The People's Highway: Northern AZ: Grand Canyon & The Birthplace of Route 66 Revival

Though not officially on the Route, the Grand Canyon is only a two hour detour off the Flagstaff to Seligman leg. To get there, we drove through endless evergreen forests – an unexpected landscape given our impression of the Canyon as surrounded by desert. We made our way through the parking lot and visitor’s center, packed with more international tourists than Americans, without seeing any glimpse of the giant hole.

Joe, making sure we don't fall off the edge.

Following a group of Japanese teenagers, we walked up a paved incline to the first overlook and saw this:

“Can you imagine being that first person,” said the woman behind us, “who was just walking along one day and saw this?” Despite our best effort, it’s impossible to capture the Grand Canyon in a picture – which puts artificial boundaries on a vast expanse of complex geology and beauty.

This is as close as we could get without fainting.

Seligman: Birthplace of Historic Route 66

Two hours from the Grand Canyon and four from Vegas (our next stop), we stayed overnight in Seligman, Arizona, home of the first Route 66 preservation association and credited with the rebirth of the highway. Seligman is also home to Angel Delgadillo, a barber born and raised in town and witness to its “near death” when bypassed by I-40. Believing in the “power of memory and myth,” Delgadillo is one of the most influential founders of the highway preservation effort both in Arizona and nationally and is now known as “the Angel of Route 66.”

Pictures of Angel in his old barber shop.

Lindsey, hoping for a haircut.

We checked into our Vegas-inspired room at the historic Canyon Lodge and met Reinhardt, a native German who ended up in Seligman after moving around the west coast. We told Reinhardt about Joe’s family in Koln (hi, Urbachs!) and that we traveled there two years ago to see them. “Oh, that’s nearby Mainz,” he said, “where I grew up.” Sitting on the motel’s balcony a few minutes later, we noticed the German flag waving among U.S. and Route 66 ones.

Street view of the Canyon Lodge.

We ordered burgers (cheese and veggie) and a local stout from famous Lilo’s Westside Café, which also flies both an American and German flag - representing the food, the nationality of the owners, and a good portion of the tourists who stop in Seligman. Our tiny waitress was a one-woman-show, running the souvenir shop, the dining room, and slap-stick entertainment for guests. When asked why she moved to Seligman from California, she said, “My kid’s at NAU, and there’s better hunting here.”

Before heading to Vegas in the morning, we stopped in a half dozen souvenir and “curios” shops that now make up the majority of Seligman’s business district – which intentionally time warps tourists back to the 1950s by blaring early rock music out onto main street, parking classic cars in front of store fronts, and dressing mannequins to resemble James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. On an early Thursday morning at the beginning of tourist season, the street was lined with tour buses and motorcycles.