I think I've mentioned before that Kyle's sister Kathleen works for the Chamber of Commerce here in Holbrook. Part of her job is promoting Holbrook to tourists and getting them to spend some time and money here. We live along the old Route 66 and Arizona has tried something new to help people travel along the route. They hand out these really cool Passports and as you go through the little towns on the highway you get a stamp to go in your Passport book. Kathleen has been wanting to do a little Route 66 tour to be able to promote the Passport program a little more and asked if I wanted to tag along with them turning Fall Break. Kellie (Kyle's other sister) was putting on a Film Festival and needed some help- so we made a whole week out of it.
We left the Wednesday before school started, so my awesome Mom met us in Show Low to trade the kids while Kyle was still working. The plan was to head to Kellie's house first, help with the festival, do some shopping, then head to Kingman where Kathleen's mother in law lived to stay the night and start our Route 66 tour. Our first stop on our adventure was the new Casino in Flagstaff. It's kind of a random casino in the middle of no where, but it's really pretty.
They are supposed to have the biggest/coolest chandelier in the state of Arizona...
But it was down for cleaning. Bummer huh?!
We checked out the casino anyway, we were already stopped- and they have the coolest signs for their bathrooms! How cute are the indian characters?!
A while ago my Mom went on a little vacation with my Dad to San Fransisco and she documented the whole thing in a Smash Book. My Mom is awesome and let me borrow her "craft room in a box" so that I come document our trip as we went. It was so fun and gave me something to do during the car rides.
We stopped and ate lunch halfway to Kellie's house. It was super yummy (as Subway always is) but they charged me like twice as much as they did anyone else. I was too nervous to say anything though so I paid the $10 for my food and ate every bit of it.
Rolling out of Kanab we got a little visitor... Kathleen was just a little too excited to get to Utah and was going a little too fast.
Luckily the officer had pity on us and let Kathleen go without a hitch.
As we were going through another little town in Utah we stopped this- a fake cop! How funny is that? I've seen the police cars just sitting there, but never a mannequin dressed up as a cop!
After our 10 hour trip we made it to Kellies just in time to help her get stuff ready for the Film Festival the next day. She is awesome and got Kirby to come be the guest actor. He's not really that famous, but he plays in a lot of Mormon movies- so he's pretty famous in Utah :) Cassie and I decided instead of getting a picture of our own with him it would be much cooler to just photo bomb him.
Then everyone told me I had to get a picture with him and I for my Smash book... so I did.
The next day we decided to venture out and get some shopping done. We hit all the Deseret Industries close to us, the Savers, and then the Mall to get something to eat. Here's Marie chilling by the Space Craft. She was beat! Can't even tell though :)
After shopping we had dinner and dessert at Kellie's house. Brian and Janes two kids that live in Utah met up with us. This is Jared being Jared.
After dinner we went to a cute outdoor mall that had a really cool fountain show. Here is Cassie, Casey, Kellie, Karl, Jared, Marie, and Me.
The next day we checked out a few really cool houses that Kellie knew of and then went to a super cute place called the Gardner Village. Because it's almost Halloween they had a Witches Parade. They were expecting like 10,000 witches to be at this place. It was crazy cool!
I had to grab some witches and take a photo op- for the smash book of course- there were so many to choose from and these ladies looked like nicest. After a while they all kind of looked the same to me, but they were all super cute and creative.
On Sunday the second leg of our trip began. The Route 66 Tour!
Funny story. We wanted In-N-Out really bad, like really bad. Well, we found one in Las Vegas and were on our way to get to it when Kathleen accidently got back on the freeway instead of turning into the burger place. We did a quick google search and realized the next one closest was in Kingman. We were so hungry and tired but determined to eat there. I don't know why we didn't just turn around and go back- but we waited another hour to get to Kingman. Needless to say we were super excited for the food when we got it.
We stayed with Kathleen's mother in law Vivian and the first night she showed us all around her place and showed us all the things she likes to do. She loves to make quilts and blankets and showed us all the ones she's been working on.
We did the Route 66 tour a little out of order. We first started in Kingman and the went back to the border of California and Arizona.
We stopped at Cool Springs on our way to the border. It was such a cute little place (it's just a gas station) and it reminded me of Cars. They did a good job and keep everything clean and still historic.
We didn't end up going all the way to the border, but we did go to Oatman! It was a little mining town that had these burrows that would just roam the streets. It was the coolest thing to all the sudden have burrow lining up in the road. There was lots of baby ones that were super cute.
Our next stop was Hackberry (just a little store) and then off to Valentine to The Keepers of the Wild Nature Park. They had a lot of tigers and random animals- like the Llamas. These Llamas LOVED Kaleb- they would come running whenever he would make a little call out to them. It was the funniest thing to watch.
Next on the map was Peach Springs and then Seligman...
After Seligman we took the interstate back to Kingman where we stayed the night again. The next day was Williams and HOME! Since Kyle had picked up the kids from my Mom and I hadn't seen them in a week- they decided to meet up with us at Bearizona. I was so exited to see my little family- it had been too long.
The kids loved all the animals and they have done a great job with Bearizona. We did have a little scary part though... Bearizona is basically a drive through zoo. The only thing keeping the animals from eating you is the car. We were in the wolfs enclosure and there are signs up everywhere that says "Keep Windows Rolled Up". Well... Kyle decided he could get better pictures if he would roll down the window and stuck the camera out. All of the sudden he looks back and there is this huge wolf (it stands as high as the bottom of the window on the van) walks along side of the van. We noticed just in time for Kyle to roll up his window! Crazy kid!
It was so fun to be able to get all my stamps in my Passport and to be able to actually see some of the historic towns in the state that I've lived in my whole life. We really do live in such a pretty state- there is so much diversity here just an hour or so away from each other! It really made me appreciate my home state a little more.
