Latest / Arizona Unscripted / Episode 15: 🌵 Arizona Unscripted - Let's explore Route 66 with Author Jim Hinckley - part 2!!
Transcript
- Arizona Unscripted: Welcome to Arizona Unscripted. I'm your host, Bart, alongside my wonderful co-hosts, Diane and Jim, today. And from time to time, we'll be joined by special pop-in guests from communities all across the Green Grand Canyon State. Arizona Unscripted is all about Arizona, its people, its places, its events, and local issues that shape our everyday lives. From small towns to big cities, from hidden gems and great local food, to history, culture, and the challenges facing our communities. We're here to have a great con conversation with great people all around Arizona. So grab a cup of coffee or something cool, sit back and join us as we explore the people, places, and stories that make Arizona one of the most fascinating, and of course I think one of the best states in America. So welcome to Arizona Unscripted. And with that, I will pass it over to my great co-host, Diane. Good morning. Thank you for that part. We are super excited for this episode. I know. I am going to turn it over to our team Jim here for a conversation. So well, we have to tell people that have less last time. Go back to the previous podcast because we had started up with Jim, who's got all these books on this wonderful on Route sixty six. And and you know, it's sort of like we're thinking about it going, you know, another person in our wonderful team, Mr. Jim. Could actually be ⁓ be a lovely d discussion between the two of them. So there you go. We're gonna bring in the team gyms. Yes. ⁓ I kept riding my motorcycle down that ⁓ right past probably where you live there on between ⁓ Oatman and Kingman. That's a treacherous road on a motorcycle. The old house is still there. Somebody's bought it, put a roof on it. They tore down the garage that my pa and I built, but ⁓ The rest of it still still standing there. Wow. That ⁓ gas station or the ideal gas station. Is it called Rock Springs or something? ⁓ Cool Springs. Cool Springs, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we just stop there all the time. That's a nice place. So Jim Hinckley, thank you for coming back and joining us again. And I am going to Take a little back seat here and listen to you. Yes, I mean same here, yes. So what's your favorite part of of Route 66? Well, you know, I'm really partial to to the pre fifty two alignment through Oatman and said Creese Pass. first of all, scenic. I don't think a one eyed blind man can take a bad photo out there. Even sti even Stevie Wonder would have trouble getting a bad picture. ⁓ but I I grew up on that. I learned to drive on that road and it's where I fell in love with the desert. And it's kind of where I I kind of decided that I wanted to be one of the dry roasted nuts and live here on purpose. And ⁓ so that country out there is kind of special for me. Yeah, I like it too. There's a lot of a lot of scenery on that road all the way into Williams, ⁓ isn't it it just stops at Williams? ⁓ well, about ninety-five percent of Route Sixty Six is still drivable. You could push it into ninety-eight percent if you have a rental car or a Jeep, because everybody knows a rental car is the best off-road vehicle. and you know, when people ask me which routes about Route Sixty Six, I ask ⁓ which one. Because the road through Oakland was ⁓ bypassed in nineteen fifty-two. And then the road was re realigned through Yucca where I-40 is now. So which Route 66? It changed so many different times. It's hard to hard to pinpoint. Yeah, coming from Chicago, ⁓ going south, ⁓ you go through a lot of little towns, ⁓ little little tiny villages and stuff, and there's all the bars and restaurants and old gas stations and stuff all the way down through there. Have you been to Pontiac lately? Pontiac California? That's that is the poster child for how you can capture, tap into heritage tourism and as a catalyst for building a sense of community and transforming a community. Those folks have sold everything on the hog, including the squeal. They've they just have done a great job. Yeah. I was driving my I had an old ⁓ Ford convertible that We drove down through there and and I was driving through Pontiac and I heard a big boom underneath my car and the battery blew up and I pulled into Odell and I w we were gonna go in and have a drink in the bar and I thought I better look under the hood and see what happened to this thing. And sure enough I I couldn't shut it off, so I didn't stop there. I just had to keep going. Couldn't turn it off because the battery was gone. I ⁓ My my my mom used to tell me I was born ninety and I never seemed to get older. I've always had been fascinated with old cars. And I had a out of Michigan I had bought a thirty-eight Chrysler Royal for seventy-five dollars. And that thing was so rusted out, I went across the railroad tracks one night and the front fender fell off. Wow. ⁓ man, I could just see it now. Clank. Yeah, we used to drive down down Route Sixty Six in Chicago area and an old sixty four O'smobile Rocket ninety eight. ⁓ yeah. I used to take my kids down through there. They'd loved it, man. I had ⁓ when I was younger, right when they bypassed and and ⁓ when we're when we're younger w we do the stupidest things, ⁓ ⁓ and the ones that survive have good stories to tell. But I had when they bypassed Fruit 66 in the late 70s, I think 78. I I I