Very sweet people, especially the waiter. Very decent food at a decent price. Scott made buddy budy with a local HAM radio guy.

“Jesus (Joe) Lucero  Montano was born in Holbrook on May 12, 1913, to Seledon and Manuelita Lucero Montano, who were early Holbrook pioneers. He attended Holbrook schools through the 10th grade. 

In 1936, he married Augustina Tafoya, and they made Holbrook their home all of their lives. They raised four children here. Together they owned and operated Joe & Aggie’s Café since 1947.” 

 It was sooo pretty and it looked like you could just drive away with it. Oh, by the way, all the pages are from my Route 66 journal.

Lowriders, we saw one real one once on Central in ABQ It was too cool as it could lift up its left and right rear end independant. My son got all excited when he saw that. A real Lowrider on the original Route 66, how cool was that!!

Anyway, this one reminded us, not so much of Ramon (Cars) but of Doc Hudson, the Hudson Hornet. It was so classy and stylish. 

Here’s a couple of lowrider videos: 

Cherry ‘64 lowrider, a family car they put a lot of work into. Beautiful! 

Lowrider Supreme 

Gypsy Rose lowrider, look at the awesome decoration!

The history of the Wigwam Motel is very interesting for many people.  Our father, Chester E. Lewis, had other motels along Old Route 66 in the 1930’s in other Arizona cities.  He saw his first Wigwam Village in Cave City, Kentucky in 1938.  A man by the name of Frank Redford already had a couple of Wigwam Villages built in Kentucky by that time.

Our father decided that he would like to build a Wigwam Village of his own.  In that time period, the term franchises or chain motels were not known of, much less used.  Mr. Redford was more interested in sharing his novel idea than making money. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Redford came to an agreement that radios would be placed in each Wigwam that would play for one half hour for a silver dime.  Mr. Redford would then receive the dimes from the radios for a period of some years in payment for the use of his plans.

There were seven of these Wigwam Villages built from the 1930’s to the 1950’s from Florida to California. The one, here in Holbrook, receives a lot of media attention due to it being located on Route 66 and located near several Native American Reservations,Navajo, Hopi, White Mountain Apache Reservations.  There are several vintage automobiles that are around the perimeter of the property.

The Wigwam Motel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 2, 2002″.

It was fun to sleep there, my son loved it. There was nothing closeby, at walking distance, just a Safeway if you wanted coffee or something. The lady, the sister of the two, was very sweet.

 This was one of the last photos we could take, because after this the weather changed and it got too dark and later it rained and hailed. Rather than Route 66, we took a long loop to Williams. It was mostly gravel through the woods and we saw wild turkeys. We took a wrong turn somehow, but it was so pretty we just kept going and it eventually took us on the road to the Grand Canyon and we took that back to Williams.

There was a crow at the pay booth of the painted Desert who sat at a pole and made the sound of a remote car key. It was very odd and funny to hear…

From Wikipedia: 

Petrified Forest National Park is located in northeastern Arizona, along Interstate 40 between Holbrook and Navajo. It features one of the world’s largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, mostly of the species Araucarioxylon arizonicum. The park consists of two large areas connected by a north-south corridor. The northern area encompasses part of the multihued badlands of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation known as the Painted Desert. The southern area includes colorful terrain as well as several concentrations of petrified wood. Several American Indian petroglyph sites are also found in the southern area.

A petrified log in Petrified Forest National Park

The Petrified Forest area was designated a National Monument on December 8, 1906. The Painted Desert was added later, and on December 9, 1962, the whole monument received national park status. The park covers 218,533 acres (341.5 sq mi / 885 km²). Hiking opportunities are limited. The longest established trail in the park extends for only two miles; the others are one mile or less. Backcountry camping and hiking are allowed by permit only. However, a road does extend through much of the park. Landmarks include the Agate House, built of petrified wood, and the Agate Bridge, a petrified log spanning a wash.

