going to get a big tip. Her lackadaisical service ensured that.
Both the drive up and down were quite pretty and it was a few degrees cooler up at the resort as it was several thousand feet above Kingman.
It was time to call it a day and look forward to tomorrow’s drive to Needles via Oatman.
