One of my quirky photo ops is water towers (and that will probably be a blog post for another day!). Not the ordinary, run-of-the-mill water towers but something that makes them unique. Before we left on vacation I heard about a red-and-white-checkered water tower in Minot, North Dakota that was unlike any other checkered water tower. The information I found on it was dated so I called the public works department in Minot, ND to enquire about the water tower. The woman on the phone assured me the tower was still around - but offered no directions and I didn't think to ask. When we arrived in Minot, I figured we could ask someone at our lunch stop. We eat local when we travel (also another blog post...) and stopped at a regional chain called Burger Time. After we ordered our food I asked the woman helping us if she knew where the red and white checkered water tower was. She laughed and said she just moved there from Florida and had no idea and then she asked the cook. The cook, a middle-aged woman, told us she had lived there her whole life and had no idea where it was. I showed her a picture of it which intrigued her and she went to her computer to see if she could find it. I went outside to call the public works department. The first woman I got had no idea where it was (I was beginning to see a trend...) but said if I could hold a few minutes, she'd ask someone else who has lived there longer. The second woman who came on the line knew exactly where it was and gave us directions. Meanwhile, the ladies at Burger Time were still interested in finding out where this mysterious water tower was so I shared the directions with them. They thanked us for showing them something new about their town and waved as we left to find the water tower. We enjoyed their friendly banter and were thankful for people willing to go the extra mile to answer a question.
It was worth the trouble to locate it! I've seen other checkered water towers but this one is truly the most beautiful.
No road trip is complete without seeing some of the kitschy things along the way. I researched some before we left using my favorite source, Roadside America, and found the largest ball of twine (by weight) according to the Guiness Book of World Records would be more-or-less on our route through Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin. The creator of the giant ball of twine is James Frank Kotera (he calls himself JFK) and he built it in his backyard. He came out to talk to us when we arrived and told us how he got started and how he does it. He started making the twine ball after God told him to stop drinking and turn his life around and then God would make JFK famous as the Twine Man of the World. Four years later, clean and sober, JFK began making his twine ball and it quickly made him famous, just as God had told him it would. Each twine piece is knotted to and through the next one to keep it together. Although he works on it many hours a day, his hands are smooth and soft, something he attributes to it being God's work. We enjoyed hearing his story and seeing his handiwork.
His ball of twine is HUGE - over 8-feet high and 22-feet wide with a weight of 21,280 pounds!
We stayed in 19 different hotels/motels on our 21-day road trip. Fourteen were chain hotels (Marriott or Hilton) and one was La Posada (originally a Fred Harvey hotel but now owned by private citizens) in Winslow, Arizona. But four were small mom & pop motels and we were blessed to spend some time talking with the owners. The motels were all around during Route 66's heyday and are located in small towns. All these motels have "outside entrances" which allowed us to park our car right outside our room making it much easier to get all our stuff from the car to the room. They have classic neon signs or large marquees advertising their amenities (color tv, air conditioning, etc.). Although the motels have been updated since they were built, the rooms and bathrooms are small compared to bigger chain hotels. But what they lack in space they more than make up for in character. The owners work the front desk and usually live on the premises. They were interested in knowing "our story" - where we live, why we were there, what we enjoyed so far - and also shared their story - how they came to own the motel, something about it's history and recommendations on where to eat (or not eat). It was a refreshing change from the very professional but hurried twenty-something behind the front desk of the big chain hotels.
Both owners and motels were all very different. We appreciated that the character of the motels was maintained during remodeling. The Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Missouri was built in the 1920's and has the most beautiful cut-glass door handles in the rooms. The Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico was built in the 1940's and has real rotary phones in the rooms along with instructions on how to use it. The Route 66 Motel in Shamrock, Texas (top right) was built in the 1950's and has slightly larger rooms and traditional decor. The Canyon Lodge Motel in Seligman, Arizona has themed-rooms - ours was the Hollywood room and had posters of famous movie stars as well as a headboard that looked like the curtains on a stage - which was their claim to fame when they opened in the 1960's.
As we were leaving Kansas we made a u-turn so I could take a photo of the "Welcome to Kansas" sign since the tiny road we entered Kansas on didn't have one. I just finished getting my photo when a great classic car pulled up behind us and a woman jumped out with her camera. I asked her if I could take a photo of the hood ornament (another of my quirky photo ops...) on their car. She said I could and then offered to take one of me by the car. We introduced ourselves and chatted for about ten or fifteen minutes. During that time I learned that Sheila and her husband were also driving Route 66 but going west to east and doing it in the car she bought when she was in high school, we are both believers and enjoy seeing God's creation, we both take a lot of photos and that we have both met many more Europeans traveling Route 66 than Americans. I took a photo of her by the "Welcome to Kansas" sign and then we went our separate ways. Although our time together was short, I will always fondly remember Sheila when I think about this trip.
Isn't it a gorgeous hood ornament? And the car was built the year I was born!
I like talking with people - getting a different perspective on something or learning what's going on in their lives. For me, it's one of the things that makes vacation fun. And thankfully, we were blessed with lots of fun opportunities!
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