The Great September Road Trip – Day 1 Route 66 Mesa AZ to Needles, CA

One of hubby’s bucket list items was to drive on Route 66. At first, he only wanted to do the Arizona to California portion, but I think I’ve convinced him to do it all; just in smaller bits and pieces. I would say this was our FIRST time on Route 66, but I think we’ve been on it unknowingly a few other times before I even registered it was a thing. Anyone who’s seen the movie “Cars” knows of the road, but at the time I hadn’t even looked into all the different cities along the way. And yes, the song has run through my head more than once during our trip.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we purchased the “Route 66” app for my phone. The download is free, but to use it you have to pay; you can choose a week ($19.99) or year ($39.99). The app works with CarPlay and you can select cities and towns along Route 66 that you want to visit. I would recommend that you select Points of Interest and not cities; we missed a number of things that would have been fun to see by only choosing the place we wanted to visit. The voice was odd, it didn’t always take us where we selected, and it didn’t alert us to current closures.

We also purchased two books EZ66 Guide and Route 66 Road Trips. Neither book were user friendly for us, although we did tab a couple of pages for reference during the trip. The best website I found was Route 66 Travel Guide. State-by-state, city-by-city links and information on the POIs. There’s also a pretty great Facebook page with photos and a community that will offer suggestions on their favorite places. In researching Route 66, I’ve decided there is NO WAY to see everything in one, two, or even several trips. There are just too many things to see!

Road Trips are supposed to be an adventure, and in that spirit, the best method for us was researching the POIs we wanted most, mapping them (printed and/or GPS/App), and getting on the road! I would recommend allotting more time than you think you need if you want to get the full experience. We started later than planned and unfortunately rushed through some of the towns in a hurry to get to our destination for the night.

We made our way from Mesa to Flagstaff via I17. It’s roughly a 2-and-a-half-hour drive, mostly scenic, as you climb from 1100 to almost 7000 feet of elevation. One of the rest areas had the most beautiful prickly pear cactus in bloom! We had lunch in Flagstaff and headed out on our the next leg of our Route 66 journey; Williams, AZ.

Williams is the “Gateway to the Grand Canyon”, offering train trip packages to the Canyon and back. There are a number of interesting things in Williams, including the train depot park, visitor’s center, and a wall mural denoting it as “The Last Town Bypassed by I-40”. There was also a “Zip Line” attraction, and a new roller coaster park.

Next up was Ash Fork. We did not stop at the museum but found a Route 66 marker, and a monument/park commemorating the history of Ash Fork. It was amazing to see the slices of Americana on the backroads. Spaghetti Dinner fundraisers, water towers, American Flags flying, and all the small businesses continuing to make their living on the lore of “The Mother Road” and its travelers.

We stopped in Seligman (pronounced ‘Sligman’) only long enough for a photo of ‘Mater, Lightning McQueen, and a bathroom stop. The thrill of finding “Burma Shave” signs between Seligman and Kingman added more history to the trip. We refueled in Kingman (which is where we think the fraud on our credit card happened), then stopped at the Ramada Inn, known for its murals and artwork depicting Hollywood stars from earlier days. I fan-girled and had my photo taken with ‘James Dean’.

We missed the Oatman burros, the Topok Bridge, and water tower; making it to Needles as the sun was setting just after 7 p.m.

Safe Travels and God’s blessings!
You can continue to follow our adventures on Facebook at Normads (Norman Adventures), or here on the blog.

The Great September Road Trip – Packing, Snacking, and Making it work

We started planning this trip sometime in January of 2023, after deciding the dates for our cruise to Alaska. As we planned to be living in Arizona at the time of the cruise, the trip itself broadened to a pretty big deal including annual physicals & dentist appointments, a mammogram, trip with the grandkids to a kangaroo farm, lots of catching up with friends, church, a historical presentation, and a weekend anniversary celebration for a kids camp in Carnation.

That’s a lot to cram into one trip, and as the dates started to come together, we realized we would be packing for nearly a month of travel. Weather and temperatures leaving Mesa and traveling into California would be similar, but moving north to Oregon, Washington, then to Alaska for the cruise, would require packing clothing for 3 separate climates. Our ‘winter’ clothing was in storage in Washington State, and we only brought 3 suitcases with us when we moved. We also needed to pack things like vitamins, shoes, some dressier wear, as well as electronics, charging cables, and other ‘necessities’ for traveling. We purchased an additional large suitcase (thank you thrift stores!) and some other things to make the trip more organized and successful.

Road trip suitcase packing is different than for an airline trip; although we also needed to be mindful of the size of our cruise stateroom and living in a hotel. Regardless, we left Mesa packed with two large and two small suitcases, two laptop bags, a garment bag, a plastic tub, a case of drinking and one of distilled water (for the CPAP), a cooler with ice and snacks, and several boxes of things we wanted to put into storage in Washington.

