Once in a while it happens. The right roads, the right car and the right people come together for an unforgettable road trip. It happened to me last weekend. We were on our way home to L.A. from a rally in Prescott, Ariz. If we had been on a schedule, we could've easily covered the 400 or so miles in five to six hours. Luckily, we had no schedule. What we did have was a WRX, a full tank of gas and plans to take the long way-through the dirt.
Heading west from Prescott, we charged onto the first gravel road only a few miles from town and headed straight into the land of red mist. Having just watched my fourth ProRally from the sidelines (after starting as a competitor), I was filled with the overzealous desire to slide the WRX into every turn sideways. It was cool and I managed to keep it mostly on the road. Plus, my three passengers, including engineering editor Dave Coleman, loved it.
The ribbon-smooth gravel road took us first from Prescott to Simmons, east of Camp Wood and continued north to Seligman where it intercepted Interstate 40. The road's character was wonderfully diverse. It began with wide, safe sweeping turns only to transform into a high-speed gravel expressway farther north. Rains the night before made much of the road impassable for two-wheel-drive vehicles. It also created the perfect environment for us to put the Subaru's four-wheel drive to the test.
A bit too much off-highway ambition, however, gave two friendly gentlemen in a Dodge pickup the opportunity to display the Mopar's towing capacity. As they yanked the WRX from the quagmire, Coleman made sure they knew who was driving.
Before jumping on the interstate for the next 80 miles, we hit a convenience store in Seligman to clean the inside of the Suby's wheels and grab some ice cream at Juan Delgadillo's world-famous Snow Cap. We're glad we did. Seligman is a town time has forgotten. Established in 1886 as the connecting point of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroads, the town has become a savior for all things Route 66. We even got to meet Juan's brother Angel, a barber in Seligman and owner of the Route 66 Gift Shop & Visitor's Center. Angel, 74, grew up in Seligman, and was instrumental in the founding of the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona, which is headquartered in Kingman, 70 miles to the east. His smile is infectious.
Driving Route 66 is like driving a history book. The 20th century unfolds with each mile, the story told through the aging structures, the dying communities and the wrinkled faces.
Just north of the old west mining town of Oatman is "The Mother Road" as John Steinbeck called it; Route 66 narrows and turns into a serious driving road. Although years of weather and neglect have turned the 2,448-mile east/west thoroughfare from Chicago to Los Angeles into a pothole-cratered, two-lane wasteland, it still winds its way through the Arizona desert in a series of thrilling blind crests and deceptive decreasing radius turns. It's perfect for a determined Subaru driver.
In Needles, Calif. we again jumped on the west I-40, but for only 20 miles. Then it was back to Route 66 for some foot-to-the-floor desert driving. It was there, in the middle of the Mojave, with the sun setting and the Subaru's speedometer needle cranked over, that I realized what we were doing. We weren't just going home or traveling from point A to point B. We were driving. We were living. Four of us. In a Subaru.