So George Carlin and a cowboy walk into this bar…

…the Sultana Bar, to be specific. George sat to my left and the cowboy sat to my right. I was certain that George had been dead for a while but his looks were unmistakable and when he told me that Nik Wallenda made it today, I was convinced.

Now, on my list of “favorite things”, rodeos closely follow stand-up comedians. The cowboy let me know, straight on, that I was 6 hours late. Had I known that the finals for the Williams AZ rodeo were today, I might have been able to lessen the time between here and Holbrook.

I know Calcutta to be a city in India and also a type of gambling that lends itself to golf. I had no idea that golf and bronco riding were so closely related. Another cowboy who, judging by his road-map corneas had preceded us all to the Sultana by hours, was holding barroom court and buying beer for the house. As cowboy #1 explained, calcuttas also take place at rodeos and following a tip given by cowboy #1, cowboy #2 picked up a quick six grand in today’s calcutta. A beer or five later, I thanked our benefactor and left to find some food.

As I recall, the morning started with backtracking to pick up 3 historic alignments that I missed yesterday as a result of my decision to explore the Painted Desert and The Petrified Forest National Park. Call it a missed turn that turned out well. Some 1931 dirt alignments, dead-end spurs with cattle galore and some Interstate under which RT66 remains buried, filled out the day. Winslow, Winona and Flagstaff flew by, giving further credence to the song’s lyrics. I’ve picked up about 700 miles in the last 2 days and am hoping for a Kingman or Needles landing tomorrow.

Williams AZ is the town that most “gets” this whole Route 66 thing. So many other towns along the Route have the potential, but miss the boat. I’m sure that it’s a “chicken or the egg” issue, but vendors along the Route have got to stay open to get the business necessary for survival. I have been confronted with way too many “Closed” signs during what should be normal business hours. Chambers of Commerce from along the Route could learn a lot from Williams. People walk the streets at night, music is spilling from the restaurants into the streets and their particular section of Route 66 has been spruced up to be conducive to hanging out. They took the risk and they now get the reward. Number 2 on my list of towns that “get it” is Oatman AZ. In their own way, significantly different from that of Williams, they get it too.