Getting our kicks, on Route 66
Route 66, or "The Historical Route 66" had to be driven, we couldn't be on a road trip without hitting the legendary road immortalised in verse by Bobby Troup. For a road it has quite a history, originally know as the Will Rogers Highway it stretched across country from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California covering 2448miles. Over the years and with thanks to the new interstates, traffic went elsewhere and large parts of the route declined, renamed and moved.
Many associations were set up to preserve the route and In 1999 Bill Clinton signed a National Route 66 Preservation Bill, which provided $10 million to various states to persevering and maintaining historic places along the route.
We had driven two parts, the first which we picked up in Kingman had various "new looking" diners/road signs and led us to Flagstaff, Arizona but contained little else, except a wonderful shop which was decorated with old signs and used cars and a superb German/American diner which served great burgers! The second part was the "old" route which we accidentally stumbled on after deciding to get off the freeway to LA and detour to Joshua Tree. This part of the route was magic and equally sad, the old 66 sign had been spray painted on the road at various points (to stop theft of the road signs) and there were various old buildings spread throughout. Gas stations, motels, houses, they were all there laying empty, decaying, many with graffiti from passers by marking their own journey. At the turn off to Joshua Tree lay a wonderful gas station, diner and motel with the typical Americana neon sign and style all In tact-and that's where we left.
There's something about this road that conjures up wonderful emotions, driving window down, listening to the "Route 66" radio station, miles of empty road ahead of you. It's historical, beautiful, sometimes sad but still one of the greatest drives ever.
The story behind the photo...
They say there is always a story behind a photo or that you should never judge a photo without knowing the conditions that the photographer faced to get it.....so here is my story on the night shot of the Grand Canyon Horse Shoe Bend.
We were due to arrive in Flagstaff around 3pm on Tuesday and we were going to drive on up to the Grand Canyon's "Horse Shoe Bend" soon after. This is a spot I have had on my radar for a while now, however on the way to Flagstaff from Las Vegas we came across the Hoover Dam (stop #1), then on Route 66 we came across an amazing store with old cars/pumps/signs (stop #2), finally at the end of Route 66 where we had to join the freeway again there was a family run diner (stop #3) which meant that we pulled into Flagstaff after the sunset-which was, of course outstanding!
So next (and only/last) day in Grand Canyon, then a "quick" 2hr 30min drive out of the park and up to the Horse Shoe. Now, it would seem that people in the park weren't keen on talking about the Horse Shoe, we wonder if this has anything to do with it falling outside park grounds and being free...... It is also spectacular! That aside, we were 20mins away when we came across a blocked road, the road we needed and it diverted us onto another, 20mins on that into the middle of no where, with no one around and the GPS lost we came across a gas station only to find the diversion was 45 miles back the way we came and then a further 45 miles on that road to the Horse Shoe, not good. Just an FYI there was no diversion signs at the diversion junction except an old sheet blowing in the wind so not surprised we missed it. It ended up being about 4 hours+ to do a 2 hour 30 min drive.
We park up grab our coats, run up the hill, down the hill, through the sand, past the remaining folks walking back to their cars and arrive on the patterned rocks looking down into that glorious Colorado River. I set my tripod in the rapidly fast fading light, try to focus, try to not fall of an edge I cannot see..... Move location, manual focus, 10 long exposure attempts before we can no longer see anything at all and I'm using the camera LCD screen as a torch..... and that was all I got.
It's not perfect, it's not how I wanted to shoot this place or see it, but sometimes that's all you get, just half a chance and on the plus side there isn't actually too many night shots of this majestic place and I got a mean and moody looking view of it.
