I've finally gotten the routing and reservations worked out for the Big Ride

I'm going to head out Tuesday morning April 27 for Arizona. I'm going to be
using
a somewhat cut-down version of a six-day, Old 66 route recommended by
the people running the Route 66 memorial website http://www.historic66...

Basically, I'm breaking the trip down into shorter legs to allow myself plenty of
time to stop for photos or to check out anything interesting. I could probably
cover twice the mileage per day, but that's really not the point of this ride.

This is the website with the basics of the first stage across Arizona..
http://www.byways.org...
It does an excellent job of covering all the highlights of this segment so I'll refer
you to it rather than write it up myself (and doing a worse job..)

They have this as a six day trip, but I'm cutting it to 5 by dropping out the Seligman, AZ
exploration as well as the overnight at Grand Canyon Caverns and will be pressing
on to Kingman, AZ for two nights.

One of the coolest things is the iconic Wigwam Hotel in Holbrook which will be my
first overnight stop. http://www.galerie-ko...
This place is in EVERY book about Historic 66 and is just cool beyond belief.

My second overnight will be in the historic La Posada Innhttp://www.laposada.o...
in Winslow, AZ just a handful of miles down the road from Holbrook where Ill have
the Anne and Charles Lindberg room.. I plan to spend most of the day exploring
Winslow before heading out the following day.

After reaching Kingman, I plan to spend the day at nearby Oatman, AZ; a functioning
ghost town.. (say what??) http://www.ghosttowns... .
It sounds pretty cool and I'll return to Kingman for the night..

From Kingman, I'm going to head northwest across the Hoover Dam to Death Valley, CA
following this route http://*******.com/y2... and will stay at Stovepipe Wells
http://www.stovepipew... for three nights.

I'll spend the next two days exploring Death Valley which has a lot more things
to see and do than I had realized before starting to research this trip. In May
the temps are still mild (about 95f) but I plan to do most of my sightseeing fairly
early and to lay around the pool once it gets hot.

After 3 nights in Death Valley, I'll be heading back to Kingman for yet another
night as it seems to be the best place to break the next leg into digestible chunks.

From Kingman I'll head out to Scottsdale, AZ where I'll overnight before heading
out into ***** Territory http://*******.com/y5... heading Northeast through the
Fort Apache Indian Reservation section of the Apache National Forest.

I'll be rejoining my outbound route at Holbrook (Wigwam Hotel) and if I feel up
to it, I may just boom on home to Albuquerque, about 3 hours from Holbrook.
If not (I'll have been on the road 10 days at this point and I may be kinda fried),
I'll get a room at the Wigwam or another hotel and take a leisurely run home
the next day.

The mileage will be something like 1700-1800 over 10-11 days; not that much
for the time spent on the road, but this is a sightseeing trip, not a Kamikaze run..

I've dropped out the stops in Sedona and the Grand Canyon that I'd originally
planned on not only because of time constraints, but because about a week
after I get back, Debbie and I are heading out on a car trip through much of Utah
hitting Monument Valley, Zion, Bryce Canyon, etc. and we'll drop down to the
Grand Canyon and Sedona on the way home from that trip which will probably
be about 8 days long.

The basic route and timing is pretty well locked in, but if anyone has any suggestions
of things not to miss along the way, I'd be happy to hear them.