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We stood on the corner for the first time back in
2006, when our schedule had us flying in and out
of Albuquerque rather than Phoenix, so we needed to be close enough to
Albuquerque on the last morning to make our approximately 2 p.m. flight.
So that meant staying somewhere
farther away from the Grand Canyon but closer to Albuquerque, and we
chose Winslow. Well, Winslow, as we all know, was made famous
in the 1970s by the Eagles' 1972 song "Take it Easy." Check
back on our Standin' 2006 page to see
the full lyrics of the song.
To commemorate the song and the
effect it had on the city (did it have an effect?), Winslow built a
statue of a guy ("a 70's-era rocker") standing on a corner and
created a small
park
around him. When we visited in 2006, we weren't able to
actually get right next to the statue because a recent fire at the
building adjacent necessitated fencing off the area.
By 2009, the damaged building had
been taken care of, the fencing was removed, and you could once
again stand right next to the standin' guy. In addition,
they've added a flat-bed Ford to the scene, just like the song calls
for.
Our schedule this year had us passing
right by Winslow in the late afternoon on Thursday, and, hey, we
needed gas, anyway, and Winslow was as good a place as any to get
it, so, since I was driving, I turned us off I-40, and we stopped to
say hello once again to the guy standin' on a corner in Winslow,
Arizona. |
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| This is "Standin' on the Corner Park" in
Winslow, Arizona. Two tourists on the right there got in my
picture at the last minute. They're looking at a sign that notes
that this is an attraction along the once famous US 66 ("Route 66") that
passed through Winslow. Note the guitar in the statue's hands.
He is a rocker, after all, and they once criss-crossed the country,
singing songs, and hitching rides on street corners. |
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| Here we all are standin' (note that we
never use a "g") on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. It WAS such a
fine sight to see. We made sure those two pesky tourists were gone
before the picture was snapped.
The park is on the northwest corner of Kinsley Avenue and 2nd Street
in Winslow. |
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| Here's the flatbed Ford, my lord, which
is supposed to have a girl in it slowin' (again, no "g") down to take a
look at me. In this case, it was not just slowing down, but it was
actually stopped, and there was no girl in it, statue or otherwise.
We weren't sure that you were actually supposed to climb onto the truck,
but there were no signs that said not to, so we did.
Unfortunately, at the time of day we were there, the shadows were what
you see in the picture, and we couldn't do anything about that. |
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| This gift shop across the street had a
Route 66 sign for each state the original route passed through.
The street you see in the foreground is, apparently, original Route 66
pavement. The states it passed through were Illinois, Missouri,
Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The route
originally began in downtown Chicago at one end and in Santa Monica,
California at the other. |
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