Then we went to the walk around part of the park.

They had raccoons, badgers, all sorts of things. Who knew bears could climb trees like MFs?

This little baby bear whipped up this tree in like 10 seconds. So don’t try that next time a bear is chasing you ...

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Then his buddy whipped up there too and they had a fight! How they didn’t fall off, I don’t know ...

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They had a bird show which was pretty cool (well, freezing cold actually ..) but the birds were cool.

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Oh - Goats are Metal.

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And foxes are cool.

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Then we hit the road again.

Up through Flagstaff, and back on to Route 66, stopping at a place called Twin Arrows.

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The Trading Post pictured here was established some time in the early 1950s as the Canyon Padre Trading Post, named after the canyon near the property.

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Sometime later, the name was changed to Twin Arrows, a play on the neighbouring Two Guns, and the 25’ arrows were installed to get attention (and sales) from the passing Route 66 traffic. Route 66 was all about gimmicks to get people to stop and spend their dough!

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At some stage, one of the famous prefabricated metal Valentine Diners was installed, which you can see here at the end of the building.

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The area became known as Twin Arrows. When the interstate was built, they even have a Twin Arrows offramp to the place. But alas, by 1995 the novelty of 25 foot tall arrows wasn’t enough to get the cars to stop, and it closed for good.

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The buildings were cool to explore .. they’ve taken a beating in the last 20 years.

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Well, I'm a standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
Such a fine sight to see
It's a girl, my Lord, in a flat-bed Ford
Slowin' down to take a look at me
Come on, baby, don't say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me
We may lose and we may win, though we will never be here again
So open up I'm climbin' in, so take it easy

That was the 1972 song by The Eagles that put Winslow, Arizona back on the map. Like most places, it was suffering after being bypassed by the interstate, and the song put it back on the map.

The R66 stores have The Eagles playing on video screens, and they sell Eagles merch.

They’ve installed “the corner” with statues of Glenn Frey and Jackson Browne, who wrote the song, and put a little life back into the town.

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Next stop (and stop for the night) is Holbrook, Arizona.

Home of the famous Wigwam hotel!

There were actually 7 Wigwam motels built around the country - 2 in Kentucky, New Orleans, Orlando, Alabama, Holbrook, and San Bernardino.

Only Holbrook, San Bernardino and one in Kentucky remain.

The Holbrook one was built in 1950, and run by the same owner until 1974 when the interstate bypass forced its closure.

It sat unused until the owners children started restoring it in 1986 and reopened it in 1988. They still run it today.

They’ve kept it all original, and they have some period cars around the units for ambience.

Cool place!!

The Wigwams are made from steel frames covered with concrete.

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Another famous place in Holbrook is the Rock shop - adorned with numberous dinosaurs.

Why .. I dunno! I guess because the rocks are as old as the dinosaurs?

We will go there tomorrow when it opens and check it out.

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There’s also this ice cream parlour, which branched out to knives and petrified wood. Because you always need some old timber with your ice cream. I’m guessing this place won’t be open tomorrow.

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That goes for most of the places on R66.

Some of them were huge and now they’re ghost towns.

R66 bought wealth and prosperity to the towns in the 50s and 60s, and the interstate decimated most of them. Only the strongest survived, and they’re all shadows of what they were back in their heyday.

Didn’t check out that museum - the one in Clinton is quite good.

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They covered both bases, just in case.

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Quite possibly, I never really thought about that.

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So, this morning we went back to the Rock Shop with all the dinosaurs, but they decided to have the weekend off and didn’t bother showing up to work today. Lol

So we got a coffee and bailed 240 miles to Albuquerque, New Mexico, via Gallup.

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Gallup is still a big town, with around 25,000 population. It is known as the “Indian capital of the world” ... around one third of the population is of American Indian decent, mostly from the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes. Gallup sits near Navajo country.

There is a 4 lane highway right through town, with dozens of cool old buildings and neon signs, you could spend all day there checking them out.

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We stopped at the famous El Rancho Hotel. Inside, there are 100s of pictures of all the old stars who stayed there in its heyday.

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I did a quick tour of the pawn shops looking for any guitar bargains (alas, there were none ..)

In one, the owner picked my accent and said he had been to NZ and Aussie 30 years ago, and we got into a good discussion on guns.

“You don’t have guns? How do you protect yourself?”
“Well, nobody has guns so you don’t need to protect yourself ...”

Cue a room of men looking puzzled at how that all works .... lol

They were all nice dudes. An Indian guy came in with a nice looking Jackson guitar (my eyes opened up when I saw it) and he wanted to pawn it - “I’ll give you 30 bucks for it ...”

30 bucks! The guy had 60 days to come and collect it, or I guess it’ll be out for sale for $450. I wish I had those margins back when I was a second hand dealer ...

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Danni is on a retro clothing kick, so we stop by the Goodwill stores when we see them.

I wasn’t holding much hope of cool retro duds in Gallup, NM, but we hit the paydirt!

Now I’ll have to buy a pinball machine to stash all this shit in to ship it back home!

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They had a cool original Dairy Queen Store, most of these have disappeared now.

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We hit the road, next stop was the Continental Divide.

This is basically a line, where all the water on the left runs into the Pacific Ocean, and on the right side runs to the Atlantic.

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Nothing really much to see here ... except an Indian Gift shop and a small sign.

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That’s so cool.

That’s what I said in the first post back at the start, hopefully the threads encourage the punters to get out and explore the country!

If you really thoroughly do Route 66 top to bottom, it would probably take a month or two.

