Good Morning Breakfast

Jason made breakfast for us Saturday morning, with Halie and Ali’s help.  Brevin and Kendry did their own thing!
(Look at the clock it was not 4:10 AM..or 4:10 PM…battery problem)…….
We enjoyed French toast with fresh strawberries, bacon, sausage, hash browns and our favorite beverages from …the best Chai Tea Soy I have ever had!
Kendry was not much into cooking and breakfast, wheels are his idea of a good time!

Thanks Jason, Julie, Halie and Brevin for letting us interrupt your weekend plans!   We had a blast spending the night and day with you.   Congrats to Halie she made the Junior AF Cheerleading Squad.  

City Creek Celebration

So here we are at the new shopping hot spot of Utah…..what an amazing place.  The sights, the sounds, the shops….spectacular! The food court was of course packed, we loved ….true to their advertisement…we left wanting more and loving their authentic Greek Food!

The sounds were oh so thrilling….Kendry loves drums, and when we found a guy playing them his eyes were as big as the cymbals.

I love it when someone enables my shopping habit….I was so good on my first trip to City Creek the only purchase was FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD!

Our parking place was a once in a once in a lifetime miracle….front row…directly across from the elevators!

Real Equinox Green

 

The sight of tender new green shoots coming up in Little Man’s Easter basket makes me smile.

This year I decided to go green for Easter…not that I’m into Green, but this idea was just to great to pass up! 

It has taken almost a week for the grass to get this green and tall….can’t wait to see how much more we have by Easter Morning.  

Kendry loves touching the little blades of grass.  When it was first planted he loved spooning the dirt out of the basket.  Boys and Dirt…….enough said!

Last Stop Las Vegas

 

What a great time we had with Greg in Las Vegas.   I can’t begin to describe the peace and serenity that we felt in his place. Got to ride in one of the cool cars….(no photos please)…and then  we enjoyed a great dinner at BJ’s……haven’t been inside a BJ’s since 2009 at the last Spring Training!  After dinner we talked until almost midnight…..we are all early risers so we must have been having way to much fun!  

 

Early morning stroll and then the vacation is over.   Heading home……..not a fun time….weather was horrible every 50 miles we hit a blizzard.  

Safely home and glad to see Little Man and know that he missed us me to pieces.   Hugs and Hugs and more Hugs!   

Oatman and The Burrows

After lunch in Kingman, Al said that a must stop along the way is Oatman, AZ…because there are burrows roaming everywhere in the town.   He continues to tell me the story of Oatman: when a friendly old burrow makes his way towards our car far outside of the town…

Wild burros, or Spanish donkeys, still roam the streets in Oatman, Arizona, and the residents wouldn't have it any other way. Located across the Colorado River and up the winding 10 mph curvy hill…. Oatman is an authentic western ghost town and mining camp founded in the early 1900s after prospectors struck gold.
Though Oatman's current population of 150 is a far cry from the nearly 4,000 who once called it home, it has remained prosperous, and its residents take pride in keeping the town as authentic as possible.

  
We had a blast! They walk right up to you, especially if you are carrying a bag because they think you have carrots for them. You can buy a bag of carrots for 1 dollar to feed them. I wish I had done that! Maybe next time….it was so dang cold all I wanted to do was keep warm.   We bought tee-shirts instead of carrots.

 

Clark Gable apparently married Carol Lombard and honeymooned in the Oatman Hotel. Friend (unnamable) of ours said that he has spent the night in the hotel as well………..Really!

They have so much memorabilia that it takes a lot of time to look at everything….We stapled our dollar bill on to the wall along with the other 80,000.

We had a great day in spite of the cold windy weather…….

Ed's Camp and Kactus Kafe

Ed's Camp is another roadside attraction that goes back to the early days of Route 66. Ed originally came to the area as a miner in 1917 and it didn't take him long to realize that the real gold could be found servicing the Route 66 traveler.

