From the Grand Canyon to the Wigwam Motel: the Sublime to the Kitschy, with a Couple of Ghost Towns!

After hiking in the Grand Canyon, everything else seems small.  We only went down about 800 feet from the rim, because we were scared we wouldn't make it back out, but it was still 6300 feet from the bottom.  We met a man who was on a five-day backpacking trip from the south rim to the north rim and back; what an adventure!  Here's just one picture, although no picture can possibly capture the hugeness of grandnesses.

This photo was taken from the "Watchtower" at Desert View on the south rim.  The tower itself was built as a tribute to some of the old Anasazi and Hopi ruins, like the ones we saw in the Navajo reservation, or at Hovenweep.  Canyon de Chelly is another amazing place we just didn't have time to visit.  People love to build things down here that are tributes to the ruins.  Some are magnificent, like this tower, while others are very odd.

The watchtower was recommended to us by the proprietor of the Red Garter Inn, a former brothel in Williams, AZ where we were staying for a couple of nights.  We heard some great stories about the former owner of the place, Longino Mora, a man who had 25 children - in 1937 the youngest was 6 and the oldest was 60.  He was a rootin' tootin' jack-of-all-trades who had roved around the area as a scout on the Beale Wagon Road and other Indian roads, working for the US Army.  He still had time to run the brothel and of course secret booze and gambling hall during the prohibition era, by which time he was more than 80 years old.  He had bought it from some other immigrants, when it had also been a saloon, brothel, as well as a Chinese restaurant and opium den at one point.

After breakfast the second day, we went in search of some old ghost towns.  One was particularly intriguing to us: Canyon Diablo.  This was a temporary town that had been hastily built at the canyon crossing for the railroad because the bridge that had been shipped to the crossing was too small.  They spent almost two years waiting for the correct bridge length, and the railroad workers, while they were waiting and preparing the area, set up the scariest, creepiest town ever, apparently.  There were mostly saloons, bordellos, dance halls, and legend has it that the first US Marshal they tried to send in was dead within five hours.  35 people died violent deaths there before the bridge was built and the town disappeared.  It was an exciting adventure to drive about three miles up an abandoned road, looking for the town.  All we found was one gravesite, which was allegedly put up by a relative of Mr. Wolfe, the owner of the trading post in Canyon Diablo, the only resident of the graveyard to have died a non-violent death.

The weirdest thing about this place is that just across the highway (Interstate 40/Route 66) there is another ghost town, this one from the 1970s.  Basically, it's a ghost town of a fake ghost town. It's called Two Guns, and apparently used to be a western theme park with a strange wild animal zoo, campground, souvenir store, swimming pool etc. there.  It had a creepy vibe, with ruins of fake ruins they had built to replicate the Anasazi and Hopi ruins we have been seeing all along our journey.  Matt felt some "bad juju" along the canyon, and, while we were fascinated with the ruins, we didn't stay long.  Some of the graffiti was pretty interesting.

 You may notice, for example the strategic placement of the swimming pool drain.  The writing says "DON'T TURN AROUND," which made me want to run back to the car.  I don't know why this particular roadside Wild West theme park was abandoned so quickly, but I have an idea it was the ghosts of the Apache Death Cave.  We didn't know about this until after we went to the visitor center in Winslow, Arizona (so we could stand on the corner and all that, like in the Eagles song), but apparently right below the location, in a cave by the canyon, a group of

Apaches were trapped by a group of Navajos and basically burned alive inside the cave.  It was revenge for terrible raids that the Apaches had done, but if you look up "Apache Death Cave" you can see that it's a really horrible, grisly story.Here's one site I found.  A frightening ghost story, to be sure.

We rushed to Winslow after that, hoping to erase the creepy vibes by "Standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona" and "Takin' it Easy."  

Great.  It took about five seconds and was pretty stupid.  I guess Winslow is trying to get some tourist bucks as people come through (like we did) to get their pictures taken here.  However, what they SHOULD be making their money from is the amazing, beautiful, wonderfully restored La Posada Hotel! Click here to see pictures and read more about it.

This was one of the original Fred Harvey hotels from the 1920s and 30s, as the railroads tried to get more tourists to come out west.  They had these young ladies known as "Harvey Girls" who would come out to work in the hotels and restaurants.  They had to have good character, good hygiene, and had to remain unmarried for as long as they were working.  They had these cars called "Harveycars" that would take tourists from the hotel up into the Indian reservations.  They had an "All Indian Band" that would play for people on the railway lines.  What a world!  I wish we could have stayed here, too, but we had to move on to probably the most iconic of all Route 66 Motels, the Wigwam Motel!

 
This is the kind of image I have dreamed about!  And here we are, sleeping in a wigwam before driving to Albuquerque tomorrow morning.