Agate Bridge, a petrified log that spans a sandstone wash

Chinle shale mounds at the Blue Mesa

The pieces of permineralized wood are fossil Araucariaceae, a family of trees that is extinct in the Northern Hemisphere but survives in isolated stands in the Southern Hemisphere. During the Late Triassic, this desert region was located in the tropics and was seasonally wet and dry. In seasonal flooding, the trees washed from where they grew and accumulated in sandy river channels, where they were buried periodically by layers of gravelly sand, rich in volcanic ash from volcanoes further to the west. The volcanic ash was the source of the silica that helped to permineralize the buried logs, replacing wood with silica, colored with oxides of iron and manganese. Several major and many smaller concentrations of petrified wood occur in the park, corresponding to several stratigraphic intervals in the Sonsela Member and aptly named Petrified Forest Member of the Chinle Formation. The major concentrations have been termed “forests” (e.g. Rainbow Forest, Crystal Forest, Black Forest, etc.) although the vast majority of the fossil tree trunks are preserved in a prone position and have been transported at least some distance from their original growth areas. However, in-place stumps of trees do occur in several areas (not easily accessible to the casual visitor), and many of the logs probably did not travel far before burial.

Petrified trees

Theft of petrified wood has remained a problem despite protection and despite the fact that nearby vendors sell wood collected legally from private land. Despite a guard force of seven National Park Service rangers, and fences, warning signs and the threat of a $275 fine, about 12 to 14 tons of the fossil wood disappears from the Petrified Forest every year.

The Chinle Formation at Petrified Forest National Park also has produced abundant fossil leaves, vertebrates (including giant crocodile-like reptiles called phytosaurs, large salamander-like amphibians called metoposaurs, some of the earliest dinosaur fossils from North America), and invertebrates (including freshwater snails and clams).

Much of the striking banded coloration of the Chinle Formation badlands that make up the Painted Desert region is due to soil formation (pedogenesis) during the Late Triassic. These paleosols (ancient soils) preserve evidence of conditions during the Triassic including the nature of the landscape and the paleoclimate. The Chinle paleosols suggest that the climate was dramatically seasonal, with distinct very wet and very dry seasons. This climate was probably similar to the modern monsoon of the Indian Ocean region, and was characteristic of tropical areas of Late Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic Earth when all the continents had assembled to form the supercontinent Pangaea.

Some petrified wood

Somewhere, between the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest

We were so lucky with the weather. Later on, it hailed, but we had some pretty dramatic skies at the best moment of the day, light-wise.

From Wikipedia, photos by me:

“The Painted Desert is a cross-section of colored, badland hills stretching across most of Northern Arizona. The Painted Desert stretches along the Little Colorado River. One of the largest settlements in the desert is Tuba City, a town in the western part of the Navajo Nation. Its western end is near the Grand Canyon and its eastern end includes Petrified Forest National Park.

The Painted Desert is famously known for its bright red rocks that are especially beautiful when it turns into shades of violet, blue, and red at sunset or sunrise. Many hardened sand dunes are found in the desert, most notably along a stretch of highway on U.S. Route 160 near Cameron. The hardened sand dunes are “painted” with bands of gray and bright red and are shaped by natural wind patterns. Also, many mesas and buttes sharply rise from the desert. The desert is also home to a variety of desert flora and fauna.

The Painted Desert has been home to the Navajo and Hopi for at least one thousand years. The desert got its name from the Spaniards, who named it “el Desierto Pintura” because of its brightly colored landforms. Today, the Painted Desert, most of which is located within Navajo country, is currently used for coal and petroleum mining operations. Another interesting use of the desert is its red clay, which the Navajos use to produce handmade pottery to sell at roadside stands and souvenir shops.

Today, most of the Painted Desert is located within the Navajo Nation (Navajo Indian Reservation). The towns of Cameron and Tuba City, both in the reservation, are major settlements in the Painted Desert. One interesting side note about Tuba City and Cameron is that parking lots and yards are often covered by bright red dust that is blown from the surrounding desert.

Stretching across 93,533 acres, from the Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest, the Painted Desert in Arizona is a desert comprising of minerals and decayed organic matter. The remains of perhaps an ancient coniferous forest have, over millions of years since the Triassic Era, become fossilized, and create an astoundingly scenic image. Wind, water and the elements of nature continue to erode and change the face of this region, by shifting sediments and exposing fossilized and mineralized layers of organic matter. Many fossilized prehistoric plants and animals are found in the desert. Dinosaur tracks are also found in the Painted Desert”.

