Monthly Archives: May 2017

Williams, AZ

Motorcycles, Photographs

Not half bad.

Having last ridden here in 1992 on the old bike, my 1975 BMW R90/6, some 460 miles from my home in Encino in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, I recall arriving well and truly broken. The hot spa at the motel helped!

This time the ride was less onerous on a machine better protected from the elements, my pristine 1994 R100RT, although anyone riding the 40 miles from Sedona to Williams on I17 will learn how truly atrocious is the state of repair of our interstates. Posted for 75mph it was all I could do to hold on to the handlebars at 65.

Williams is the last town to be bypassed by Interstate 40, and is now a minor tourist mecca. It’s the self proclaimed ‘gateway to the Grand Canyon’ but there’s lots of ’50s Americana to be found here and that is a ton of fun.

The town has awoken to the nostalgia craze and it’s impossible to avoid the ‘Route 66’ signs everywhere, 66 being the mother road from Santa Monica to Chicago before Ike commissioned the freeways.


These are everywhere. Absent when I last visited.


Rod’s is still there, with the rather concerned looking bull having moved from Main Street to the side street. Mercifully I can now afford better.


This bizarre used car dealer has a bunch of trashed 80s Mercedes and no one to sell one to you.


Googie architecture lives!


BNSF.


Perfection Automotive


White trash central.


My hotel, the oldest in Arizona dating from 1891. My ride at left.


Bypassed.


Bankrupted storefront nicely decorated.


Small town America.


Car wash.


My hotel on Route 66. Rates have changed ….


Hotel lobby replete with currency, sadly dominated by Chairman Mao as is the town.


Tireflator.


Do the math. Gas is cheaper today.


The Red Raven restaurant. Four Stars, which is three more than any other place in Williams.


Outside my hotel. Just like Central Park.


My room was in the Carriage House, a separate building in the back. Just lovely.

Panny GX7, kit zoom, with the last snap on the iPhone6.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross

Architecture, Photographs

In Sedona, Arizona.

If you are a fan of that talent challenged showman Frank Lloyd Wright, you will love this place, rising as it does from the red rocks of Sedona. The plaques tell their own story, and I confess that the one about ‘decades of searching’ strikes me as pure fantasy. There are about a million like settings here. Despite appearances the church is very small, as my interior snap shows.

If you like Wright’s Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue, this place is for you.

Panny GX7, kit zoom.

Our parks

Photographs

Now is the time to act.

With seemingly every aspect of culture under attack in the United States, there has never been a more important time to support the National Parks. Adopt passive resistance and next thing you know oil rigs will be sprouting from Half Dome, proudly emblazoned with the name of the Pig passing as President.

I was reminded of this when swinging by on the two wheeler to the Ranger station in red rock country, aka Sedona, Arizona. The visitors’ center is small yet superb, abundant geological details are to be found and, well, there’s a sense of love invested in the place that cannot be faked.

From the patio of the ranger station. Bell Rock – 4,919 feet – and the Courthouse Butte – 5,451 feet – on display.


A javelina and her piglets (javlets?) stroll across the patio.

The only way to get there:


My pristine 1994 BMW R100RT in Red Rock country. No finer two wheel tourer was ever made.

You can donate to the National Park Service by clicking here.

Panny GX7, kit zoom.