Route 66 Day 37 Nov 14, 2019
I headed towards the Crater Center about 20 minutes west of Winslow. I'm already doing the Sunset Crater and that was free. Crater Center was $18.00 and I wasn't sure it was worth it. In the end I'm glad I did it, turns out Sunset Crater is a volcanic crater and not a meteor crater. Crater Center had a lovely museum, guided tours out on the rim and an educational film. It is also the best preserved meteor crater in the world, which was the deciding factor for me. I spent a couple of hours here and really enjoyed my visit. The gift shop was also very interesting and for anyone interested in geography, there would be much temptation.
On the way to the Crater Center, I also stopped off at the Crater Center Trading Post which is historical but closed in 2012. It was purchased in 2017 and supposedly under refurbishment, but I didn't really see any sign of that. It looked like no one had been there a very long time. Perhaps the fund raising didn't go well or the list of things that required attention were too much. But after two years, its still closed and looking very closed.
From the world of meteors, I headed over to Two Guns, AZ. This is a ghost town that I wish I'd have read about before heading over there. It has an extensive history and on the far eastern side included the Apache Death Cave. This cave is named for an incident between Apache and Navajo in 1878. The Apache hid in the cave but the Navajo found them and started a fire at the caves opening until all 48 Apache died. Years later, in 1925 a settler named Harry Miller leased a large tract of land in this area and built a zoo, restaurant and gift shop. He cleaned out the Apache Death Cave and offered tours of the cave. He sold the skulls of the dead Apache in his gift shop. Ugh. Two Guns went through a number of changes as the railroad came and then Route 66 but after a fire took out the service station in 1971, the town began to decline and now there is just the ruins of what used to be. I would have liked to explore this area a little more, but the ground was uneven and my knees were unhappy. So I wandered a bit and saw about 2/3's of the town but didn't explore the whole thing.
Next on the list was the famous Twin Arrows ghost town. Very little still exists of the old days but the trading post was there, in fairly bad shape, covered in graffiti and vandalism. And the Twin Arrows still exist, which are two telephone poles that are partially buried in the ground at an angle and the point and ends were added. The town of Twin Arrows came about around 1880 and again, has a lot of history involving the train lines and the Route 66. Once I-40 was built, the area began to decline. The Twin Arrows Trading Post burned through multiple owners and continued to limp along until 1995 when it was closed and abandoned. It is currently owned by the Twin Arrows Navajo Casino.
From here I checked out a couple of old bridges and ended up at the Walnut Canyon National Monument, which wasn't a list item, but I decided to check it out anyway. The highlight of Walnut Canyon are the cliff dwellings. The design of these dwellings are very different than the ones I saw on Bandoliers. Unfortunately, the area had been looted by early settlers and much of the artifacts of the previous people that lived here are lost to history.
Last stop of the night was the Museum Club. I had actual plans to end up at a library, but I stopped here and ended up staying for a few hours. Had some cocktails and talked to some nice locals and got some pictures of this historic property. It started as a museum in 1931 but original owners died around 1937 (don't quote me on this, I'm remembering the conversation with the bar tender and could have the date wrong) and it was turned into a club. It hosted a number of fairly famous names over the years (country music) and now offers line dancing classes and concerts on a regular bases. It also appears to have a nice regular clientele.
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