Route 66 Trip Report!

On Thursday, around 11am, I suggested that we do a road trip over the next few days, traveling some of historic route 66 in Northern Arizona. Daniel loved the idea, and by 4:30pm we had packed up the kids and the car and we were on our way!

I realized that it would work out really well for us to drive to Payson, AZ on Thursday and spend the night in Daniel’s mother’s house there. She was at her other house in St. David, so it was empty, and Daniel’s brother and his family live right next door, so we had a free place to stay and got to visit family for the night- perfect!

On Friday morning we drove about 90 minutes to Winslow, where we stood on the corner.

From there we drove along I-40 until we got to the turnoff for Meteor Crater. We didn’t want to spend the time or the money to go through the current visitors’ center to tour the crater, but instead we found something much cooler- a non-maintained stretch of route 66 and the ruins of an old observation tower where the man who built it used to charge 25 cents to view the crater through a telescope.

And nearby we found a geocache (“treasure”)! That’s what Carter is holding (the lunchbox).

From there we drove past a few more route 66 sites, and then we stopped for lunch in Flagstaff, at Satchmo’s BBQ. It was very good, and the kids loved coloring on the paper tablecloth.

After that, we drove to Williams where I had already reserved a hotel room (note: do not stay at the Quality Inn in Williams, AZ). We rested/played for about an hour, and then we drove up to the Grand Canyon.

We watched the sunset there, and I got some good pics!

We drove back to our hotel room, and in the morning we set out for some more route 66 adventures. We turned off the beaten path for about two miles to find this gem of a bridge with a tree growing out of it! More photo ops.

Carter loved this store that had a “Mater” in the front!

We reached our final destination of Kingman around 11am, and we checked out the old train at Locomotive Park.

Then we went into the Route 66 museum/visitors’ center, where Carter watched a model train go around and around…and around and around… his favorite part of the trip for sure!

We ate lunch at Mr. D’z Diner (great homemade root beer!), and then we made the 6 hour drive back home, arriving at our house before 6pm!

It was an awesome way to spend a few days away from home and see some cool things!

I even made a fun video to document our trip, set to some great songs. Check it out here: Route 66 Trip Video.

Happy Easter!