Ed established his camp around 1919 and business was so good he never got around to building a proper building, he just threw up a roof to provide some measure of protection from the hot desert sun, wind, rain…etc(so those dark clouds) and Ed's Camp was born. Today the camp is deserted, but the odd buildings survive to temp the photographers ~ from the road that is ~ I wouldn’t venture any closer ~ bugs, dirt, snakes…who knows what….anyway it isn’t a good idea because Ed's Camp is private property and not open to the public.   I did pretty good for being in the car and on the road!

Cool Springs Cabins

From the very earliest days, Cool Springs camp and service station was an important stop for motorists traveling Arizona's Route 66. Cool Springs was built in the mid-1920s and has been connected with Route 66 from the very start. 

In the 1930’s, James Walker moved his family from Huntington, Indiana to live at Cool Springs. While there, Mr. Walker built 8 cabins, improved the station and ran the operation. Mrs.Walker cooked the meals and made sandwiches. The kids, Tom, Mary, Jim and Chuck, all helped out. Mr. Walker returned to the Midwest leaving Cool Springs to Mrs Walker.

Cool Springs continued to flourish through the World War II years. Mrs. Walker married Floyd Spidell and he continued the tradition at Cool Springs. Their chicken dinners became a mainstay for the Route 66 traveler in western Arizona. After the war America’s love affair with the automobile took off and Cool Springs entered its golden age.

Then in the early 1950s something happened that foreshadowed the changes to come for Route 66. This part of Route 66 was bypassed by a new straighter alignment of Route 66 through Yucca, Arizona, that did away with the need to traverse the steep mountain grades of Sitgreaves Pass. Interstate-40 follows this newer alignment of Route 66 across the desert today. This new alignment of Route 66 also bypassed the town of Oatman, Arizona, effectively turning it into a ghost town. After the mines closed during World War II, Route 66 had provided the economic base for the old mining town and the business, like Cool Springs, located along her route. When the newer alignment of Route 66 was opened the busy days of Cool Springs became numbered.

Sometime later, Mrs. Walker left Mr. Spidell leaving Cool Springs to him. With the passage of years an elderly Floyd Spidell found the upkeep of Cool Springs increasingly difficult. He asked his niece, Nancy Schoenerr to come and live at Cool Springs and give him a hand. Nancy and her husband, Chuck, moved to Cool Springs in 1957 with their kids and Aunt Nettie.

Ned Leuchtner tried repeatedly to buy the property for three years from Nancy but to no avail. Nancy’s reasons for not selling were sentimental. Finally, in the summer of 2001, Nancy called and said she wanted to sell. She was moved by Ned’s appeal to rebuild Cool Springs. The rebirth of Cool Springs had begun.

This is what it looks like today as we travel the Route 66 to Oatman,  Al said the clerk inside was a bugger….told him not to open his hostess cupcakes inside the store….told him to Get Get Get!  Cold and Windy as all get out, look at the flags in the last picture….direct force!

 

On the Road Again….Route 66 here we come

Al is very good about stopping whenever I feel the need to get a picture or shop or …..whatever!  So there are lots of pictures along this road…mostly desert views …just sayin’

Just for you Grandma…we got close enough to get a picture….but not to close!

From a distance the jumping cholla, or teddy bear cholla, looks like a fuzzy, soft plant with many short, fuzzy branches looking like teddy bear arms, growing from the top. As you get closer you realize that the cuddly looking plant is completely covered with silvery spines. If you are unlucky enough to touch the spines, you will find yourself painfully stuck to a spiny segment that seems to have "jumped" off the plant. Segments will also "jump" when stepped on and attach themselves to your leg.  

The name Joshua tree was given by a group of Mormon settlers who crossed the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century. The tree's unique shape reminded them of a Biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer. Ranchers and miners who were contemporary with the Mormon immigrants also took advantage of the Joshua tree, using the trunks and branches as fencing and for fuel for ore-processing steam engines.