We had planned to visit Chief Yellowhorse’s Trading Post, but it was all nailed shut and deserted, with exception of three ferocious dogs walking around.

It was said by the lady in the visitors center further up the road, that somebody in the family had passed away and it would be opened again, but not just yet.

 It was said to have had live buffalo and a petting zoo when it was still open. Yellowhorse was quite a personality, read up on him: 

“JUAN YELLOWHORSE WAS BORN MARCH 23, 1930.  HE WAS FROM THE TOWERING HOUSE PEOPLE CLAN AT WILDE RUINS, ARIZONA.  HE WAS A NAVAJO INDIAN.

HIS PARENTS WERE PIONEERS OF INDIAN TRADING THROUGHOUT THE FOUR CORNERS AREA. (COLORADO, ARIZONA, UTAH AND NEW MEXICO).

YOUNG JUAN YELLOWHORSE WAS A PROUD NAVAJO INDIAN,  AND HE SERVED HIS COUNTRY WELL AS A NAVY AIRMAN.  HE WAS A CHIEF NAVIGATOR FROM 1948 TO 1958.  HE FLEW 69 MISSIONS INTO WEST BERLIN TO SUPPLY SURVIVORS WHILE WEST BERLIN WAS BEING DIVIDED AND UNDER COMMUNIST RULE.

JUAN YELLOWHORSE SAW THE BERLN WALL BUILT.  HE FELT IN HIS HEART THAT SOME DAY THAT BARRIER WOULD COME DOWN.  HE BELIEVED THAT IT WAS NOT GOOD TO DIVIDE A NATION…

BACK HOME ON THE RESERVATION, YELLOWHORSE WORKED FOR THE NAVAJO POLICE FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS.   BUT HIS GOAL WAS INDIAN TRADING.

JUAN YELLOWHORSE GAINED THE HONORED TITLE OF CHIEF YELLOWHORSE.  HE BLAZED A TRAIL ALONG ROUTE 66 AS AN INDIAN TRADER.  HE LOVED AND ENJOYED THE EVERYDAY PEOPLE THAT HE TOUCHED.

CHIEF YELLOWHORSE BOUGHT THE OLD MILLER TRADING POST AT LUPTON, ARIZONA IN 1960.  IT IS LOCATED AT THE ARIZONA-NEW MEXICO BORDER.

HE NAMED IT “CHIEF YELLOWHORSE TRADING POST.”

CHIEF YELLOWHORSE HAD CORRALED BUFFALO FOR THE PUBLIC TO SEE.  THERE WAS NO TAX ON THE RESERVATION, SO CIGARETTES WERE CHEAP WHICH ENTICED TOURISTS AS WELL AS LOCALS.

ALONG ROUTE 66 AND INTERSTATE 40, THE PROMINENT RED, YELLOW AND WHITE TRADING POST SIGNS MADE THEIR POINT!  “WE NO SCALPUM PALE FACE. 

JUST SCALPUM WALLET!” 

PEOPLE JUST HAD TO SEE THE BIG YELLOW HORSE REARING ON TOP OF THE MAIN BUILDING.  THERE WAS EVEN A WOODEN INDIAN GREETER!  AND OF COURSE, EVERYBODY HAD TO SEE FORT CHIEF YELLOWHORSE. 

ON OCTOBER 27, 1999 WHILE WORKING IN HIS OFFICE AT THE TRADING POST, CHIEF YELLOWHORSE DIED.  HE HAD A HEART ATTACK.  SURROUNDING STATES MOURNED WITH THE NAVAJO NATION. 

CHIEF YELLOWHORSE WAS LAID TO REST AT THE YELLOWHORSE FAMILY BURIAL GROUNDS.  THE FUNERAL WAS CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH AND IN NAVAJO”. 

 “The spectacular red cliffs which frame the Park on three sides began formation 205 million years ago, during the Mesozoic era, sometimes referred to as the Age of the Dinosaurs.Several archeological sites in the Park record the presence of the Anasazi, a prehistoric farming culture which developed and persisted in the area from A.D. 300 to 1200. From 1700 to the present, the region has been sparsely inhabited by the Navajo Indians. Red Rock State Park has elevations from 6600 to 7000 feet and encompasses 640 acres”.