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I know. That was the absolute cheesiest blog title I could come up with. But, heck, I was really excited to explore historic Route 66 for the first time. After all, it is “The Mother Road.” Ben had driven the entirety of Route 66 2.7 times (yes, that’s actually the number he just gave me) and his photos are simply amazing. I share his love of old stuff with character, so I was excited to see some of the funky towns on this road.

We left Albuquerque after the balloon fiesta and followed the historic road toward Flagstaff, AZ. That does not mean, however, that we were in any rush to get there. Nope… we slowly meandered down 66, stopping anywhere that looked interesting. It took us three days to actually get to Flagstaff. We spent a night in Grants, NM and another in Holbrook, AZ, but there were MANY stops along the way.

Like many of the towns on Rt. 66, Budville, NM is so small that when you’re driving through, you could blink and miss it. We did stop to shoot this funky old gas station and some of the other surrounding buildings. It’s interesting to see what happened to the towns that reside along 66. During the road’s hey day, I imagine that the towns were all bustling and saw a lot of visitors, as this was the main road on the west side of the U.S. Everything changed with the advent of the highway system though. If a town happened to be near an exit on the interstate, it had a chance at survival. If it didn’t, then it likely became a ghost town, with few (if any) residents and buildings in some state of decay.

Many of the towns that survived, like Winslow, AZ (above), tried to maintain a bit of the 66 historical vibe. There are, of course, a lot of gift shops featuring Rt. 66 signs, shirts, etc. But there are also restored buildings and lots of great-looking old cars that you would have seen decades ago. The town of Winslow took advantage of the famous Eagles song with the line “Standing on the corner, in Winslow, Arizona.” The shot above is supposedly “the” corner from the song, which stops a lot of tourists passing through.

The town of Holbrook, AZ housed a wigwam motel, where visitors can stay in these tee-pee like wigwam structures. The cool thing about this place was the old cars there. They kept lots of classic vehicles in front of the wigwams and dispersed throughout the motel grounds. If there were no modern cars parked there, you would feel like you stepped back in time a few decades. We spend a good amount of time shooting there and the pic above, as well as a few below, are from this locale.

We finally arrived in Flagstaff, AZ and continued south to the Sedona area. More on Sedona and Rt. 66 to come! To see some of Ben’s awesome shots from the drive, check out his BLOG POST.