Flagstaff (AZ) to Sedona: Gorgeous Scenery and Ghosts, as Well

Sunny Arizona (temperatures predicted in the 70’s until Thanksgiving) beckoned this morning, as we set off from Gallup to Flagstaff and then to Sedona on our tour of the Southwest, Route 66 and other interesting places that are hopefully warmer than the Midwest at this point in time. As established in a previous dispatch, we can now scratch Roswell, NM, from the list of interesting places, despite the fact that we drove hours out of our way to visit the alien museum there.

Most of the places mentioned on our Route 66 map didn’t have an address next to it that you could plug into our operating GPS system. Meteor City looked like we’d be driving quite a way out of our way to see a hole in the ground. (Can’t compare with the World’s Largest Ball of Twine!) I had a friend (Linda Henderson Hearn) who had a meteor in her backyard for years, so I was pretty blasé about driving out of our way to see this crater.

Therefore, we stuck to I40 until Flagstaff and then I selected one (of four) locations to try to GPS in, within Flagstaff, as a “tourist attraction.” The one I selected was known as the Museum Club. It wasn’t that I was that set on seeing the Museum Club; it was just that none of the other Route 66 era motels that were listed came up on the GPS, so the Museum Club it was, for lunch and a wonderful time. The place was great! I highly recommend it. I could easily have lost several hours in the dark fun place.

The bartender, Jane Bliss, is a treasure. She even was given a plaque recently, commemorating her 10 years behind the bar, which is a very dark, very picturesque old woody Route 66 place that has a lot of history surrounding it, ghosts, AND off-track betting!

Jane was only too happy to show me the tree that exists inside the club on the dance floor, which has quite a history. It seems that, in the old days, an African American was shot, hanged and burned from this very tree. (The bullet holes are still visible.) There it sits, right smack in the middle of the dance floor. No wonder the place is supposed to be haunted as hell! I went to the tree and whispered, “Barack Obama is President now!” I’d like to think that this poor allegedly innocent victim smiled somewhere in heaven.

I was told numerous stories about the various strange goings-on inside the Museum Club and strange they were! (You’ll have to wait for Volume II of “Ghostly Tales of Route 66” to hear them, though.) The girl placing pari-mutuel bets for the patrons told me some that were especially convincing. (Stay tuned and hang on to that idea).

From the Museum Club patrons, we learned that the haunted places to visit in Flagstaff were Monte Vista Hotel (this place is REALLY haunted!); lots of stories— the Weatherford Hotel, and the Riordan Mansion, reputedly the oldest house in Flagstaff. As we stopped by the Visitors’ Information Bureau, located inside the old train station, I learned from Justin Connors, the Native American visitors’ information representative, that the old train station itself is perhaps haunted by a brakeman who died there in an accident.

From Jane Bliss at the Museum Club, we were advised to take the scenic route (i.e. Oak Creek Canyon, the 89A exit off Highway 17) to Sedona, rather than the route the GPS would map for us. It was a twisting, turning drive through canyons lined with signs that urge you to “watch out for falling rocks” (some of the canyons actually have netting on the sides to prevent drivers from being hit by these falling rocks) and, also, some very futuristic homes that made me wonder if Frank Lloyd Wright designed them during his Arizona phase.

We eventually reached our destination: Sedona, Arizona, a lovely tourist town carved from the glories of the Grand Canyon, where our room tonight has a fireplace and is right off the pool. Tomorrow night, we dine at L’Auberge de Sedona, purportedly one of the cities’ nicer resorts, but one that was full up for the 2 nights we will be here.

A local Flagstaff newspaper “The Lumberjack,” put out by students at Northern Arizona University, had a front-age story entitled “Nationwide Protest Denounces Anti-gay Legislation” by Ashley Barela and, right next to it, a story by Jill Hallquist entitled “Homeless Shelters Packed in Winter” that detailed how the Sunshine Rescue Mission in Flagstaff just celebrated 51 years of community service in September and serves breakfast at 6:30 a.m., lunch at noon and dinner at 7 p.m. to the cities’ less fortunate homeless folk.

Palmer Williams, one of the Sunshine Rescue Mission’s three full-time coordinators, who has worked there for 7 years, said, “It’s very hard to be homeless in Flagstaff, especially in the winter time.” Somehow, I think that sentiment would go double for a colder climate, like Chicago or Minneapolis. [Maybe triple if you’re in Fargo, North Dakota or International Falls, Minnesota.]

The evening newscast announced that unemployment in Arizona has hit 6.1% with 30,000 people out of work and that Mesa, in particular, is gearing up to make “significant reductions” in staff. Chris Brady, the City administrator, says that 389 positions will be gone within the next 18 months, with measures like reducing the number of responding officers to an emergency medical call from 4 to 2. The city of Buckeye (AZ) is also experiencing a budget crisis, and figures about the nation’s young people (ages 25 to 35) indicate that, between 1985 and 2005, their income dropped 30% while their levels of debt rose by 44%. On the radio as I type this, I hear reports that 1 out of every 2 businesses in the U.S. is going to announce lay-offs this year, coming from the cheesy-sounding voice of that guy who sings stuff like Yanni-style music (John Tesh) and used to do Entertainment Tonight with Mary Hart.

On the bright side, one Arizona resident who has a shot at upping her income significantly is Janet Napolitano, the current Governor of the state (the 25^th Governor, but only the 3^rd female in Arizona history). She has been offered a position in the Obama Administration as Secretary of Homeland Security.