Route 66 must see's/stops

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Lonsdale Rob

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Apr 11, 2014
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Hi everyone, I'm heading out in two weeks for a cross country trip from Ontario, Canada to the furthest destination being Vegas(Picking up the other half the family there). My Dad and I are taking 8 days to get to Las Vegas with my two year old twins and border collie and are going to be following parts of old Route 66 along the way. I'm extremely lucky in that my wife is an avid trip planner and I already have my days  broken down to how many hours before I stop for bathroom breaks, lunch and sightseeing stops etc.  I'll be doing the return trip with my wife and 6 year old son after a week traveling around Moab and the Grand Canyon and following much of the same route home and was just wondering if there were any cool places people here have stopped at (with motorhomes/trailers in tow) that we may have missed in the guidebooks. I'm really excited about this trip especially having a large comfortable hotel room on wheels with us as we sight see, but I've moved up from a 17ft to a 29ft TT and I'm just a little nervous about how easy some of these places were supposed to be seeing are accessible with a large trailer in tow.
Any advice is much appreciated!
Rob
 
Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo.  Also, Big Texan Steak House in Amarillo.  It was 2003 when I was there, but I remember ample parking.

There are a ton of old fashioned diners along the way, and of course, Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon, but you've probably already thought of those.

Sounds like a fun trip!
 
Petrified Forest National Park.

Take the old road thru Seligman and Peach Springs.

There's another nice old stretch south of I-40 in California that goes thru Amboy but it sounds like you're not going that far. It's a seldom traveled road with Route 66 logos in the middle of the highway and you can get out and take pictures of the logo without getting run over.

Any/All of the Route 66 museums.
 
Wendy said:
It's a seldom traveled road with Route 66 logos in the middle of the highway and you can get out and take pictures of the logo without getting run over.

One of my favorite now cult movies was Bagdad Caf? - probably the last of the movies featuring Jack Palance. The films location was in Newberry Springs about 25 miles East of Barstow, CA on Route 66 parallel with I40. There is also a nice RV park in Newberry that I sometimes use vs. what is available in Barstow. If you decide to check it out, try to rent the movie first. The Caf? is still there plus the motel and the old TT that the Palance character lived in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagdad_Caf%C3%A9

And as Wendy points out, the traffic is light so easy to photograph the 66 markers painted on the roadway.
 

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Thanks everyone, Cadillac ranch is defiantly on the list. Petrified forest looks great, going to look more into that. Yes unfortunately The Grand Canyon is about as far as were headed...setting up a home base near Zion Park for a week while we explore. There is the side trip to Vegas just to pick up the other half of the crew. We certainly plan on stopping at many diners both on the way there and back (as long as the children are behaving well enough :).
Thanks for the help!
 
Hello,

X 2 what koski said on visiting the Big Texan in Amarillo. A must see restaurant with excellent food (steaks perfered). I have been there in the last year and still plenty of parking space. It reminds me of the times I was in Wyoming, very western and similar to what you see in the old TV shows of a great western bar with the old wooden floors, walls and big support beams running across the very big dinning room. Live music and family place for sure.

BTW, they have a free steak meal if your a little hungry.  ;)
 
Route 66 museum in Elk City Oklahoma is really cool and a nice photo op with a giant Route 66 sign.

Another nice museum in Santa Rosa New Mexico.
 
Greetings,

Thought I would chime in again. Here is a link to various Route 66 Museums.

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/66-museums.html
 
That's great everyone, I'm going to dig into this stuff tomorrow night, the big Texan sounds like a must stop for sure, and thanks for the link to the museums as well. :) I thought I had the trailer all set other than washing it and could check out some of these route 66 things tonight but went to test the lights etc yesterday and found out that wiring is not working on the truck side! So I'm hoping I can solve that tonight after the kids go to sleep. Glad I found that out now instead of the day before the trip!
 
Meteor Crater is on your route and a great place to visit.  There is a very nice campground at the entrance just off I40.  You can still see some of the old Route 66 pavement there.

Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest are both one day events if you want to really see them.








