We did see petrified trees in the landscape occasionally, which broke the monotony.
Eventually, the buttes started, which helped a lot.
The next point of interest we were looking for was Big Lithodendron Wash Bridge.
This is the Wash itself. Good sized, don't you think?
This timber bridge was built in 1932. And then it was paved. Frankly, I'm amazed anybody thought it was a good idea to pave a wooden bridge. But it was economical, I'm sure.
From the side you can see how it was constructed. On top of the (huge) runners, boards are placed on their sides to form the roadbed. I'm sure this distributed the weight well, but knowing how hard it is to find boards that don't cup or bend, this seems like a peculiar way to build a bridge to me. But I'm no engineer. Maybe it was accepted practice.
Although it seems obvious to me that one shouldn't drive across this bridge anymore, from the 'repairs' that have been made, I think maybe people still do.
Look how thick the pavement is on top of the boards. How much weight do you suppose that added to this bridge?
Here you can still see some of the boards that made up the roadbed. And you can see some of the aggregate (pebbles) that were added to the pavement. That's quite a colorful bunch of rocks. I wonder where they got the aggregate. There's lots of history about the Mother Road I'd like to know. Guess I'll have to keep digging.
This is the Rock Shop where we stopped. I couldn't leave the area without getting a little petrified wood. This place is basically a mobile home with a greenhouse added to the front. As with a lot of these touristy places, this one increases it's presence by extending a full-sized plywood 'fence' to either side of the building. The plywood is then painted with signs, essentially becoming ground-level billboards. It must work. Lots of places still do it.
Those logs sitting out front are petrified, of course.
Our rock shop had another typical feature--vintage automobiles in the parking lot.
This is an old Rambler that was sitting right out front.
My grandfather had one when I was 4 years old. I recognized the color first, of all things. Funny how memory works.
This one was out front, too. It's an Edsel, of course.
Before this trip, I think I'd only see one Edsel in person. I saw numerous ones on this trip. Old cars seems to be sitting around everywhere you look in the west. Dean tells me that the dry climate keeps them from rusting as badly as they do in the east. Sounds like a business op to me.
I'm not sure, but I think the label on the side of this one says Meteor.
I'll let you figure out what these two are.
The landscape turned rocky after the rock shop. (No pun intended.)
For me, it was more interesting to look at.
And it gave me more variety of pictures to try to get.
I still need to work on shooting clear pictures at speed, though.
The next stop we looked for on Route 66 was the Querino Canyon Bridge.
This is the side view from I-40. That bridge is 269 feet long. (Almost a football field.)
Those steel supports have been holding this bridge up since 1930.
This shot just shows a bit more of Querino Canyon. For all my jokes about mile and miles, the landscape out here is fascinating. You can be traveling along and everything looks perfectly flat, then suddenly there's a canyon.
We backtracked and got on old 66 to find the bridge. That's it at the bottom of the hill. Can you see a canyon from here?
66 is a dirt road leading to the bridge from the west. Rough, to say the least.
The bridge surface appears to be the original concrete. The side rails on this bridge are lovely decorative work.
And the rails are in good shape, even after all these years. You can see a bit of the canyon through the rail. It's a lot further down than it looks.
This is the ruins of the Querino Canyon Trading Post. It had fallen into ruin, then it burned in 1994.
So sad.
You can see from this shot that the road is paved, sort of, on this side of the bridge. But I think it's rougher than the dirt was. It took us about 7 minutes to travel the same distance on I-40 that it took us 30 minutes to travel on old Route 66. Just be prepared for the time it takes if you plan to travel the Route.
Look at this landscape. Imagine traveling this in 1930. It couldn't have been fast. Some of the speed limits during the Road's early period were 40 to 50 mph.
We got back on I-40 at the next exit so we could make better time. Not far down the road we ran into the Fort Courage Trading Post.
Some of you might remember Fort Courage from the TV series F Troop. Well, this ain't it. That Fort Courage was supposed to be in Kansas.
This Fort Courage, though, used to claim an affiliation. They had large pictures of Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker up, and they said they were the "Home of F Troop." There's no mention of F Troop these days. Fort Courage Trading Post was built in 1960.
This is the old Pancake House Restaurant that's next to Fort Courage. David Wickline's book says that this is now an Ortega's Taco Restaurant. We didn't stop, so I don't know for sure.
We got off at Exit 351 to go searching for another bridge.
This is the Allentown Bridge. It's a long one. It takes two shots to get the whole bridge in the picture.
The locals call this the Puerco River Bridge. It was built in 1923 as part of the National Old Trails Road.
Just a touch of history here--The National Old Trails Road was established in 1912, and stretched from D.C. (or Baltimore, depending on your source) to Los Angeles. It basically followed the Cumberland Road in the east, and the Santa Fe Trail in the west. When Route 66 was established, it followed the National Old Trails Road, for the most part, from Albuquerque to LA.
So this single span wooden timber bridge was built as part of that old road.
It's fragile now. They don't even want pedestrian traffic on it, anymore.
You can see why. It's deteriorating, and the land is eroding.
You can see the old pavement leading up to the bridge. It's quickly reverting back to dirt.
This is the view from the road leading up to the bridge. It's beautiful.
We stayed on Route 66 when we left the Puerco River Bridge.
The scenery stayed gorgeous.
We crossed a couple of washes that had no bridge. There were just signs warning you that there might be water on the road.
At one wash, 4 horses just ran up over a rise and stood looking at us. There was no fence. They were only about 100 feet away. And you know, of course, that I couldn't get the camera up and take the picture before they had all turned their back. But I had to have that picture, anyway.
We were looking for a tunnel under I-40.
A double tunnel, actually. We found it. If you're traveling old Route 66, you have to use this tunnel to cross under the interstate.
No bit trucks are going to fit through here, that's for sure.
The tunnels are longer than they look.
The traffic overhead is loud. It's good to get out the other side. But it was fun to find this double tunnel.
Back on the interstate again, the terrain was changing.
This hill, or mountain, or rock, or whatever it is, is pretty typical of what you see in this area. It has definite layers, and seems to be slowly crumbling away. And plants grow anywhere they can.
See how different this rock looks? It looks like a smooth monolith. It has little holes weathering into it. Nearly no plants. The thing is.....
...they're both part of the same rock. This is near Lupton, AZ. The area has mammoth round rocks and the sandstone Painted Cliffs are also here.
There have been trading posts at Lupton for over 100 years. They look very touristy today, but you can still find some real treasures here.
This was once the Teepee Trading Post, built in 1926. It's 60 feet tall, and made of concrete. It looks like it's been covered with metal siding or roofing recently.
It was originally painted just like this smaller version.
This is a picture of the area between the Teepee and the Trading Posts in the previous picture, along with the round rock behind them. See the ledge immediately above the red building? Those are animal 'statues' up there.
Here's what they look like closer.
You can see these things from the interstate, before you get to the exit.
It's one of the ways the Trading Posts use to get attention and draw people in.
Across the interstate is the Indian Market, now closed. It was once called Indian Village, and had a cafe and a service station. I especially like the 'Mohawk' sign across the top of the dome.
And just a last couple of shots of the 'caves' that carve themselves into these rocks.
Well, that's it for Arizona. I'll start New Mexico in the next post. See you there......
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