Day 7: Route 66 Oatman to Flagstaff

Today is a little hard to blog because there were some ups and downs, not just in the road, but in our family.

Our day's summary:

• Late start in the morning
• Backtracked to Oatman on 66
• Back through Kingman and on to Peach Springs and Seligman
• Dinner in Flagstaff - Chinese!
• Staying the night in Flagstaff

LATE STARTS - We are realizing that despite good intentions, we are getting late starts in the morning. I'm sure we save some time by picking hotels with breakfast included (Tobey loves going to lobby breakfasts). But there is inevitably a period of time where Tom and I are still packing and showering and the kids are just watching TV waiting. So Tom and I are starting to become fans of nighttime showering so that it saves us precious daylight time for traveling.

It's not only hard to get out of the room, it's hard to get on the road. I had to spend 10-15 minutes cleaning up Eli's mess of dropped toys and things, throwing away trash in the minivan, etc. Tom had to pack the minivan, which is always a challenge of putting the most used stuff on the outside. He realized we left a laptop in the room (!). After he retrieved it, he pulled away only to hear Tobey, "Where are my Mickey Mouse ears?" Tom had to go up to the room again (this is all AFTER checkout so Tom has to ask to be let in the room each time). Luckily, Tom found them and a new rule was established: the Mickey ears stay in the car.

OATMAN - Oatman Hwy was depicted on our GPS as a thin gray line, the kind they use to indicate "We *think* there's a road here but we can't guarantee it." The GPS voice kept telling us to U-turn to get back on the interstate so we had to turn the voice off. Poor Route 66, not even recommended by our GPS. We found some neat things along the way like the newly refurbished Cool Springs gas station/gift shop/museum. We are following this EZ66 guide book and it's like a fun scavenger hunt looking for things along the way (although we think the author is a little dramatic/exaggerating and imaginative sometimes).

Oatman is nestled in the rocky mountain and it's basically a little tourist town now. We saw a staged gunfight and we fed carrots to the roaming burros in the street. We got an obligatory postcard and fridge magnet and ate at a local restaurant (they're all local, no chains make it up here). We had Navajo Tacos and Fry Bread (think funnel cakes but round/pancake style). It was charming to have ordered the Frito Pie only to have the server guy say, "Hmm, I think we are out of Fritos but I'll run to the general store next door -- they usually have some."

PEACH SPRINGS and SELIGMAN - The kids konked out after lunch in Oatman and Tom and I stopped for pictures and followed the EZ66 guide. Our main goal was to reach Seligman where we hoped to see some hot rods for the annual Fun Run and also get a snack at the Sno-Cap, a 66 legend. We did both (and we think we caught a quick glimpse of the Grand Canyon on the way) but patience was starting to wear thin. When we got out of the car, the kids were a bit hyper, wanting to wander/run/touch everything (there is a ton of interesting things to see at the Sno-Cap). We got ordered our treats along with the signature gags from Juan Delgadillo's family who now runs the stand. When we sat down, Eli did his usual stand in his chair to reach over the table and he spilled the entire cherry sno-cone which now looked like blood on the ground. And then after we were done with our shake and malt, we met a couple with a therapy dog named Cody. So the kids petted Cody while we chatted with the couple. When the kids were done with Cody, they started getting hyper again and started running around, getting into things they shouldn't. Things climaxed when I approached Eli who threw a big gravel rock at me while I hear in the background Tobey throwing a rock at a metal sign.

We had enough of the bad behavior and after a scolding, we said we were not ready to deal with them until we reached Flagstaff. Little did we know it was probably 70 miles away still. We heard our fair share of "I want snack", "Sorry we disobeyed", "Can you get my travel pillow that fell on the ground?", "Can you talk to me now?" from the backseat. Annoying as it was to hear their voices at the time, it was also liberating not to answer them. Tobey was a little frustrated but just kept at it like Chinese water torture. I could handle that. Eli however probably didn't fully understand what we were doing and eventually escalated himself from frustrated to a tizzy. But even he eventually gave up and fell asleep. We finally reached Flagstaff, gave our lectures (I'm pretty sure Eli understood at this point) and continued life talking to each other. Tom's been teaching the kids that when they disobey, they break the relationship and today's 1 hour silent treatment was an example of it.

On to happier things...

FLAGSTAFF - On the way to Flagstaff, I realized that we saw a real variety of landscapes today. We saw the classic semi-red rocky formations that we saw in Utah. But then it gave way to a really flat, almost prairie/midwestern kind of feeling, which gave way to pine trees and feeling like we were in Oregon! We arrive in Flagstaff at 7,000+ feet elevation.

Tom and I both have childhood memories of our parents wandering around some teeny town in search of Chinese food. In fact, when we vacationed with Tom's family early in our marriage (BC, before children), Tom's dad wanted to eat in a Chinese restaurant when we passed through Reading, CA. That dinner was awful, our whole 6 dish dinner was various meat and veggies in the same brown sauce. Ick.

But when we rolled into Flagstaff, curiously enough, neither Tom nor I wanted another burger, fast or fried food (Tobey, of course, wanted McDonald's). We're not big Mexican food fans so what was left? Chinese. And Flagstaff has at least 3 Chinese restaurants. We know we can't expect Cupertino standard Chinese food but we also wanted to find the best we could. The first restaurant, Szechuan somethingorother, was a buffet run by two Latino guys. The buffet looked sad and there was a stuffy smell to the place. And when I asked whether we had to do the buffet or whether we could order from the menu, they looked at me like, "Are you crazy? Why wouldn't you want to eat buffet?" Nothing against Latinos but would you want to eat at a Mexican place run by Chinese people? Actually, judging by the business, a lot of people didn't mind, but we wanted to try for more authenticity. The second place, China Garden, was more promising as a Chinese teenaged girl was the hostess (and I thought she seemed surprised to see us, Chinese people, walk through the door). We decided to try it and it turned out not half bad. Tom and I weren't that hungry (Sno-Cap shake and malt were still in us) but the kids gobbled up their fair share of the Mongolian Beef and broccoli that we ordered. Ah, veggies. Good for the internal plumbing. I never thought I'd choose only semi-decent Chinese food over a burger, but alas I did and may the pigs start flying! Plus, we have to give Tobey and Eli the same childhood memories of wandering around a small town for Chinese food!

HAMPTON INN - While dinner itself was fine, checking in at the hotel was just grating on my nerves. The kids, having been couped up all day in the car (or not having much freedom once they were outside of the car), were in their hyper mode. Climbing the furniture in the lobby. Being silly and loud. Jumping on the beds, falling off beds. Just general not listening to anything we said. Although he knew it wasn't quite right, Tom let the kids play around the room for a while, even though they were loud and it was after 9, because anything we said to them was not going to be obeyed, almost like they physically can't calm down and obey due to pent up energy. I had to get out of the room or they were going to drive me crazy. I only was out for a few minutes to ask the front desk for a crib and when I came back, there was still quite a bit of energy to be let out. But now at 11PM, they are finally out for the past half hour or so. This just teaches me that they need some free run around time each day or it will be an unhappy ending everyday for me. We will be staying put in Flagstaff for 2 days to take a peek at Grand Canyon and Sedona so I hope we will have more happy times.

As far as Hampton Inn itself, we stayed in one in Kingman and now in Flagstaff. They seem to be pretty good. We decided that we'd try to stick to Hampton and see if we can get rewards sometime during our trip. We'll see.

And so our day 7 ends a bit on a downer. Even more of a downer is our shady Internet connection. Hope the next 2 days "staying put" will be a little more happy all around.