Route 66 in Arizona

Oatman, Arizona, a living ghost town on old Route 66, is holding several events to usher in the holiday season.  Oatman is about 32 miles southwest of Kingman.

On Saturday, November 29, there will be a Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony at 6:00pm.  During the day there will be wagon rides, a town-wide open house and a book sale at the Glory Hole.  Businesses will also be open later, until 9:00pm.

On Saturday, December 6, there will be a Christmas Parade starting at 2:00pm.  The parade will begin at the Oatman post office and will end at the horse stables located south of town.  There will also be a bake sale and games that begin at 10:00am.  Also on December 6, the winners of the bush-decorating contest that began on November 1 will be announced.

Gunfighters will be on hand throughout both days performing staged gunfights on the town’s main street.  Oatman’s resident burros will also be roaming the streets looking for handouts.  Bring your own carrots to feed the burros, or purchase them from many of the merchants along Main Street.

If you happen to be traveling Route 66 in Arizona the day after Thanksgiving, make a stop in Williams.

The 4^th Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony in Williams, Arizona will be Friday, November 28.  The 48-foot tree sits at the corner of Route 66 and 2^nd Street in the historic small town in northern Arizona.  The ceremony was voted the “Best Rural Event” in the state for 2007 by the Arizona Office of Tourism.

The festivities surrounding the lighting ceremony begin at 4:30pm with entertainment provided by a local band, “The Good Ole Boys”.  There will also be Dickens Carolers and a live Nativity.

The Tree Lighting Ceremony is at 6:00pm.  Santa Claus arrives immediately following the lighting ceremony.

The ceremony began in 2005.  This year’s title sponsor is the Grand Canyon Railway.

Laughlin Nevada is holding a Holiday Boat Parade of Lights along the Colorado River on Saturday, November 29 starting at 5:00pm Nevada time.   The parade will be along the river that makes up the state line dividing Laughlin Nevada and Bullhead City Arizona.

Everyone with a boat is invited to decorate their boat and participate in the parade to kick off the holiday season.  There is no entry fee to participate, although a donation of a canned food item or an unwrapped toy is encouraged.

If you’d rather view the parade instead of participate, you can watch it from the casino river walk in Laughlin or from the Bullhead Community Park.  If you choose to watch from the Bullhead Community Park, organizers warn that the water level of the river will be higher than normal for this event.

Hot chocolate and other refreshments will be for sale along the river walk.  Check out the Laughlin Experience for more information and entry forms.

You and your pet can take part in the Thanksgiving Day parade on Thursday.  Ok, so it’s not THE Thanksgiving Day parade, but it’s a parade, and it’s on Thanksgiving Day.   The town of Chloride, Arizona is holding a pet parade in its downtown area.

Chloride is a living ghost town located about 30 minutes north of Kingman in Northwest Arizona, off of US 93.

The pet parade is being held on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 27 starting at 11:00am.  The parade will be on Second Street, between Elkhart and Payroll Avenue, about one block.

All pets are welcome but must be on leads or leashes.  There is no entry fee.  Pets and their owners who plan to participate in the parade should meet in Chloride Park between 10:30am & 10:45am.  Prizes and awards will be presented to participants.

The 2007 pet parade featured 14 entrants ~ 11 dogs, 1 cat and 2 goats.

Mr. D’z Diner is one of my favorite restaurants in Kingman.   Right on Route 66, across from Locomotive Park and the Powerhouse/Route 66 Museum, this 50’s style diner attracts visitors from all over the world.

They serve typical diner fare of hamburgers, hot dogs, and milk shakes, of course.  They also serve breakfast, which I have not had there yet, and they have a wide variety of sandwiches and dinner entrees.  They also serve pizza.

I have several favorites there.  The chili, which is meaty and not too spicy, is very good.  So is the hot dog, which is jumbo and beef.  The hot dog is available plain, with chili, or as a Harley dog, which comes with just about everything but the kitchen sink.  The hamburgers are huge.  One of their entrée specials is their day-old spaghetti.  I ordered it once, but got regular spaghetti instead, so I haven’t tried it yet.  One of these days I’ll order it again and see what I get.

I absolutely love their sweet potato fries.  They are served with a honey-mustard dipping sauce.  You can get just the fries, which come heaped on a platter, or with a sandwich.  All their sandwiches are served with regular French fries, but for $1 more, you can request the sweet potato fries.  If you like sweet potatoes, I highly recommend these fries.

One of the specialties of Mr. D’z is the root beer.  They make their own, and it’s pretty good.  It’s a lot more caramel-y than most root beers, but it’s yummy.

The décor of Mr. D’z is typical 50’s diner.  The booths are upholstered in pink and turquoise vinyl, to match the outside paint scheme.  You can sit in a booth, at a table, or at the counter.  The restrooms are marked with pictures of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe.  There’s a vintage-styled jukebox in the corner, and pictures of classic cars and other classic scenes on the walls.  Over one of the booths, there’s a signed picture of Oprah Winfrey, commenting on the root beer.

If you’re passing through Kingman on Route 66 and want to eat, make sure to stop at Mr. D’z.

My husband and I have lived in Arizona 3 ½ months now.  Living in the desert is much different than living in the Midwest.  I’m starting to get used to the lack of rain and the warmer temperatures.  I’m thoroughly enjoying seeing the mountains outside my window every day.  The skies are different here, especially the colors at sunset.  We’ve heard coyotes, seen lots of strange insects, and miss seeing squirrels. And, I saw my first roadrunner yesterday.

Since neither one of us has jobs yet, we’ve spent a lot of time at home.  In an effort not to go stir crazy, we look for different things to do that don’t cost a lot of money.  Yesterday we went out to one of the truck stops at the edge of town.  We went looking for some Route 66 souvenirs to send back home to my step-sons.

On the way back home from the truck stop, we headed toward the Hualapai Mountains and Hualapai Mountain Park.  We didn’t go all the way to the park, but turned off onto Hualapai Mountain Road, which is very near our house.  At the bottom of the mountain, there is an open area.  All of a sudden, this thing darted out into the road and ran in front of our car.  It was a rather large roadrunner.  It ran into the empty lot and got lost among the sagebrush.  We had the camera with us, and I tried to get a picture of it, but it stayed pretty well hidden once it was in the brush.  We watched for a while, but never saw anymore than just the top of its head again.

I’m sure I’ll see more around but the first one was pretty exciting.

Route 66 was commissioned in 1926 and was fully decommissioned in 1984.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum in Washington DC has a piece of Route 66 pavement in its collection.

Cyrus Avery of Oklahoma is known as the father of Route 66.

The majority of available maps and travel guides for Route 66 go from East to West.  It’s much harder to travel West to East on the highway if you are following a guidebook.

Adrian, Texas is the geo-mathematical mid-point of Route 66.

Elvis Presley liked to stay at the Best Western Trade Winds Motel on Route 66 in Clinton, Oklahoma.

Route 66 is roughly 2448 miles long.

Martin Milner and George Maharis starred in the TV show “Route 66” from 1960 – 1964.  The show was never filmed on the real Route 66.

The Joads traveled Route 66 to escape the Oklahoma Dust Bowl in John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939.

Steinbeck was the first to refer to Route 66 as The Mother Road, in The Grapes of Wrath.

Besides The Mother Road, Route 66 is also referred to as The Main Street of America, and The Will Rogers Highway.