Old Route 66 in-between
Kingman and Seligman is one of the more interesting stretches.
First stop was the Hackberry
General Store – and old general store, gas station and garage back in the day.
Today it is a souvenir shop. Last time I was there in 2010 they had a nice ’56
Corvette in front, but it’s gone now.
When we arrived there was a
large group of Japanese guys riding Harleys from Eagle Tours, out of Las Vegas.
We would see them a couple more times through out the day.
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| Hackberry General Store |
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| Old Burma Shave Signs: Big Mistake Many Make Rely on the Horn Instead of the Brake |
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| New Friend |
Down the road from the Hackberry
General Store we stopped at a gas station for gas and talked to a real nice guy
from Canada – Ron – riding his Harley Bagger. He was on a solo tour around the
South West and then back up north to Western Canada.
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| Everybody gets a rest at the gas stop before Seligman |
Seligman was next. This town
really embraces the Route 66 tradition with quite a few old businesses. The
place I was looking for was Angel’s Barber Shop to get a shave.
Angel Delgadillo has a very special relationship with the road
called Route 66. He was born in his family home on April 19, 1927 on Route 66
when the roads from Chicago to Santa Monica were first being connected to form
the newly created “U.S. Highway 66”. He grew up in that house with his 8
siblings, using the lights of the nighttime Route 66 traffic streaming through town
to make a game of chasing shadows. When the Great Depression hit Seligman, the
Delgadillo family was able to stay in their home town because Angel’s older
brothers, Juan and Joe, got jobs playing music for dances in the towns along
Route 66 in Northern, Arizona. As a teenager, Angel experienced World War II by
watching all the convoys of cannons, jeeps, and trucks drive through Seligman
on Route 66. Then when Angel became an adult and decided to take after his
father, Angel Delgadillo Sr., by becoming a barber, he attended the American
Barber College in Pasadena, California, which just happened to be on
California’s section of Route 66. For his barbering apprenticeship, he
completed that on Route 66 in Williams, Arizona. Then in 1950, Angel opened his
barber shop in the same building his father had opened his barber shop and pool
hall on Route 66 in 1922, before the road even had its now famous name. And
yet, all of these connections are not the reason that the name Angel Delgadillo
and Route 66 go hand in hand. It is just the beginning of Angel’s Route 66
story.
Source: http://www.route66giftshop.com/the-angel-of-route-66/
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| Angel Source: Internet |
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| Angel's Barber Shop |
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| Inside Angel's Barber Shop |
Being 88 years old, Angel
has cut back on the shave and haircut work. He only works in the mornings now
and I missed him – Scheiße!
We ran into Ron again while
in Seligman.
Williams was the next stop
for some lunch at Crusier’s Cafe – a pretty decent burger and beer place with
live music in the afternoon and good local beer. Unfortunately, I did not have
any beer this time. We ran into Ron once again and had lunch with him.
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| Crusier's Cafe |
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| One of the best bar signs I've seen |
The Grand Canyon was calling
so we turned north, up AZ 64.
After waiting in a pretty
short line to enter the park we got checked in, cleaned up, took a walk to get
our first look of the Canyon and then went to dinner (way too much eating on
this tour).
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| From the South Rim at dusk |
Turns out I have no cell reception
and the WiFi is painfully overloaded by all of the younger generation texting –
thus radio silence ensued.
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