Route 66

America's 'Mother Road' the famous Route 66 (we have learned that you have to pronounce 'route' as 'rowt' otherwise the natives look at you like your from Europe or something)!!

This is a big mural in the town of Kingman. Kingman is a good place to start the 'rowt' 66 experience because there's a museum, old rail exhibits and a massive Walmart where campers can 'use the restrooms' and exchange any camping equipment that may have become damaged by excessive use or partially burned in a camp fire. Thanks heavens for Walmart (I'm sure not all Americans will agree with that!!). Get the kettle on - what animal am I luring toward me in the picture (it's a recurring theme)?

Further down the Mother road - this is a little 'curiosity shop' with loads of memorabilia and stories of the origins of the road. During the great depression a lot of people used route 66 (from Chicago to Los Angeles) to get to California thinking it would be 'the promised land'. Unfortunately for a lot of people the trip was too far and even when they got there, it turned out to be false hopes. The story goes that most of the people who migrated to the west ended up returning home. Like people leaving Sunderland for London!!

An original gas station and car repair stop. In the 1920's your average car wouldn't easily get from the east to the west without something going wrong, a bit like trying to get to work in my Rover back home. Route 'Clickerty Click' now kind of ends in a town called Williams, which by some strange coincidence just happens to be the library of the very same town I am sitting at now!! R66 is now just a tourist route, because as all you Americans will know without googling, off the top of your head now, it's been bypassed by which interstate?

R66 is synonymous with a certain motorbike. Harley Davidson's are thundering up and down all the time. In fact there's a big HOG day today (Harley's Owners Group) and there's hundreds of them in town and strangely one Honda Gold wing which is getting much derision from the HOG's. I wished we could transport the Royal Enfield we hired in India three years ago here today - it would have turned a few heads and been the only 'non-Harley' bar one!

Here is an interesting three wheeled vehicle we spotted outside one of the hip cafes. In England we also have three wheeled vehicles (you wouldn't normally see them outside a hip cafe mind you - in fact they normally congregate around the Pallion club), for a cup of tea can anyone tell me what they're called in England? (try googling that!)

We were on R66 some of the way and then took a detour to see the very beautiful Prescott, Sedona and a few other places. Patience please, that's the next blog.

Your last chance for a cuppa and a simple Google exercise: What's the connection between Bobby Troup from Pennsylvannia and R66?

The answers in the tea leaves:

Outsourcer - Calm down lass, you'll burst a blood vessel. No you get nowt for the road runner and remember, we're travelling so we don't have enough time to read the same answer twice - or were you just showing off? COT deducted for CS'ness. You're right about the time difference and the funnel cake (2 x COT) , but that's all! (Gasps of breath in disbelief).

Nobody was buried in concrete building the dam, the clue was in the blog. The concrete had to be poured in small amounts or it wouldn't cure, so unless a person was absolutely determined to be buried by standing in the same spot as the concrete was poured in tiny amounts around him and not say a word as it approached his neck, it was pretty much impossible to get buried. You couldn't drown in it either because it would have only been a foot deep, I can think of only one person who could drown in a foot of liquid. Happy Birthday BOB, by the way!!

Another COT to our Poll though, it was actually 548 stones (you missed the one Ivory placed) but that was close enough for us. The twig count was spot on but can you remember the 4678 leaves that Bob tore off the surrounding trees?