To Winslow and Beyond

 Well gang, we've begun our adventure.  The Outback is stuffed with enough artist supplies to start a store.  Plus food & clothing for a week.  We're headed today to Winslow, AZ which is about 350 miles north.  One of the many things I like about our new home state is that you can start out in the AM in the low Sonoran Desert and a few hours later are driving through a Ponderosa Pine forest where the temperature is 35 degrees cooler.  We've been to Winslow before and it's one of those towns that by all rights should have dried up and blown away years ago.  But the folks are hanging in there and trying to bring it back.  For us, it's got a few things that we like.  Such as The Eagles song Take It Easy which has the line "standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona".  Several years ago the town put up a bronze statue of a handsome young dude with a guitar, and painted a huge mural on a building (complete I might add with a "girl in a flatbed Ford".  From early morning to late at night people arrive to have a picture taken of them standin' on a corner in Winslow, AZ. I found this pretty young thing wandering around and she said I could take her picture.  Another thing we like about Winslow is that it's an old Route 66 town.  The two main streets in town were Route 66.  One went west, and the other was the eastbound route.  Lots of old motels, signs, and history.


But the real reason we wanted to stop in Winslow is a wonderful old hotel called La Posada.  We stopped for lunch here a few years ago and were absolutely awe struck by this place. It was built by the Fred Harvey Company who partnered with the Santa Fe Railroad to bring tourists west in the early 20th century.  The architect was Mary Jane Colter who Harvey had hired in 1903 to design fine hotels, restaurants, and gift shops along the route of the Santa Fe Railway.  Her inspiration for La Posada were the great haciendas of the Spanish, but moved to our American southwest.  Unfortunately the hotel opened in 1930, just as the Great Depression started, and it never prospered.
It closed to the public in 1957.  In 1959 it's museum
quality furnishings were auctioned off.  In 1961 the Santa Fe RR purchased the building for it's Arizona operations and it was gutted and transformed into offices.  In 1993 the RR announced plans to dispose of La Posada.  It seemed that the end had come to this once lovely building.  But then something extraordinary  happened.  A couple heard of the plight of the grand old hotel and purchased it in 1997.  Since then they've spent millions in restoration costs, buying back whatever furniture they could find that belonged to the hotel, and re-landscaping the grounds.  We wanted to see more of this wonderful old hotel so we decided to spend the night there.  This is one of those places that has a magical feeling to it.  Thank you to the courageous new owners.