You see hundreds of abandoned places on the trip, each with a story to tell, and each is probably worthy of checking out, but we haven’t really got that time (or patience) to do that.

So we check out the stuff that looks cool and unique to us. I haven’t documented everything here, just stuff I think others may find interesting.

Anyway, off to Albuquerque!

First stop, the MezelMods! We met these crazy guys on the Hearse trip back in 2014, and we hit it off. Tim and Kristen Mezel are top dudes and fun to be around.

I’m not even a customer - never bought anything, I don’t mod my machines much. But I will get a Donut Shop for my Getaway this time. That mod was what started MezelMods back in 2013, just before we visited them.

When we visited last time, the Mod shop was a desk in their house, and they had about 4 pins there.

Now, the mod shop is in a 1500sqft warehouse, which doubles as 505 Arcade. For a measly $8, any punter can come and play the pinballs all day. Only 8 bucks! What a bargain!

If you think $8 is too steep to play pinball all day, Mrs Mods has a message for you ...

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They’ve just landed their POTC, Danni had a few games against Tim. Note how cleverly Tim has prepared himself for the Arctic winter outside ....

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I had a couple of balls ... personally, I’d prefer to play the Trident and the Devil Riders ...

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Later we all headed to the local pub for dinner, and good times was had by all!

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Cruisey day today in New Mexico.

Important to take some breaks when you’re travelling.

Today was laundry day, so while the girls took care of that I headed to tdunbar place, to check out his Lizard Lounge Arcade.

Tim has a sweet collection of 10 games out in his garage gamesroom. It even has a pallet fire to keep everyone warm!

Tim and his son Trevor make the TZ pyramid mod. Hit them up if you want to pimp your TZ!

Thanks for inviting me around, guys!

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Later we met up with the Mezels again, drank some beers, spoke some BS, and ate some good food at Rock n Brews in Albuquerque.

Really good times - these are good people, some of the nicest dudes in pinball - send them some money and buy some of their pinball shit today.

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Oh yeah - filled up with gas on the way to dinner.

Is this the cheapest gas in the USA?

$1.79 a gallon.

That’s like 1/3 of the price we pay in NZ ...

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Then we returned and the girls finished their game of “aggressive to each other Scrabble”

Such nerds.

But they love it.

Fiona gets so pissed when Danni wins. Lolll

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PS Feisty Pets soft toys are the coolest things ever. $17 well spent.

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Feisty pets! They make bigger ones, and really big ones.

You can see them in this video. Clearly these guys think they’re Robot Chicken ...

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Ha! 6 works out nicely. Not all of them are plugged in at the same time. All the wall warts are plugged in there, and I roll the whole lot up and stick it in the suitcase.

It’s a genius idea I stole from a lady I saw at an airport once. With the strip, you only need one NZ/USA adapter plug. All the wall warts are multi voltage, so they work just fine anywhere.

Another simple travel hack - when we stay multiple nights, we take all the suitcases in. When we are just overnighting for a few days in a row, we all pack 3 days clothes and the bathroom bags into one bag - so you don’t have to unload the car every time, and you don’t have 3 big bags lying around the place. Winner!

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What the hell .... ?

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(10 minutes later ...)

What the hell!!

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We made it out of ABQ safely ... snow has stopped falling on the I40 but it is deep on the sides of the road.

Thanks again to Mr and Mrs Mods for their hospitality in ABQ, and letting me abduct one of their pinball machines!

All going to plan, that machine will be back in Auckland in time for Pincade Classics on Sunday 10th March!!

Don (ex The Pinball Podcast) and his cool kids came down to 505 Pinball this morning to see us off! Good to see you again, Don!

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What a bunch of globetrotters us kiwis are!

Warwick is in Canada, FYI ...

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Blast from the past! Mid point Route 66!

2014 going West ...

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2018 going East ....

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Alas, the road had been resealed and the Mid Point Line has disappeared ... downer ...

Here’s the signs ...

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The Mid Point Cafe/Shop was closed today ...

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Those who read the Hearse Thread back in 2014 may remember I spoke with the owner of the Cafe, she had been trying to purchase the abandoned motel next door. Well, it looks like she may of, as it was open for business today! Nice one!!

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So - the reality of this whole trip ...

We just drove 1600 miles, half way across America, just to have a steak for NYE.

Lol

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We are staying right next door to the Big Texan, but the hotel dialed up the limo and it drove us 200 yards to the restaurant! Haha!

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And there it is! 3rd time around ...
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So, if you find yourself around Amarillo anytime soon, be sure to check out the Big Texan Steak Ranch.

You may be foolish enough to try the 72oz Steak challenge, where you have to eat all this in under an hour ... a Shrimp Cocktail, Baked Potato, Salad, with Roll, Butter, and of course the 72 oz. Steak.

I struggle with a 16oz ribeye, but somehow a little 125 pound lady ate all this food in 4 1/2 minutes - that’s the record so far. Crazy.

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Always good times at the Big Texan!

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Yeah, I’m a bit concerned about that ...

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You could make a new TV show out of that!

“Build a new life in the middle of nowhere”.

Could be a winner!

Just having a quick whip around the old Route66 area of Amarillo.

Most things are closed but good to have a look around.

A flutter of snow, but the temp is down to 16F (-9c). Pretty cold!

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Checked out the antique malls along the road.

Most were “museums” but the one opposite the Route 66 sign had some good stuff at good prices.

Got this sweet original Sands Casino mug from Las Vegas for $5.

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Then we went to Walmart for the days fruit supply (all fruit today after the huge steak last night!) and Danni found another Feisty Pet. They’re getting hard to find now.

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