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Ginny's Journeys Ginny's Adventures 2009

day trip to Williams Jun 11, 2009

I ventured down south 56 miles to see "The Gateway to the Grand Canyon". A train leaves Williams every morning, gets to the Grand Canyon about noon, and leaves again at 3:30. If people are not staying in one of the lodges here, they are like most visitors who see one section of the Grand Canyon for 3.5 hours and leave. (A ranger told us that). Only 5% of the people go down below the rim and only 1% go to the bottom. I am happy to report that I am one of the elite 5%.

But today's story is about the quaint little town stuck in the sixties called Williams. Route 64 goes to the town but then ends and the road becomes Route 66 - the mother road starts up again here but ends again outside of town. I wish they would have kept Route 66 all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles instead of breaking it up like they did.

The speed limit is 15 mph through the town that is about a mile long. Route 66 is a divided road here with buildings in between the lanes. The best part of Route 66 in Williams is the lane that runs from the South to the North of town, as the building fronts are on that street. I'd say about 90% of the buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places and there are plaques on them saying when the building was built and what it was used for. Today, most of them are shops that sell Route 66 junk, Indian and Southwest items, and Grand Canyon souvenirs. I just had to stop and have a bowl of chili and a strawberry shake at Cruisers 66 Diner and eat outside to watch the people. I got to watch a bunch of old model Ford Fairlanes parade by town, making two passes through! They were all convertibles and one of them showed how they became convertibles - the trunk lifts from the back window, the roof lifts and then goes into the trunk, then the trunk closes and viola! I didn't know that's how it was done! Maybe it wasn't but this guy has a lot of money to make his toy better than anyone else's!

What a fun afternoon, listening to 60s music, watching 60s cars cruise the street along with modern cars, trucks, and RVs! I can just see life here back when I was a teenager! Elvis look-alikes, girls with skirts that spread out wide, saddle shoes, you get the picture!