So, for the vitamins, I made the decision to day pack them instead of carrying the individual bottles along with us (Hubby took his bottles). The benefit of this for me was I could throw the pack in my purse along with my collagen and probiotics and take them with breakfast. I bought these little plastic zip pill pouches from Amazon and labeled them for daily use. I stuck them inside these cute little bags I bought from the dollar store. They packed beautifully and I didn’t have to listen to the rattling every time I moved my suitcase.

We also took a cooler with us to keep snacks and water cool. This was handy as most days of the road trip we ate breakfast at the hotel, then grabbed a food bar and water during the midday and ate dinner about 3 or 4 PM.

Being gone for 26 days meant we’d need to do laundry along the way. Fortunately, most of the hotels had a laundry room and sold rolls of quarters and detergent. I found it cheaper to buy a small detergent at the dollar or grocery store and carry it with us.

Trip hacks I’d recommend:

Map your route out using Google Maps or similar, then print the maps. It was helpful to see a broader picture of where we were going instead of just looking at the map on the car’s GPS. I printed one for the entire trip from Mesa, AZ to Redmond, WA, one for each day of the trip, and one for Redmond, WA to Boise, ID, and back to Mesa.

We purchased the “Route 66” app for that portion of the trip; it works with CarPlay and kept us on Route 66 from Flagstaff AZ to Santa Monica, CA. The GPS voice is a bit grating (there are other selections, but they’re kind of goofy). If you’re going to use this app for Route 66 travel, be aware that not all of Route 66 still exists, so you’ll be on other major freeways at times. There were also a couple of times when Route 66 was closed due to flooding or construction, but the app didn’t alert us and we had to back-track to I40 again. I would also recommend if you’re using this app that you select the “A” route, and select Points of Interest instead of city destinations. I found we missed some of the POIs by just selecting “Williams”, “Kingman”, etc.

Purchase an altimeter app, or have one in your car. Yes, elevations are posted on the highways, but there were times we wanted to know the elevation in between those signs. The one we purchased also had coordinates, wind speed, water boiling temperature, and weather. It did not work with CarPlay but was easy enough to keep running in the background and switch back and forth between map and altimeter.

Check online to see if you’ll have to drive across toll roads. Some states have a pay-as-you-go function, or you can purchase a pass prior to your trip. California has a toll system you can pay online or by phone app after you’ve traveled through. You can also set your phone GPS to ‘avoid toll roads’ although this may make your trip longer (you should plan that out ahead of time).

Don’t be afraid to stop frequently for photos, snacks, or to just walk around. Yes, it adds to the length of the day, but it also makes the trip more enjoyable. Thankfully we took lots of potty breaks and photo stops, so it broke the day up into smaller chunks.

Russ is very spontaneous; I’m very much a planner. I booked hotels along the way based on how long I thought we’d want to drive, which made me less anxious that we would have a hotel of some quality to spend the night. He would have preferred we stop when we were done for the day. I promised we’d try that on the next trip (and we did on the trip to Albuquerque, NM a few weeks later). There are usually a lot of hotel/motel/inns available and unless you have to be somewhere at a certain time, it’s more comfortable and fun to stop driving when you’re tired of driving.

Try to eat at diners, cafés, or local eateries, not just fast food and chain restaurants. The small businesses will appreciate it, and some of the best meals we had were local places. Ask the hotel you stay at if they have a place that discounts meals for guests, and ask your social media contacts for their recommendations too!

Check that the points of interest are open on the days you plan on being there. Yes, Ms. Planner forgot to check the open days for museums in Barstow and Victorville, CA. Turns out they’re both closed on Tuesdays. Oh well, we’ll get there next road trip!

TAKE CASH WITH YOU! We live in a country with ATM machines everywhere, tap credit and debit cards, and even ways to pay with your phone. I was thankful we had cash with us when our credit card was shut down for fraud on the 2^nd day of the trip (Thanks BECU!). Using the Debit card worked for holds at the hotels (we’d already pre-paid most of them), but paying with cash at gas stations earned us some discounts and it was nice to have the cash cushion so we didn’t have to use our checking account until we got the new card. I split the cash up into several places in my suitcases, camera, and laptop bags so I wasn’t carrying around a wad of cash in one place.

If you’re road-tripping, don’t be stingy on the clothing and shoes you take. I should have taken a 2^nd pair of walking shoes with me for some of the trails we took. It’s easy enough to toss extra shoes and socks in a bag in the back of the car. We needed ponchos in Ketchikan because the rain was so hard it beat through our coats (in retrospect I SHOULD have taken my coat AND my raincoat). I could have taken another dress or two for the cruise.

Buy a case (or more) of water and take it with you. Water on road trips is EXPENSIVE and there were a lot of times we could pull over to the side of the road, take a short walk (and of course some photos), and drink water that we had in the cooler. We bought ice along the way to refresh the cooler.

Find your favorite snacks and pack them with you. We did buy a snack bar or two if we stopped at a gas station to use the restroom, but otherwise, we ate our own snacks from the cooler. Fruit, jerky, nuts, etc. are all great driving snacks. We did try to stay away from stuff that was too salty (oh jerky, why are you so good?), too sugary (candy bars, so tempting), or too spicy (Spicy Nacho Doritos require LOTS OF WATER).