 
Hey Everyone
Finally had two seconds to report back on our epic trip. The trip went very well other than a hard lesson about parking a larger trailer in Pontiac Illinois were I redecorated someone's front bumper(tried to V park myself into a spot in a small lot and ended up scraping someones bumper with the trailer bumper) in Pontiac Illinois. The person was as nice as could be expected about the incident and once I got over my frustration took a quick look at the Pontiac car museum and a few other sights.
Things I learned on this trip
-Going west is very windy especially through Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico
-There is alot more elevation changes in Utah than I ever imagined
-Not to judge a book by its cover...we stayed in some beautiful spots out in Utah, but one of the most friendly spots was a campground in Teucomcari (I'm sure thats mispelled) New Mexico the Mingo RV park. There is an old Studebaker parked out front with a cut out of Betty Boop towing a little trailer and a Corvair a little further in pulling a trailer. It doesn't look like much but they are trying really hard to fix it up. They xmas like lights strung there tree's and little disco ball they lit up at night and the owner worked really hard to make sure we were happy. We stayed there on the way out and on the way back for a night each, at $20 for a full hook up sight you couldn't beat it and you felt like you were immersed in that Route 66 experience.

A couple other things that I thought I would put out there future reference, Zion National Park is amazing and worth a few day stop. We stayed literally just outside the park in a private campground that bordered the parks campground I believe it was called Sprindale RV park in the town of Springdale. It had a nice pool, laundry facility, full hook ups and an amazing few of Zion Canyon. One thing to note though is if your coming from east end of the park to the west end with your trailer you will likely have to pay an additional $10-15 for a tunnel pass that is good for two trips through in 7 days. They shut down the oncoming lane when you go through as it is not very wide.

Also, I was fortunate to see both the south and North rim of the Grand Canyon on this trip and though both are equally spectacular if given the choice I would choose the North Rim again. Its much quieter, less busy and the view just seems more dramatic. Also if your going in the warmer months its a good place to cool off. We left are campground in Zion at 32deg Celsius (90 ish Farenheit??) and it hovered between 34-40f at the North rim with about 60 seconds of light flurries and another 25-30 sec of hail at one point in the day.

We also had a chance to boondock in Goblin Valley, and wow what an experience. I was worried when my wife told me the plan but when we arrived there were many different well marked areas to set up camp, a few almost parking lot specific type places with incredible views, a definite place to stop at and camp again.

The trip was fantastic and the kids were amazing travellers, I think having our home with us helped immensely and my wife and I both agreed at the end of the trip that it was one of those few trips were we would have been quite happy to stay out for another week or two, everybody was still getting along(atleast as well as they normally do) and neither one of us were missing home.

A side note I would like to say what a good job my 2011 F150 4x4 5.0l did. It certainly was thirsty but generally speaking it travelled 11,000km's 9,000 of which was pulling around 6,000lbs in weight and averaged 10mpg. On the way out there were days when it stayed in 3rd gear most of the day just to maintain a reasonable speed, but it always did it, it climbed serious elevation changes and the tow/haul mode worked flawlessly going down the steep grades. I think if I was doing this trip often a diesel would be better but I think for the rare times I do something this serious the truck is more than acceptable.
Anyways time to go repair the damage on my trailer and get it ready for the next trip!
 
 
Sounds like a good trip Rob....My wife and I want to do the same trip this winter ending up in Arizona...we will have to keep more south due to weather, but it should be fun. I have done parts of Route 66 before.
 
    Here is a neat URL of a lot of highlights along the Route:  http://www.legendsofamerica.com/66-main.html  Over several trips we have tried to see as much of the Route as possible, but it isn't easy.  There are supposed to be markers in both CA & IL, but we couldn't find them, yet there are some really neat towns and museums to visit along the way.

Ed
 
Loved your review! Thanks!

And yes, we're staying in Winslow AZ (per the song) in about a month! :)
 
Park the RV in Kingman, AZ or Laughlin, NV and take the toad or tow vehicle only to Sitgreaves Pass and the town of Oatman, AZ

Note the eastern approach to Oatman over the pass is extremely winding and narrow - the western approach is better if you have anything bigger than a compact vehicle, which was the size of the typical car when the road was made.
 
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