9: passing through

Dear Friend,

We hope that you had a good week, and that your day is going well.

This morning is here. It was a long, windy night (not windy, like a long and windy road). English is so confusing.

It’s beautiful in the deserts of South/Eastern California, though there are a lot of un-nature-y things to visit. As much as we prefer to be in nature, we do try to learn as much as we can about the places we’re visiting.

Whether we’re in a campground, out on a hike, or somewhere else along the way, it seems that we always meet an informative someone that sheds light on an otherwise obscure place, sharing facts that suddenly make the place much more interesting.

Route 66, built in 1938, was, as you probably know, a busy thoroughfare from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California. It intersected town after town, allowing commerce to thrive. In the 1950s, Interstates were constructed as an alternative to route 66, rerouting traffic away from many of the small towns. The project was completed in 1984. Route 66 was officially decommissioned. Though a lot of the highway is still open as an historic, or scenic, highway, towns suffered a great deal as commerce diminished, people could no longer make a living, and had to move elsewhere. Today, along the route, original buildings stand, abandoned, defunct, decaying, some are repurposed, some are kept open and are still operating as tourist stops, photo ops and movie props.

One such town is Newberry Springs, CA. We stayed in Newberry Springs on a large slice of property at the foot of the Newberry Mountains, owned by a friendly holistic Dr. and his two rescue dogs, Smokey and Louise, and his chickens and ducks. Thanks for the eggs, friends! What a quiet place with beautiful views, interesting volcanic rocks scattered about, and a working train track nearby, (the train whistle wasn’t exactly ‘quiet,’ but was a neat part of the experience).

We went from there to the famous, Bagdad Café, also located in Newberry Springs on Route 66. The Bagdad Café was a movie made in 1987. At the time, the café’s name was ‘The Sidewinder Café,’ and a nearby motel, ‘Henning Motel,’ was also used in the movie. (Have you seen the movie? What did you think of it)?

The current Bagdad Café has a very eclectic selection of souvenirs, a few of the movie props still remain on the grounds, and if you are lucky enough to arrive when the café is open (hours vary), you will be warmly welcomed! Thanks for the visit, Mark!

Onto the next stop along route 66, Amboy, CA.

A mining camp in 1858, it was established as ‘Amboy,’ a railroad town, in 1883. By 1903, there was a school for 1st through 8th graders (divided into two classes in the two-room building, now located across the street from its original location). By the 1940’s, Amboy was a bustling little town with a post office, a church, two cafés, three service stations, four garages… 13 businesses that benefitted by being on a main highway and along a railroad route.

Roy’s Motel & Café was opened in 1938 as Roy’s Garage, (the café and motel came soon after).

You can still see the lights of the 50’ sign ‘Roy’s Motel and Café’ shining in the night along Route 66. Though the Motel needs lots of work (if and when it could ever be re-opened), the café is open (selling mostly souvenirs) and you can still stop in for gas at Roy’s when passing through. (They still pump your gas for you).  

Amboy was purchased in 2005 by a man named Albert Okura. His hope (and what he believed, was his destiny), was to restore the town, and before he died in 2023, he was able to create a museum, celebrating the importance of Amboy’s history. People come from all over the world to catch a glimpse of what things were like when Route 66 was a thoroughfare.

We stayed a night in a parking lot across the street from Roy’s Motel & Café, enjoying the charm of the old buildings and the eerie-quiet of the empty highway.

And because the desert is way more than old roads and buildings, we look forward to our next Tracks 2025, no.10, sharing photos and stories of what we find in the coming days.

Thank you for reading this week’s Tracks by the Post, we truly appreciate your care to be here!

Please write and let us know how you are doing, we love to hear from you! (And it would be impossible to bore us if you’d like to share your own stories of Route 66)!

Sending wishes for a happy week ahead,

Gently Be,

Leslie and Frank

See a bit more of Frank’s Route 66 photos in Tracks by the Post 2023 no.50 systems