Would You Like Fries With That Hike?

Working at the Heard Museum Book Store allows me to find more nifty books than I would normally see were I simply to wander into a National Park book store (something I do more often than you might think), so I was already familiar with a couple of other Roger Naylor titles: Death Valley: Hottest Place On Earth and Arizona: Kicks On Route 66. These inexpensive and lavishly photographed books are full of lore and suggestions of interesting places to visit, so when Boots & Burgers: An Arizona Handbook For Hungry Hikers came over the transom, I bought it so fast my receipt is singed around the edges.

Boots & Burgers combined my two favorite things in the world, hiking and eating at diners after hiking – what a natural! So I went through the book with a fine-tooth comb and started marking hikes I want to do, along with their accompanying diner suggestions. I knew I would review this book, so I was prepared to say all sorts of nice things about the fact that most of the hikes listed in the book are new to me, so I have lots of lovely exploration to do. Likewise, I had never eaten at most of these diners, and I love burgers. A match made in heaven. The directions to the trail heads are clear, the exertion level is accurate, and the diner reviews make my mouth water. Good stuff! Get down here and by this book right now!

But this is a book about adventure and exploration. Is one review enough? I think Boots & Burgers requires special treatment. I haven't done my job as a reviewer unless I go on at least some of these hikes, eat at some of these diners, and then tell you how they were. I am prepared to make this sacrifice. Because I'm just that kinda guy.

So – the first hike that tempted me was the Red Mountain trail, just north of Flagstaff on HWY 180, the same road that will take you to the Grand Canyon if you don't want to take HWY 89. There's nothing wrong with HWY 89 of course – after all, it takes you past Wupatki and Sunset Crater. But HWY 180 may be the road less traveled, unless you're really into skiing at Snow Bowl, or you can't resist the observatory or the museums – or . . .

Okay, maybe it's NOT the road less traveled. But on the Thursday we went looking for Red Mountain, there weren't a lot of people sharing the highway with us. The book warned us to watch for the mile marker after the Red Mountain sign, and this proved to be completely accurate. We turned left onto a forest road, drove past the sign warning us not to park in undesignated parking areas – you need to go to the end, where it loops, and THEN you can improvise a parking spot. Just try not to block the road. Not that anyone showed up while we were there – probably because everyone else knew that if you want to see the magnificent formations inside that partially-collapsed cinder cone, you need to show up in the morning, when light will ignite the full glory of those fantastical shapes.

The trail leads through a forest of junipers, ponderosas, and scented scrub – you see glimpses of the rock formations looming over it all, further down the trail. This is when you're saying to yourself, Dang! I wish we had gotten here before noon! Because those volcanic-tuff hoodoos are in shadow in the afternoon. They are mere shadows of themselves.

What's cool is that eventually you reach the cone, and you have to climb a short ladder to get up among the hoodoos. Somehow it all reminds me of scenes from The Lord of the Rings, when the company of friends travel into lands long abandoned to find half-ruined statues of ancient heroes. The formations are fantastical even in the half-light, and you will be busy snapping pictures of them. By the way – please don't be a jerk and climb on them.

On the way back down, I tested Roger's claim that Ponderosas smell like vanilla – and it's true. Put your nose right up next to them and breathe deep. The scent is amazing. And it only took me 56 years to find that out.

We had already located Mama Burgers on the way down – it's right on the elbow part of the bend that becomes HWY 180. It's a little place, and many of the employees are teenagers. I was tempted to try one of the shakes – I hear they're amazing, so I'll do that come summer – but I stuck to a burger and fries. My husband did the same, but he picked the Mamaburger, while I had the one with bacon and avocado.

They were EXCELLENT.

So five stars for the Red Mountain hike and the Mama Burger joint. Now – time to pick the next hike . . .

Indian Road 18

Arizona is a big place: 113,998 square miles (295,254 square km), so maybe it's no big surprise that there are many places in AZ I've never visited. The difficulty of the situation is compounded by the fact that this big place is very mountainous, and there's a giant, canyon stretching across the top NW corner of it. The interstate highways transect the top third (I-40) and the bottom half (I-10), and those two highways are connected in the middle by I-17. But that still leaves a big part of the state that must be explored by old highways and unpaved roads. And gas is currently running between $3.50 and $4.10 a gallon, here. Before you wince at how cheap that is compared to what you're currently paying, remember: 113,998 square miles.

