Flagstaff & Route 66

Flagstaff and the Tallest Mountains in Arizona

So, we drove up to Flagstaff on the night of the football game, leaving early to ensure that we did not arrive at some ridiculous hour.

Amazingly enough, my son fell asleep almost instantly, as we hit the mountains, and the altitude kept getting higher and higher.

It was dark, which certainly was not my intention. I had hoped to be able to see much of the Arizona landscape during this drive, and obviously, the darkness was getting in the way of that. Still, it was a pleasant drive.

When we got past the lights of the city of Phoenix, I started sneaking glances upwards more and more, trying to see if the night sky was as clear as everyone on line claimed it would be.

Indeed, it was beautiful. Somewhere around Sedona, where there is a famous, guided night sky viewing, I pulled over, and was immediately glad that I did. The night sky was indeed amazing, and I do not believe that I have ever seen so many stars in the sky. This was something that I had to wake my son up to see. He got up, but seemed overly fatigued. I have asked him since if he even remembers it, and he says that he does. But it sure felt like he was out of it.

In any case, we continued driving, as we were now close to Flagstaff. Along the way, we had passed numerous signs revealing the elevation. We passed one at 2,000 feet, then 3,000 feet, 4,000 feet, and so on and so forth. Shortly after we passed one indicating 7,000 feet (well over a mile above sea level!), we were in Flagstaff. 

For some reason, I must have passed our hotel, the Hotel Aspen, numerous times. It seemed to go by a couple of different names, and perhaps I was just tired myself, but we just kept passing it, and it was getting late. Eventually, I did find it (with the help of some local police officers), and boy was I ever glad!

I checked in, and then pulled in to a space relatively close to our room. Got my son up, and we brought a few bags into the room, before we both crashed. We would be visiting the Grand Canyon the next day (I already posted about our visit to the Grand Canyon), and had a pretty busy itinerary for the next few days. But in the meantime, this was the one night in which i wanted to catch up on some sleep. So I took some Melatonin, and hoped for the best. It was probably around 1:30 in the morning, or so. 

This hotel was great! I mean, it really was awesome, and a lot of bang for your buck. It was fairly reasonably priced, had a heated pool, and offered very good breakfast - not just a do it yourself, cheap continental breakfast kind of a deal, but real scrambled eggs, sausage, potatoes, toast, waffles, coffee, orange juice, and some other things. It was the real deal. A couple of days later, I found out that they even offer a kind of "Happy Hour" of sorts, with drinks (two drink maximum) and chips, which we took advantage of. This was a very nice experience, as far as hotels go. 

That said, one criticism that I had was about the window shades. There was no way to close them, to let the room still be dark after sunrise, and I suspected that this would prevent me from being able to sleep in and catch up on some much needed rest. Sure enough, this proved to be the case. Well before 7:30am, I was awake.

Feeling exhausted, wanting desperately to sleep but knowing that this was now futile, I reluctantly got out of bed sometime after eight in the morning, and started about what would prove to be a busy day. We knew that we would start off with a good breakfast, and I wanted to make sure that we would swim before the Grand Canyon, since I wanted to be there kind of late - at least late enough to watch the sunset there. Even though it was only supposed to be an hour and change away, I thought it would be too risky to assume that we would be back on time to swim (the pool remained open until 10pm). As it turned out, I am glad that we did it in the morning, because once again, my son was sound asleep when we did get back later on, probably around 9pm or so later that evening, and I was not about to wake him in order to go swimming. So at least we got the swimming in early on. 

On the way to the Grand Canyon, we caught our first real glimpse of Humphrey’s Peak, the mountain that dominates Flagstaff, as well as the other mountains of the San Francisco Range.  Humphrey’s Peak stands at 12, 637 feet (3,852 meters), the highest point in the state of Arizona, and it was beautiful! Here are some pictures of the incredible mountains:

The Elden Ruins

That was the highlight of Flagstaff proper (to me, anyway, because I love mountains). But it was far from being the only thing that Flagstaff offered. It is a nice town (and it does feel more like a big town than an actual city), and it is in a beautiful area. Here, there is greenery, although there is also a lot of brown, too, which made this generally different than back east).

We also happened to stumble on a pleasant surprise: Native ruins.

This was a site right off the highway, and hardly well-publicized. Just a small brown sign on the side of the road, but at least I caught it. It would be something definitely worth seeing, especially for my son. There is far more evidence in Arizona of the native cultures that were here before, and are still present, than you really see in New Jersey, and this was a site that was worth seeing!

Route 66

Another aspect of Flagstaff that I really enjoyed was that it was part of the famous Route 66, which I do not believe I had ever been to before.

Route 66, as most Americans would probably know, was a historical route filled with some amazing things to see and do. At its height, it became the most famous highway in the world, and even had a hit song about it. Everyone knows "Get your kicks on Route six, six."

It became a popular tourist destination as a result, as well. It seemed that it was one of those things that went on many people's bucket list. People wanted to drive the highway, and wanted to see all of the wonders that could be seen there.

I knew of these things, and knew of the legend of the highway. Before planning for this trip, I did not know that the historic highway ran through Flagstaff, specifically. But one of the clinchers for me in picking the hotel that I did, other than that it had a pool that my son would surely enjoy, was that it was on Route 66. It seemed to add some sense of exoticism, of seeing America, in a good, old-fashioned sense, almost like being able to visit a small slice of the past.

This became one of the main draws of going to Flagstaff for me. Yes, I was there primarily because of the proximity to the Grand Canyon and, later, when I found out about the Petrified Forest, this became one of the main things to see on this trip. Yet, the fact that we were going to be staying a few nights right on the famous old Route 66 undeniably added a certain attractive element to the trip.