don't know why this old man had this or why he wanted, but he had a sixty-five Pontiac Catalina two plus two with the with the tri power. And I traded him a Winchester thirty thirty lever action rifle and a ten speed bicycle for the car. He'd bought it new. And I I only had it a short time because I used to race it out by Stuckies along Route Sixty Six with Dangerous Dave registered and others. And I I had enough sense to know I was gonna kill myself or somebody else. So I I traded that for a fifty six Ford pickup. Yeah, them old cars didn't steer very well on them curvy roads. Well, this is all straight, you know, going out by the airport here and whatnot. But I can tell you at about a hundred and twenty miles an hour, you could start turning the steering wheel and the car was still going straight. It was getting air under starting to lift the front end. That's not a good feeling. That's not a good feeling, no. Yeah, I rode my motorcycle out that way several times. ⁓ That is a nice long straight straight away. It's ⁓ there's some great places in Illinois. And this again, the American story, Springfield. Abraham Lincoln's presidential library museum is 166 in Springfield, and his home is off. We talk about immigrants, ⁓ the Ariston Cafe down in Lichfield. ⁓ Nick Adam just sold that a few years ago. That was one family owned since it opened in the 20s. And his father came here as a penniless Greek immigrant. And worked his way up and established that cafe. It's another great story. The cafe is still going and going strong. Yeah, all way through Saint Louis. Saint Louis is a nice place for Route sixty six, too. It gets pretty confusing. There were so many different alignments, and now they've been cut off by I-44 and turned into one-way corridors, and it gets a little confusing. But ⁓ if you're patient, there's a lot to see. Yeah, you gotta go off the highway and back on the highway to see it all. But it's pretty neat to explore all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Just this this last trip was pretty rushed. I felt like I died and become a truck driver again. I only I I only had two days to get to Tulsa. But ⁓ we took the time to do some things. We stopped at the cultural center in Gallup, New Mexico, which is ⁓ the old Harvey House and Railroad Depot. There's a wonderful cafe. Angela Chavez has the Angeles Cafe. And they have this ⁓ beautiful, great museum, free museum upstairs, Railroad Native American History, Route 66. And they've always got an art display and somebody at the front entrance. And this time I had the privilege of ⁓ meeting Brian Antonio, fascinating artist out of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. There's always something to see and do if you take the time and talk with the people. Yeah. Because it's a the magic of Route Sixty Six is the people. That's that's the magic. Yeah. That's it right there. You see a lot of a lot of different cultures on that road. Yeah, that's something, you know, I I I've really got a problem in our current state of the nation. This is this is ⁓ the most incredible country because of its cultural diversity. And that's manifest all along Route Sixty Six. ⁓ the original alignment of Route 66 before 37 made a loop from Santa Rosa, New Mexico through Santa Fe to Albuquerque. And ⁓ of course, Santa Fe is one of the oldest capital cities in the United States, and it's built on the ruins of a city that was there before that. Old town Albuquerque, 1706. That's on Route 66 in downtown Albuquerque. ⁓ but the culture, all even today, here in Kingman, we've got ⁓ The 1939 El Trovador Motel is being refurbished by ⁓ an immigrant from Israel. ⁓ the Wild Hair Cafe is and is being refurbished by ⁓ a Dutch hydraulic engineer and his wife, who is from South Africa. it's just yeah, the diversity on the road. spectacular. And that that makes for some great eating. In ⁓ Yukon, Oklahoma, they have the largest. ⁓ Czechoslovakian cultural fair in the world outside of Czechoslovakia itself. It's in Yukon, Oklahoma on Garth on Garth Brooks Boulevard. It was a whaling from the Peach Springs, wasn't it? That talked about how when they made Route forty come through and shut down people from driving down Route 6. It caused a lot of economic dilemma for them. ⁓ it it destroyed communities. Holebrook within twelve months of I-40 bypass, forty-five businesses closed in twelve months. No way. And so but it was a necessary evil. You know, we talk about going up through Oakman, those curves, those twists, those winds. Yeah. Think of think of this. That road was in use till nineteen fifty two. In nineteen thirty nine the Arizona Highway Department clocked for the first time One million vehicles entering the state of Arizona on Route 66. ⁓ Wow. After the war, that number increased exponentially. And in nineteen fifty six, fifty seven, ⁓ forty percent of all ⁓ traffic fatalities in Arizona took place on Route 66. Wow. Yeah, we had to bypass it. That's all there is to it. It was it's just it it just it was it just couldn't take. Yeah. Well, and I know you're talking about Oatman, and of course, I mean, Oatman has a lot to offer, but Oatman is also very well known for their wild borough. And I love those little beasts and I love to go visit them. And I was really sad last week, I think it was that I saw that Nikki, one of their herd, ⁓ had passed away. And I just it really hit me how much people connect to the stories. And I think