Williams, Arizona Run
August 17, 2008
Dick Taylor
Trip participants: Sue Baughman & Ingrid Purder, Larry Brown, Dan Messersmith and his dog Buddy,
and Dick and Connie Taylor with their dog Sassy.
We met at Mc Donald's on old 66 and were pleasantly surprised to find the Jacobs, Jim and Jeannie
had come out to have coffee with us and say Hello. Jeannie is recovering from recent knee
replacement and should be able to travel again soon. After a fine Egg McMuffin & coffee we were off
and running. We went about 100 yards and made a quick stop in K-Mart parking lot for a radio repair.
With the repair completed we were on the road again. We ran the old route 66 leaving the pavement
at Hackberry, Peach Springs, and on Crookton Road past Seligman to see more detail in these places.
Dan gave us much interesting history about the places we were passing though. The dirt road past
Peach Springs took us though the old Railroad siding in Nelson and on through a present day mine
site. This is an active mine with the product being lime. We skirted the large open mine pits and
made our way back to old 66 just before reaching the turn off to the Grand Canyon Caverns. The
Monsoon Rains have produced a great batch of wild flowers for our viewing pleasure. The tall stands
of sunflowers on each side of the road were very nice. Past Seligman it was interesting to find
a working sawmill along side Crookton Road. This mill recycles the trees that have been thinned or
burned in the forests around Williams and Flagstaff.
Arriving in Ash Fork (the flagstone capital of the nation) we left the pavement and proceeded into
the forest on county road 124. We passed many, many old flagstone quarries. This route follows the
newest double track cut of the railroad, The amount of rock that was moved to make this cut is very
impressive. The sight seeing along this stretch was super. Larry was our best wild life spotter and
pointed out a number of sightings for antelope and wild burro. The best sighting your leader could
make was a couple cows fenced in beside the road. The group made him feel better by calling the
cows slow elk so they could be counted as wildlife. It was time to find a place for our lunch stop and
a fine looking 2 track popped up on our right. This road led us to a very nice place for lunch. The 2
dogs on the trip had a fine time running around while we enjoyed lunch. We were soon on the road
again with our path taking us thorough the Junipers and then up into the tall Pines. This is beautiful
country with many roads that could be explored and the group agreed that a return trip should be
made in the future. Along the way we encountered an on-coming Jeep that turned around after
passing Dan. It turned out to be Jim and Zee Fowler from Bullhead City. They were camped up near
Williams and were out touring the area. By 2 PM we had arrived in Williams and made a stop at Dairy
Queen for ice cream. With the weather threatening rain we brought the trip to an end at this point.
As we broke for home it did start to rain and it was coming down in great big drops.
We are already looking forward to the next trip.
Dick Taylor.