Day 68 -- Tuesday, July 7
Cloudy, rainy, and cool - not the weather one hopes to encounter on a visit to the Grand Canyon.These could hardly be called ideal conditions for viewing this vast and colorful crevice but one makes do. I paid my entry fee, drove several miles into the park and witnessed...lots of gray. The canyon, while still impressive in its depth and width, really wasn't much to look at. All its color were terribly muted.
I didn't stick around for long, then. Another day for the Grand Canyon. I motored back down highway 180 into Flagstaff, got back on Route 66 and headed west. I drove through Williams, a town named for a mountain man, Bill Williams, who is generally considered to be the first white American to widely explore this region in the 1820s. Born in North Carolina in 1787, he lived among the Osage and the Utes and was eventually killed by Indians in 1849.
Williams, the town, was the last community along 66 to be bypassed by I-40. It happened October 13, 1984. Finally, the interstate had won the battle, if not the war. It hasn't won the war because 66 is still kicking, still filling the hearts and minds of travelers with dreams of heading west, of a new life, of things unseen. People come from all over the world to motor along what's left of the old route. Now, how many folks, do you suppose, are sitting in their living rooms in Japan, say, or Belgium, or France, Germany or England daydreaming about traveling Interstate 40? Not many, I suspect, but scores of those folks will come to the U.S. to travel the Mother Road. The merchants along the route tell me of them everyday.
Two such merchants can be found in Seligman, Arizona. The brothers Delgadillo run two businesses along the old route and they (the brothers and the establishments) couldn't be more different. Juan operates the Snow Cap, a garishly colored drive-in restaurant near the edge of town (everything in Seligman is near the edge of town) and is a major jokester. His menu features "Hamburgers without Ham, Cheeseburgers with Cheese" and "Dead Chicken." Ask for a napkin, he'll thrust a fistful of wadded-up tissues your way (though, eventually, you'll receive a clean one). Outside the restaurant is a roof-less white '36 Chevy, decorated with plastic flowers and a Christmas tree.
Juan's younger brother, Angel, is the town's barber and an ardent Route 66 preservationist. The brothers' father came from Mexico to Seligman in 1917 and set up a barbershop right alongside what was to become Route 66. Angel graduated from Seligman High School in 1947, went to barber college in Pasadena, California, passed the Arizona boards and set up shop back home in Seligman in his dad's old location in 1950. He's moved since but he's still on the old road, still cutting hair and still sharing 66 lore with anyone who takes the time to stop and get a trim or just chat a while. Angel, a little more reserved than his brother but no less friendly and open, has been at the forefront of efforts to preserve what's left of the old road and to line it with markers so that 66 pilgrims can find their way. He's a delightful gentleman; I urge you to stop in and say hello when you're passing this way.