Grab a container of baby/diaper wipes and throw them in the car. They’re great for wiping the Doritos off your fingers, or your hands after being out in the wind and fine sand.

Most hotels sell small packs of pain relievers at a pretty high charge. It’s cheaper to buy a small bottle at your local drugstore and throw it in the car. Bandaids/First Aid kit is a good idea too (you should already have one in there anyway). Hand sanitizer isn’t a bad idea, and lots of paper towels/fast food napkins/shop towels are useful.

Binoculars. Yes, I have a zoom lens on my camera, but it was nice to have the binoculars to look at things without bringing out the camera.

Safe Travels and God’s blessings!

You can continue to follow our adventures on Facebook at Normads (Norman Adventures), or here on the blog.

The Great September Road Trip – Mileage, Fuel, Engines, and Motors

We just completed a month-long road trip covering 26 days, 7 states, 4457 miles, and several bucket list items checked off. Months of planning were involved, and after the fact, there is always laundry and catching up on other things. Not to mention the roughly 3,500 photos I need to edit.

I’ve kept mileage records for my cars since August 2014, first as a business log; more recently as a record for curiosity. I paid as little as $1.979/gal at Costco in February 2015, and as high as $5.559/gal in July of 2022 (excluding road trips and reward points). The highest I’ve ever paid for gas is $6.09/gal as we moved from Washington to Arizona at a station in Wikieup, AZ.

For this trip, I kept a trip log not only with gas prices but with mileage between some of the stops. I didn’t log every stop we made or the time we landed there, but some of the major stops were:

Mesa to Flagstaff, AZ – 176 miles
Flagstaff to Seligman, AZ – 75 miles
Seligman to Kingman, AZ – 85 miles
Kingman AZ to Needles, CA – 62 miles
Day 1 – 398 miles, 10 hours

Needles to Marina Del Ray, CA – 353 miles
Santa Monica to Monterey, CA – 216 miles
Monterey, CA to Grants Pass, OR – 552 miles
Grants Pass, OR to Redmond, WA – 465 miles
Redmond, WA to Boise, ID – 503 miles
Boise, ID to West Valley City, UT – 456 miles
West Valley City, UT to Flagstaff, AZ – 539 miles

Driving time was between 6 and 9 hours a day because it’s a road trip and there were numerous camera, bathroom, tourist, and food stops!

I expected we would see some fairly high gas prices as we hit California, but for the most part, prices stayed below $6 even in Monterey and Santa Monica, CA. We planned on buying at Costco when we could to save a few pennies, but in most cases we purchased at regular gas stations with no rewards or discounts.

Date                  MPG            Miles/Tank          Gallons       Price       Notes
9/3/2023         20.66078        227                        10.987        4.369     Costco Mesa AZ
9/4/2023         24.8282          336                        13.533        4.899     Kingman AZ
9/6/2023         25.4596          421                        16.536        5.199     Santa Monica CA
9/7/2023         26.60092        410                        15.413        5.499     Monterey CA
9/7/2023         34.79304        348                        10.002        4.999     Redding CA
9/8/2023         27.687            305                        11.016        4.539     Oakland OR (Rice Hill)
9/9/2023         19.73982        349                        17.68          4.759     Costco Redmond WA
9/15/2023       23.95137        394                        16.45          4.799     Marathon Lacey WA
9/26/2023       17.61252        225                        12.775        4.799     Costco Redmond
9/26/2023       25.81806        445                        17.236        4.499     Loves Ontario OR
9/28/2023       25.54095        373                        14.604        4.599     Arimo ID
9/29/2023       25.39208        340                        13.39          4.699     Beaver UT
9/30/2023       24.75775        511                        20.64          4.599     Costco Mesa AZ

As you can see, our mileage averaged right around 24/25 mpg, although the trip meter in the car averaged 26.5 mpg. With a 22-gallon tank, we tried to fill up when the tank hit 1/4, to avoid paying emergency prices at some station in the middle of nowhere. Even though we were fortunate (due to planning) not to pay high prices, there were several stations along the trip where we saw as high as $7.99/gal! Sinclair and Maverick had the most consistent pricing; surprisingly Shell, Chevron, and Union76 weren’t always the most expensive on the road. Love’s Truck Stops were either painfully high or right in line with Sinclair and Maverick.

Road trips are fantastic for conversations to while away the miles, and this trip was filled with several doozies. We commented several times about Diesel pricing, and I learned there are two grades of Diesel in the US. Diesel was consistently 30-50 cents or more pricier than gasoline.

We also had a spirited discussion about the difference between “motor” and “engine”, which is a concept I’d never considered. If it pleases the court, I maintain that if an “outboard motor” is really an engine, then that’s what it should be called. The words are used interchangeably, but by definition, it’s an engine, and I’d probably be laughed out of the rental place if I asked for an Outboard Engine for my (hypothetical) boat.

Calling out license plates on the trip was fun; the furthest being Florida and Maine. We did try to read or guess the state by the license plate.