This became a particular problem for me when I was trying to set a scene in my new novel in a part of Arizona I'd never visited. I thought I could simply google the place and look up its particulars. I found out that some places are more obscure than others. In this case, the place was the territory through which Indian Road 18 passes, near the southern the edge of the Grand Canyon. I couldn't find photos or maps that gave me enough information to write a convincing scene. So Ernie and I took a 24-hour road trip. We got the information we needed on that trip, but we got more. We found a wonderful spot we never would have visited if it hadn't been for my mission. That place is the Route 66 Roadrunner Cafe, in Seligman.

Seligman is an old Route 66 town, one of the places that almost died when I-40 was built to pass it by. (One of the biggest mistakes America ever made was to deal that fate to our small towns.) Seligman enjoys some attention these days from foreign travelers who are enchanted with the old Route 66 mystique. It's a cute little place, population 456 (give or take), with buildings and signs that were constructed in the mid-20^th Century. Route 66 is the main drag, so you see lots of signs inviting you to stop, eat, drink ice cold pop (or beer), and buy lots of souvenirs. Ernie and I arrived there at around 9:00 a.m., so what we had on our minds was coffee. Not just any coffee, either – we wanted the fancy stuff. The Roadrunner was the first place with “coffee drinks” in its signs, so we pulled over and went in to investigate.

We ended up with a couple of “Fast And Furious” iced coffees, which come fully loaded with 3 shots of espresso. We snagged a couple of muffins too, and scarfed those with a speed and enthusiasm that might have horrified any onlookers, had they been too close. The drinks and the muffins get 5 stars from us, so check the place out if you're passing through. They've got a full menu for lunch and breakfast, as well as plenty of Route 66 souvenirs too, including t-shirts and reproductions of vintage signs. They've even got a bar. The owner let us take some photos, and he's the one who snapped the shot of us at the top of this page, in case you've ever wondered what I and my intrepid partner look like when we're happy.

From Seligman, Indian Road 18 is about another half hour's drive on Route 66. The roadcuts on the way reveal some of the most interesting and colorful deposits of volcanic ash and lava I've seen in Arizona. Once you've turned onto 18, which winds through part of the Hualapai Indian Reservation, you climb onto the Coconino Plateau, which is anything but flat on top. It is complicated by its own mountains, hills, arroyos, and valleys. The road is paved, but not fancy or new, and the speed limit varies as you go along. You have to watch for cows, too. It's 60 miles long, and on the map it just seems to end for no particular reason, not far from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. But there's a very good reason for it to end. It's actually right at the edge of the canyon, on a little piece of land that belongs to the Havasupai Indians. They use it to transport supplies in and out of the canyon (via a small helicopter) and also lead horse- and mule-tours into the canyon itself.

A small tributary canyon runs along the west side of the final mile of Indian Road 18. There's a spot at its head where you can tell a waterfall forms when it rains. The part of the Grand Canyon this little tributary leads into isn't the grandest part – the walls aren't as high or the canyon nearly as wide as you'll find it in the national park (the eastern end), but it's beautiful, displaying uniquely eroded areas of the Kaibab limestone, the cross-bedded Toroweap and Coconino sandstones, the Hermit shale, and maybe even a bit of the Supai layer, at the bottom. It was a part of the Grand Canyon I'd never seen, and the journey up that road helped me immensely as I tried to envisage the scene I wanted to write.

That expedition was the sole reason for our trip, so we had to head back to Phoenix once I'd snapped some photos. On the way, however, we had to make one last stop – at the Roadrunner Cafe for two more “Fast and Furious” coffee drinks. The car needed gas, and so did we . . .

HWY 89 took us back through the Bradshaw Mountains (with a quick stop in Prescott for supper), to Route 93, past Wickenburg and back to Phoenix. It was a beautiful trip, and possibly the only one we'll be able to afford this year. But we made it count. If you're passing that way, I hope you do too.