Destination: Holbrook AZ

We left our winter home this morning for our return to SD. My goal was to be on the road by 10:00 AM and we made it at 9:59. 

Our destination was Holbrook; not that far north. Holbrook is home to 20 Adventure Lab caches and some others. After all, geocaching is the reason for leaving this early.

snow in the Payson area

Welcome geocache at Holbrook

Tranquility Park built by Girl Scout Troop 151 with labyrinth, painted rocks, and a high favorited geocache.

Holbrook has many dinosaur statues and lots of petrified wood rocks/boulders around the town.

We also stopped at the city cemetery for a geocache honoring Mary Blevins.

And we stopped at the city library for a geocache. Hubby mentioned to the helpful library staff that we were traveling back to SD. The former head librarian heard SD and stopped to chat. She grew up in Brookings and her sister lived in the same community as some of our relatives. Small world.

The Route 66 Adventure Lab caches brought us to the Wigwam Motel. This was on the west side of town, an area we had not driven to/through in any of our trips through Holbrook.

Each wigwam is a 'motel' room, available to rent. Each wigwam is made of concrete and is 21 feet in diameter and 28 feet tall, equipped with toilet, sink and shower and a vintage car parked in front of it.

The first Wigwam Village was built in Kentucky in 1938 by Frank Redford. Chester E. Lewis loved the idea so much he paid Redford huge royalties and built a total if 7. [This Holbrook Wigwam Motel] is #6 in the series and was added to Route 66 in 1950. In the village there are 15  free standing teepees (although the local Navajo traditionally use hogans in this particular area) positioned in a semicircle. Due to the interstates coming in and detouring traffic from towns like Holbrook, Lewis had to sell his business and today only two other villages are still in operation and only one other Wigwam village is still running on the Mother road.

The motel also has a display of vintage cars. I am not a car enthusiast, so I have no idea of the years or the brands, other than thinking my folks may have had a similar model.

One of the two surviving Wigwam Villages #2 is in Cave City, Kentucky and the other #7 is in San Bernardino, California also on Route 66 and it is still open today. 

Maybe a 49 Mercury? I know my folks had one (or one very similar) when they married. It was the car I got to drive when I was three years old. Okay, I got to steer it. Alone. 

The interstate system hurt business and Lewis sold it in the 1970s and the new owners sold gasoline. After Lewis death, his widow and children bought it back and reopened it as a motel in 1988. Part of the central office was turned into a museum with Mr. Lewis collection of Route 66 mementos, petrified wood and Indian artifacts.

and our choice for dinner

appropriate decor - good food - worth the stop