On to Route 66

Our destination is actually Las Vegas where we will be the guests of our good friend Greg.   He promised us the accommodations would be very nice!

On the way we drove through Kingman, AZ and meet up with Kathy, Mike, and Kylie for a quick lunch.  The weather was absolutely horrible, cold, rain, snow, sleet…it felt like winter in Utah!   YUCK.   We had a great lunch, they headed to Phoenix, we were off to LV…by way of Oatman, AZ. 

Spring Training 2012

Arrived in Glendale early Friday morning…..started looking for a place to stay!  Oh my, everything is sold out close to Camelback Ranch or is over the top expensive $325.00 a night….I don’t think so.  

We finally found a place in North Phoenix on Greenway Rd, which actually turned out to be a very nice stay. 

  After we got settled into our very comfortable room, we were off to Camelback which was 20/25 minutes away.   Al is a good navigator and gets around with ease!   We got to see all of our players who are currently on active rosters.   It was so great to see their smiling faces and know that they love what they are doing every day………what’s not to love about playing baseball for a living! 

Fabulous seats for the Seattle Mariners game….thank you so much Mike! 

We only got to visit for a short minute after the game.   Mike invited us to Seattle again this summer, I hope we get the chance to take another road trip.

Kremlin invited us to his place to meet his family and enjoy some dang good dessert! 

I came home and tried to make it…..just wasn’t the same, but I’ll keep trying…I’m not a quitter! 

Flan 

We left Phoenix early Monday morning to travel to our next destinations!  Good-bye icky weather…the game was called anyway!

Camp Verde ~ Time to Rest

Montezuma Castle is near the top of a Verde Valley cliff and is one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America.

Wow!  What a fantastic place to be able to see!  This was the perfect stop on our trip between Flagstaff to Phoenix.  The five-story stone and mortar dwellings contained 20 rooms and once housed about 50 people. A natural overhang shades the rooms and shelters them from rain. Another part of the cliff wall bears the marks of an even larger dwelling, which has not survived. Due to heavy looting, very few original artifacts remain.

When European Americans discovered them in the 1860s, they named them for the Aztec emperor (of Mexico) Montezuma II, due to mistaken beliefs that the emperor had been connected to their construction. Neither part of the monument's name is correct. The Sin aqua dwelling was abandoned 100 years before Montezuma was born and the Dwellings were not a castle. It was more like a prehistoric high rise apartment complex……kinda like the SUPER 8 where we settled down for the night!

 

Our sleeping quarters for the first night….continental breakfast and the sound of birds happily singing in the trees!

 

Glendale here we come…………….

Desert Drive

I’m giving this formation the name of “Water Tower Rock”…It just appears in the middle of the desert, right on the roadside…..beautifully colored by the sun!

Moqui Cave

Moqui Cave is a nice stop on Highway 89 just outside of Kanab, Utah. They charge a $5.00 entrance fee just inside the front door…$4.50 if you are a senior!   There is a nice gift shop inside as well as a large display of fluorescent minerals and historic artifacts.

The tour guide is the son of  the owners of the property.  He shared with us a short/long history of the cave and he was a joy to visit with.

It's quite a large cave for being basically a sandstone grotto. Here is the link to their web site: http://www.moquicave.com/index.html

 

        The cave was turned into a tavern and a dance hall ……which Al found very interesting since the owners are definitely of the LDS faith.  

Lex is interesting to chat with, but you leave equally impressed with his father, Garth, who bought this place in 1951 when it was nothing but a cave covered with graffiti and soot from years of campfires. He turned it into a bar and dance hall and then into what it is today. Garth played football for the Steelers in 1945-46, earning $450. He became an expert silversmith and woodcarver and came to be called Chief Many Talents. And those many talents are displayed throughout the cave.   Pictured below is the top of the bar which is absolutely beautiful.

Fun place to stop for a visit……well worth the time we spent there!