Day Four - Gettin' Our Kicks on Route 66

When the lovely young woman at the front desk at the motel in Globe, Arizona, asked how our road trip was going, I said "fantastic!" She told me she had never been outside of Globe. It just made me think...there are degrees of interest in travel, and I think she and I are on the exact polar opposite sides of the spectrum.

Once again, the boys got up and availed themselves of the hotel breakfast. This establishment, presumably in an attempt to one-up the "make-your-own-waffle" machine, had a space age contraption through which, after pushing a button, two anemic, strange pancakes came out of a conveyor belt. The sign on the machine said "don't you wish you had one of these at home?" Um, no. 

Lars and I went a little later and he said I managed to make an edible breakfast sandwich from the slim pickin's. I felt like I was on Chopped.

We left our nice, big hotel room in the middle of nowhere and headed for the Painted Desert and, more importantly, the Petrified Forest. It was a windy, mountainous drive, with very little settled infrastructure along the way. Thus, pee-breaks were catch as catch can.

But when we got to the Petrified Forest, both boys were one-thousand percent enthralled. The best I can figure, there is petrified wood (wood fossilized into stone) all around this area...but the PW National Park is a great concentration of gi-normous pieces - all in the middle of the purple and green-hued hills of the Painted Desert.

Rune and Hart immediately found the "big daddy" of the site - a huge log nicknamed "Old Faithful." Even though he knocked his knee soundly, Rune still insisted on scaling the thousand and thousands of years old tree.

I kept telling Nibbles how lucky she was to get to see all these places. I don't think she really heard me.

Hart was overwhelmed by the place - he went running in different directions. Here, then, is Rune, on a big, ancient, tree rock, and with the splendid purple majesty of the Painted Desert behind.

Hart found a sit spot in what he has termed his favorite park ever. Heaven. He spent quite a while down there, gazing on the hills and fallen, fossilized trees.

We left the park, and headed back down to a gift store that advertised "free" petrified wood. It was kind of incredible in there....they found a chair and stool made from it....definitely NOT free ;-)

So, petrified wood samples purchased, we headed back out on the open road - headed for Williams, AZ.

As we aimed for Flagstaff, we were immersed in two huge pop culture references. Can you guess them? If you are over a certain age, you might have guessed the song, "Get Your Kicks on Route 66." If you have kids under a certain age, you might have guesses the Disney movie "Cars." We totally  immersed ourselves in both.

Anyone know how many versions of Bobby Troup's classic song are out there - on Spotify? Lots. We enjoyed Nat King Cole, the Cramps, Jason & the Scorchers, the Time Jumpers, Manhattan Transfer, and Sammy Davis Jr....among many others.

They both agreed that when they were into Cars, they were much younger and more immature.

Then, Rune said (paraphrasing) "so, if this is Route 66, and if the towns are like Radiator Springs, are there cone hotels?"

We said - NO! But, there are Wigwam motels! Took a slight detour to downtown Flagstaff to find these.

I said "Guys! Here is Ramon - come stand here!" They rolled their eyes and said "It's Flo, not Ramon."

Sorry, guys....I guess you are the Cars masters after all. Is that a compliment? Heh heh heh......

Anyhow - we hauled butt for Williams AZ, where they had an epic rubberband-gun battle in the parking lot, and then went to relax in the hot tub. Here, then, their message...