Up early and showered! These time zone changes are making getting up early easier and easier. The showers at our campground were rating 3/10. Lots of hot water and a private lockable shower room but that’s it. Dirty, dilapidated, hard to set the perfect temp water. It got us clean, best possible outcome given the conditions.
The campground was very quiet and the sites are spaced nicely apart. A great place to stop for a night if you’re near or passing by Winslow, AZ.
Speaking of Winslow, you might have guessed from yesterday’s blog that today we are starting our day by visiting Winslow to stand on a corner and admire a certain flatbed Ford. All of course references to the Eagles song “Take it Easy” in which Winslow is referenced and now visited by tens of thousands of each year from around the world.
We started our visit to Winslow by parking the van almost immediately behind ‘the’ flatbed Ford. It was early and the town was still quiet. We went to enjoy breakfast at “The Flatbed Cafe”. Barb ordered Enchiladas & Eggs while I orders Eggs Benedict. This was a treat and it was delicious.
Afterwards we went to take some pictures around the towns main attraction, the flatbed Ford. The town has made a very nice space for visitors such as us to take pictures including piping Eagles music throughout the area. As it was early we had the place almost to ourselves but we were assured that within an hour our so it would be bustling with people all trying to get the perfect picture. The only other people there were a couple originally from Markham, ON (small world) that now live in Los Angeles, CA.
Leaving town I realized that Winslow is a rarity for US-66, it’s prospering. Could this really be because it was referenced in a song some 52 years ago? Do/did the Eagles have that much of an effect? One wonders.
We head a little further West and take a detour to visit the Meteor Crater. This crater was formed almost 50,000 years ago when a huge meteor crashed into the Arizona landscape. It’s estimated the explosion equaled 20,000 tons of TNT.
Today the crater is 550 ft deep and almost a mile across. It’s privately owned by the family that owns bar T bar ranch, the Barringer’s. There is a $27USD entrance fee that includes access to the observation walkways, a museum, theatre & guided tours. We did not take the guided tour or watch the movie in the theatre but did walk about on our own and visited the museum. This is a great place to visit, but in my opinion should not cost what it did. Maybe I’m just cheap. We both really enjoyed the visit.
Returning to I-40 we headed towards Flagstaff and then onto Kingsman, AZ. Here we stopped for groceries at Bashas’ supermarket before heading out and turning away North from I-40 towards Lake Mead. We stopped for the night in the Lake Mead Recreational Area and are staying at the Willow Creek Campground & RV Park. Our site (D3) has a fabulous view of the Colorado River canyon as the river flows South away from Hoover Dam.
All for today, good night one and all.
P.S. Our mouse guest checked out last evening.
The petrified wood is beautiful – are there souvenirs for tourists?
Hello Avis. The National Park did not seem to sell petrified wood as souvenirs (big signs about not taking any ourselves). However, there are vendors outside of the park boundaries that collect it from private property and then polish it and sell it.