ricklea1953

Part of our vacation drive will take us from flagstaff to lake havasu. I want to see part of route 66. One route is selig to kingman. The other route I am considering is kingman to topcock. We will be travelling in a new car so road conditions are a consideration. Can someone recommend one route over the other?
We don't have time to do both.

Thanks

hetismij

Pick up route 55 in Flagstaff, through Williams and Seligman to Kingman. The road is in good condition and an easy drive. Pity you can't do the whole route through to Topcock, though Oatman I found a bit tacky to be honest, but if you can only do one part then Flagstaff/Williams/Seligman to Kingman is the way to go.
Have a look at http://tinyurl.com/fzw9f and
www.historic66.com/arizona/

hetismij

That should have been route 66 of course! Sorry!

ricklea1953

I am going to try to do the whole route 66 from flagstaff to topcock if i can fit it in timewise.

Thanks

marleneawe

DH and I did the entire trip starting in Chicago and ending at Santa Monica. So of course we did both of these. The Seligman to Kingman has the most to see and the better roads. Must stop the Snow Cap drive-in. We met and had a picture taken with Angel Delgadillo, who ran the barber shop and his brother Juan ran the Snow Cap drive-in. Grand Canyon caverns, Peach Springs and the Hualapai tribal headquarters, Truxton the old Frontier Restaurant still operates, Valentine is where a scene from the movie Easy Rider was filmed, Hackberry and the Hackberry General Store and Kingman. Nothing really just a town, their water tower was unique, few museums. And it would be here where you would head up the hills to Oatman.

Now Oatman is entirely different, it is more of the true Route 66, road are bad, expecially if it has rained.Only one road to take. Wooden sidewalks, The burros come into town and you can purchase food to feed them. Really neat. Then Topock really nothing there. We took a sidetrip on Hwy 95 to Lake Havasu City to see the London Bridge, This for us was well worth.

hetismij

When we did the whole route, March 2002, we arrived in Oatman to complete and utter chaos, buses everywhere tourists, fake gun fight. We hated it and got out as fast as we could, which was not fast enough due to the traffic jam caused by the gun fight. Only saving grace was the burros. I hate to think what it is like when the tourist season really starts.
We liked Mr D'z diner in Kingman.

marleneawe

Did not mention when we took this trip, it was in October. And there was no tourist anywhere. For fact Oatman was dead, just afew locals, who was very willing to chat and found out alot about the old mining town. We went in 2003.

Grassshopper

For me the most annoying thing about driving this route was that I could NOT get that song out of my head!

ricklea1953

Thanks to all who replied. We are going the 2nd week in september - roundtrip from seattle. I am going to find the time to drive from seligman to topock via 66 and then on to lake havasu.

hetismij

Grasshopper, the funny thing was when we did it we only heard it once the whole trip - in a piano bar in Pasadena when we were chilling with friends at the end of the trip. They tipped the pianist the wink and he sang it for us!
Oatman was the only touristy thing on the whole trip and we were really shocked to see it like that so early in the year. Maybe it was spring break somewhere I don't know, but it was really awful. I didn't like St Louis much, especially going up in the Arch - not good for claustrophobics - but Oatman was the worst.
I doubt I shall get the chance to go back there and really enjoy it.