La Posada Hotel, Standin on the Corner, and the Apache Death Cave

So, today's the day, we're gonna go stand on the corner in Winslow Arizona and Take It Easy!

But, we have to get there first!  The train tracks follow I-40 pretty close, and there we were, cruising along about 70 miles an hour (speed limit is 75, and we were in the car, so no worries!), and off to the right is a loooong train, pulled by these 4 engines.  It was traveling just a wee bit faster than us!

But then, the tracks got closer....

And closer yet!  We could even see the engineer in the window of the lead engine!

And after about 20 minutes, we got to the outskirts of Winslow.

First stop was La Posada Hotel, a Fred Harvey/Mary Colter/Santa Fe Railroad collaboration.  Take a moment and click on that link for a brief history.  It's a fabulous story of fantasy and luxury, depression, disregard for history and beauty, and finally, salvation and rehabituation.  Not restoration, Allen explained.  Restoration is the act of restoring to original condition, whereas rehab is taking what was there, and run-down, and bringing it back to its original glory, but perhaps with a different purpose or usage.

This is actually the BACK entrance.  The front entrance was around back, where the guests would disembark from the train cars of yore.  This is the side that backs up to Route 66, but many more guests came by rail rather than auto.

The grounds and gardens were beautiful and full of secret rooms, sunken gardens, fountains, pools and passageways.

Not sure what kind of cedar tree this is, but it appeared to have balls instead of cones.

Today, freight, coal and petroleum products are more likely to be staged on the tracks in front of the hotel than are guests, but Amtrak does have a scheduled stop here.  Guests would pass through these gates on their way to the hotel lobby.

The lawns and gardens were meant to welcome the guests after long, hot & dusty train rides.

This would have been the porch and doorway that greeted the guests.

Once inside, there are nooks and cozy corners, where the current owners want guests to sit and enjoy the quiet and relax.  They didn't name the place La Posada, but they feel it fits their mission, and that of the building and grounds.  The original architect, Mary Colter, started her commission with a fantasy story, of a Catholic Spaniard family.  She designed the foyer and lobby area as if it were to represent the "main" house of this fictional family.  Then, to accommodate their guests, she added the West wing, but, in keeping with her plot line, she used different materials to signify a "different" timeframe (even though the hotel was totally built in about a year and a half).  Eventually, this "family" grew wealthier and wanted even more guests to stay with them, so they built the East wing, with about 30 more rooms.  The public areas were decorated with artifacts from all over the world, representing the "family's" worldwide travels.  In the sixties, all the ceilings were covered up with acoustic tiles and the walls were all sheetrocked over or simply torn down.  Cubicles and linoleum were throughout the building, and often archways were closed up and covered over.  Thankfully, Allen & Tina have spent years (and millions) returning the building to its former glory and beauty.

This is the East wing, also called the Cinder Block Hall.  Cinder blocks were individually made back then, and works of art, in themselves.  This is also the Orangerie, where citrus trees were brought inside to winter over so they didn't freeze.

At the end of the hall was a grand staircase curved, reminiscent of the Miracle Staircase at Loretto Chapel, in Santa Fe.

Joe, the next two pictures are taken in your honor!  (Joe made his living doing elevator installations and repairs.)

OK, so y'all know me, right?  You know I don't always follow the rules.  Well.....I sort of wandered down a hallway, that wasn't marked, mind you...(most of them had signs indicating guests only beyond these points)....and found myself in an open room.  I mean, the door was WIDE OPEN.  How would they expect me not to peek??  Of course I peeked!  And took photos to share with y'all!  

We ran across one of the maids; she's been working at the hotel for 9 years and absolutely loves it.  The hotel is pet friendly, and she said she enjoys all the pets as well as the guests.  She also loves the owners and is greatly appreciative of all the work and love they've put into the hotel.  She let us know that room rates are pretty reasonable, at only about $139, $149 taxes included.  Really not that unreasonable a rate, considering.

