Day 13: Flagstaff to Kingman, AZ

Street sign in Kingman, AZ

Today's leg of Route 66 took us further through Arizona. I'm really liking this state and the scenery that we encounter along the way.

The Western Hills Motel in Flagstaff, AZ

We left Flagstaff this morning and as we were driving through the city, we encountered several motels along the way.

The Downtowner Motel
in Historic Flagstaff, AZ

Not too many relics left though in the new part of town. In the historic district, however, you could find several motels and restaurants and other buildings from back in the day that were preserved.

Old abandoned segment near
Bellemont, AZ disappearing
under interstate I-40

From there, we hit the road towards Williams. The drive was through nice stretches of pine tree forests, far enough from the interstate to make you feel in no-mans-land. A couple miles outside of Flagstaff is the small town of Bellemont. There we found an abandoned piece of Route 66 that led straight to go under the interstate.

Highest point of Route 66 in Arizona
at 7,410 ft in Parks, AZ

A little further after that, close to Parks, AZ, we hit the highest point of Route 66 in Arizona at 7,410 feet. The nice thing about it as well is that it lies on a dirt road in the middle of a forest.


Parks has really tried to preserve Route 66 as well as possible and they created an Auto tour of where the original 1920's pavement once crossed that section. No cars allowed, but we hiked the piece. Some of the pavement was still there, but other pieces were just scraped up and the pavement was tossed to the side.

Welcome sign in Williams, AZ

Williams was next on the list and this town is Route 66 overload.

Red Garter, an 1897 bordello, with a manikin
hanging out of the window in Williams, AZ

Everywhere you looked, they had signs, little neighborhoods, buildings, restaurants, motels, gas stations and everything in between dedicated to Route 66.

Their welcome sign said it all: "The best of Route 66." There is definitely a lot of history here.

The Cafe 66 downtown Williams, AZ

The Supai Motel in Seligman, AZ

The next town, Seligman, didn't want to be the underdog, and had very lively signs of Route 66. Besides the several motels that we saw, they had a huge souvenir store that had Route 66 plastered all over it.

Guy signing "Get your kicks on
Route 66" in Seligman, AZ

We pulled over and hung out for a bit. There was live music playing and many other visitors of Route 66 hanging out.

The picture I took was of a guy playing "Get your kicks on Route 66" - very appropriate for the moment.

Looking up into the cave where
condensation created this erosion

From there, we hit a long stretch of 66 through the Arizona plains between a couple mountain ranges and made our next stop at Grand Canyon Caverns. No city here, just a recreation place to visit the largest dry caverns in the United States and the third largest in the world.

The Snow Palace - soft mineral bubbles forming
 on the ceiling of the cave

20 ft sloth, whose bones were found in
this cave

They are not that far underground, about 100-200 feet but pretty stretched out. They were originally called Dinosaur Caverns for the bones that were found that were thought to be from dinosaurs yet later discovered to be from a sloth dating back from the Ice Age. Later however, the then owner wanted to know where the airflow in the cave was coming from. He lighted several signals of red smoke and left a crew up on the ground to see where it would appear.

Bobcat that fell in the cave and was preserved

Two weeks later, nothing had appeared so the crew left. Shortly thereafter though, they got a phone call that red smoke was coming out of the walls of the Grand Canyon. The caves were therefore renamed Grand Canyon Caverns. Side note that the Grand Canyon is about 120 miles from this place. Another neat thing is that you can stay overnight inside the cavern, all decked out with tv and all the bells and whistles.

The Lido Motel in Kingman, AZ

We drove through a couple more small towns and along a nice stretch of the road.

Route 66 Motel in Kingman, AZ

The road is taking us through many hills and while the stretch we are driving is a newer piece of 66, we can see scattered pieces of the old original road zigzagging around us and around the hills.

The old road is in very bad shape though and many pieces are missing and eaten up by the landscape.







Our stop today is in Kingman. We haven't explored the full portion of the road yet in this city, but as we were driving in, we saw a couple motels already welcoming us to rest here tonight.


Miles driven today: 172
Time driven today: 4hrs 30min

Total miles driven: 1,687
Total time driven: 52hrs 50min