Toth number two

Driving back on I-40 gets pretty ho-hum. I-40 is one of our main east/west routes when we are venturing out to the south and east, which we tend to do a lot. So I just expected to plow through and get home as fast as possible, but that changed when I learned what was in Winslow.

I mentioned back in September that we had stumbled upon a bucket list item, a carving by Hungarian born Peter Wolf Toth who, upon moving to the US, dedicated himself to creating carvings of Native Americans in each of the US states. Well, it turns out that Arizona’s Whispering Giant is in Winslow. Since Winslow is on the I-40 we decided that it would be a crime to drive by and not take a look.

My Toth list showed the carving was in the Winslow visitor center, and they had told us on the phone this morning that there was plenty of room in their lot to park a large RV. I can’t express how upset I was when we arrived and it was closed – just a couple hours after we had talked to them in the morning. As long as we had parked and locked up the coach we decided to walk around a bit, which was quite fortunate. A little over a block away from the Visitor Center we found it. I had assumed it was locked away inside, but was happy to find it in a park.

On the way back to Colectiva I decided we should walk on old Route 66 which was just a block over. When we got to old Route 66, we found ourselves standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona. The town took advantage of its mention in that classic Eagles song Take it Easy by building a park

The Standing on a Corner Park and the Whispering Giant were about the only things happening in Winslow so we didn’t stick around. Other than a couple of diners and gift shops near the Park most of the buildings were boarded up and businesses that had occupied them closed. It looked like there was a lot of commerce back in the day that the highway passed through town, but now that I-40 goes around its pretty desolate.

We had one last plan before getting back to Vegas. In one of my many searches for elusive touristy stuff I found an article on the 10 best diners in the US. The Galaxy Diner in West Flagstaff Arizona was high up on that list. Unlike a lot of the towns we have been in that used to have old Route 66 go right through them, and therefore had lots of motels, restaurants and shops with kitschy neon signs and such, a lot of those places are alive and well in Flagstaff on old 66. The Galaxy Diner is one of them. We celebrated the Woman’s 61^st birthday there and had some really good grub.

Interestingly enough after we took our selfie outside the Galaxy Diner the Woman spotted something imbedded down in the sidewalk. On closer inspection we learned that Flagstaff has a selfie trail and marks what they believe are the best selfie spots with these imbedded medallions.  The Galaxy Diner was number 9 of the 15 medallions along the trail. It’s a cute idea that maybe we will check out some day.
 

 We will be signing off for a bit now as we will hit Vegas tomorrow. After Christmas we are heading to Pasadena California to take in the Rose Parade. Until then be good. 

Talk to you soon!