After checking out all the rest of the hotel, and the gift shop, we moseyed on down the road toward "The Corner."  Along the way, we found this marker....

And, the World's Smallest Church...

And this little courtyard that displayed Winslow's history in posters and metal art on the walls...

And, finally, we reached The Corner!  You know, the one where the girl in the flatbed Ford slowed down...  Check out the link there, for the backstory and meaning behind the lyrics.

OK, spoiler alert.  When you ask a non-English speaker to take your photo, and it's a very public place, you really can't expect a great shot.  Or even a well-framed shot.  So, here ya go.  Sorry for the blur and general quality, but this is as good as it's gonna get.  We didn't get a do-over.

And, right around the corner, here we see that the 21st Annual Standin' on the Corner Festival is gonna be NEXT WEEK!  Yeah, noooo, we can't stay over for that...nor will we be coming back.  Just like the Balloon Fiesta and the Hatch Chile Festival, we're a little out of sync.

 Suprise!  The Corner is really just a wall!  The whole time we were standing there, I thought there was a building behind that facade!

Across the street is a souvenir shop, hawking T-shirts, ball caps, all kinds of magnets, postcards, and other sundry items.

This is pretty much the rest of the storefronts on the street.

It was only about 3 o'clock, which left us just enough time to go check out Two Guns, currently a ghost town, but, previously, the site of constant wars between the Apache and Navajo, and later, tourist stops along Rt 66.  In a nutshell, the Apaches raided a Navajo village, looted, plundered and killed everyone, except 3 young girls who were kidnapped for rather nefarious reasons.  The Navajo wanted revenge, naturally, so they scoped out the Apaches.  The Apaches had holed up in a cave in Diablo Canyon, all 42 of them, along with their horses.  If you're squeamish, STOP READING!  They were discovered by the heat and smoke of their fire coming up from the cave entrance and spooking the Navajo horses.  So, the Navajos piled up lots of brush at the cave opening and lit it all on fire.  The trapped Apaches (this is AWFUL, people....just AWFUL) slit the throats of their horses, tried to use the blood to put out the fire, couldn't, and piled up their horses' carcasses at the mouth of the cave, in order to stop the encroaching fire.  Didn't work.  Everyone died, but the Navajo were appalled at the sight before them and there were never any more raids in the area.  

Attempts were made to build a town atop the cave, even though the settlers were warned off.  Of course, no one listened, but mysterious things kept happening...fires, unsolved murders, suicides, moans and footsteps.  Eventually, the townspeople all fled (or were killed or committed suicide) and the town became deserted.  There's even a Hatfield/McCoy type feud that's explained further in that history I linked to.  This is all that's left today...

These are the remains of the zoo enclosures; so very sad to see the conditions under which the animals were kept.

There was the rubble of an old KOA, too, that was abandoned back in the 60's.  We thought about exploring the cave entrance, but, ya know...I'm just not that eager to tempt the spirits. 

Dick is scoping out rocks to carry on to Surprise.  I bet you want to know why, eh?!  Well, the site we'll be going to is gravel.  Lots and lots of gravel.  No shade, no concrete, no nothin' but gravel.  So he was thinking maybe we would spread out the plastic rug we have, to make walking on that gravel easier and cleaner.  But, we are discovering the wind blows all the time here.  And not just a gentle breeze, like we had in Victoria and Crystal River.  Oh, heck no, it's gale force, all day, every day!  It dies down a bit for the evening, but, it starts right back up again each day when the sun rises.  The rocks?  They are to place at the corners and edges of the plastic rug, so that said wind doesn't turn it into a magic carpet and carry us away.  But, as we picked out our rocks, and piled them up for carting to the car.....we got thinking about those restless spirits and how they might be offended, even PO'd, at us for disturbing their final resting place, restless as it may be.  Soooo, we left without the rocks.  And without offending any spirits, I hope!

Tomorrow, Meteor Crater, Petrified Forest, Painted Desert, and maybe some tacky souvenir shops!

Thanks for joining us on The Corner!