that's what's so powerful about your writing is connecting us all to the people of the past, the people of the future. ⁓ is there an experience that you had along Route 66 ⁓ or through Arizona that just really sticks with you that you just can't stop thinking about? Yeah, all the time, especially now, Route 66 has always been the road of dreams. Yeah, the from the Bunyan Derby, ⁓ the cactus derby with Louis Chevrolet, all these things. But you meet the most astounding people that are living dreams on Route 66. ⁓ one that one that comes to mind is just before COVID, before the apocalypse of twenty twenty, I met a gentleman and you fill in the blanks how old he was. He was a World War Two veteran. And when he had gotten out of the service, he'd shipped into Norfolk, Virginia. He was in the Navy in 46. And he and his wife got married and they they relocated to California. They picked up Route 66 around St. Louis. All they had, all they could afford for their trip was a 1940 Harley Davidson and a sidecar. And they decided late in life, they were living in Florida, they decided to restore a 1940 Harley Davidson and recreate their honeymoon trip. They were gonna drive to Oklahoma City and then to California. But before they got the motorcycle finished, his wife got sick and died. He was diagnosed with lung cancer, and they took out one lung and part of his other lung. ⁓ my gosh. But he had promised his wife he was going to take her to California. So he he took that side motorcycle sidecar with his wife's ashes and his oxygen equipment. And he went down Route 66 from Florida to Santa Monica Pier. my gosh. That just slayed my heart. Now, if you want the comedic version, ⁓ we had a French mime trying to set a stilt walking record. He was going to walk from Navy Pier in Chicago to Santa Monica Pier on six-foot stilts. He didn't make it very far before he had a heat stroke. And the first thing that came to my mind is: how does a French mime? Call for help along Route 66. But that's that's just me. But we just had Joe Barr. ⁓ Joe Barr just came through here ⁓ a few weeks ago. This fella here, ⁓ he is he's an Irish ultracyclist, 66 years old, and he wanted to set a Guinness Book of World Records. And and celebrate his 67th birthday in Chicago. He rode Route 66 from end to end on a bicycle in 10 days. What? Wow. He just finished it, set a new world's record. Wow. It's it's the road of dreams. And anything you can imagine, I've met people trying to rollerblade Route 66. I I just a couple weeks ago, I had an elderly couple come through Kingman. They were driving, they'd restored this car. They've had it for 40 years, and he says, you know, all we've ever done is drive this to local car shows. And he says, We want to do something different. So they drove they lived in Muskegon, Michigan. They drove to Chicago, hit Route 66, drove to California in a 1926 Hupmobile. ⁓ that's fantastic. And every day there's some there's a somebody living out dreams on this road. It's just just astounding. I have a cousin that was Building a nineteen fifty Chevy, and him and his dad were gonna drive down that road, but he he didn't get it done in time. My uncle ended up passing away before he got to do it. Yeah, it it's it it's something I want to encourage I always encourage people to please discover America. Get out there, meet the people. Any road trip will do, but Route 66 is transformative. It really it will inspire you, it will You know, illustrate why this country is so unique in world history, why it is so amazing. And in spite of the craziness we have going, it it it still attracts people, it still inspires people. It it you it's just when you get out on that road, it it's transformative. Yeah, it really man. Especially if you do it on a motorcycle or an old car. Motorcycles, here's one for you. I met a group about three summers ago. ⁓ they left Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, picked up Route 66 in Oklahoma and went to the California coast. They invited anybody to drive join their rally. The only qualification you had to have a motorcycle manufactured before nineteen sixteen. Wow. And there was ninety-four of them. ⁓ man. Wow. That's funny funny. That's a pretty low requirement low, but it's it's a you it's an interestingly simple requirement, but yet profound. Yeah, those are expensive motorcycles. I wonder what yeah, those are. My gosh. Yeah, they go for a hundred thousand dollars some of them. ⁓ my gosh. That's well, it's gonna be a sm maybe a small club. Maybe not. Well, thank you both for Very engaging conversation today. I do hope, Jim Hingley, that you will join us again ⁓ and would love to hear more about your adventures. Well, it's been a pleasure, guys. If you find yourself up here in Kingman, give me a holler. If I'm around, I'll give you the 50 cent tour. And love it. You got yourself a deal. If not, appreciate you being here. If not, you can check out Kingman. I developed a narrated self-guided Historic district walking tour for Kingman Main Street using QR codes. That's awesome. And you can pick that up at the ⁓ depot, Depot Plaza here in Kingman. ⁓ it's all the film and celebrity associated sites, historic sites, ⁓ colorful characters, ⁓ Arizona territorial history, downtown Kingman. That is fascinating. I am looking forward to doing that. Wonderful. Well, thank you all. This is an absolutely great conversation. Thank you folks. Thanks. Thanks a bit. Bye bye. Bye bye.