TOUR AMERICA, 2020: KINGMAN, ARIZONA – THE GRAND CANYON STATE

Places We Have Called Home in 2020

Home Is Where We Park It – Fort Beale RV Park, Kingman, Arizona

May 31, 2020

Temperature 92 Degrees

Worship at The Colts Neck Reformed Church

The Mural Trail

Did you catch that historic moment this morning when our two newest astronauts came sailing through the air lock from the Dragon Capsule into the Space Station?  It was thrilling to witness such an historic moment.  Unfortunately, one of the two did not do too well.  The astronaut on the far right (I just can’t get their names straight) came in a little too fast and ended up cracking his forehead on a metal object in the Space Station.  Poor guy, for the longest time he spent his first minutes onboard holding a paper towel to his head to stem the flow of blood.  Hopefully, nothing else will jump up and bite him in the months ahead.

We began our Sunday morning with worship at our home church, The Colts Neck Reformed Church in Colts Neck, NJ

The call to worship was really neat.  They assigned parts to individuals scattered around this great country of ours.  They had participants from Oregon, North Carolina, Idaho, Virginia, Ohio, New York, California, Pennsylvania, Washington, Iowa, Michigan, and New Jersey.  Each in turn recited their part of the call to worship.

Special music was a harp solo.

Pastor Scott gave another great message on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life.  He reminded us that the Spirit is always there within each of us. He reminded us that the Holy Spirit is God presence with us everywhere and at all times.  He went on to remind us that the Holy Spirit is with us to empower, to guide, to inspire, to protect and to guide us through all the twists and turns, all the challenges and struggles of life.  A great message for the beginning of another new week.

Later on in the service I was thrilled to be able to offer the Pastoral Prayer.  I taped the segment earlier in the week and then sent it to the church to be included in this week’s service.

The worship service concluded with Pastor Scott encouraging us to heed the words of our Lord:  to love God with all that we are and likewise to love our neighbor as ourselves.  If you ask me these are words we all need to hear and practice especially in light of the violence that is occurring  in so many places in our country today.

Moving on.

When we were in Maine we heard about The Sculpture Trail and after finding one or two of the Sculptures on the trail we were hooked and off we went to find all the others.

Well, here in this area they have what we would call The Route 66 Mural Trail.  You know we could not pass this up.  Not on your life.  So yesterday we started to track them down.  Some of them we were able to find descriptions for and the artist responsible for them.  Others, unfortunately not.

Our first mural.  A map of Route 66 and the states that it goes through.

This was our next stop.

The El Trovatore motel is one of the few pre-World War II tourist courts left in Kingman. The business started in 1937 as a service station, with the tourist court added later in 1939, at which time it was $3 per night and was the first motel air-conditioned in the state.  In the past such notable icons as Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe as well as James Dean were all guests here.  Recently renovated it now offers a choice of different themed hotel rooms that one can choose from one.

 This is the recently restored historic 100 foot high neon tower sign and neon marqee which is lit nightly.

Here, though, is what it is best known for.

This is the route’s end in California.

This is also where the map starts.  It begins at the first room adjacent to the office, and continues

along and across the rooms in the front of the building going from state

to state

to state

to state

to state

to state

to the other terminus of the route, or the start of the route, however you look at it in Chicago.

But we’re not finished yet, not at all.  There are a lot – I mean a lot – more murals to see.

Remember her?  We’ll bump into her again on this mural trail.

Of course you know who he is.

You also know who this sexy lady is.  She will also show up again in another place on the trail.  And the cars, do you know what movie they were featured in?

Does he look familiar?

Yabba, Dabba, Doo!

Two friends who through their comedy taught the true meaning of friendship.

Remember these three?  In actuality six Stooges appeared over the act’s run (with only three active at any given time): Moe Howard (t/n Moses Horwitz) and Larry Fine (t/n Larry Feinberg) were mainstays throughout the ensemble’s nearly fifty-year run and the pivotal “third stooge” was played by (in order of appearance) Shemp Howard (t/n Samuel Horwitz), Curly Howard (t/n Jerome Horwitz), Shemp Howard again, Joe Besser and “Curly” Joe DeRita.

Painted on the units in the back we find the following murals.

I have to say the murals were absolutely fantastic.  I can only imagine the hours that went into painting them and the hours required to maintain them.  I’m so grateful to whoever the artist is for giving me the opportunity to view these beautiful murals.

Next mural on the trail we found at the Lutheran Church.

Around the corner from the church we discovered yet another mural.

The next, and final, mural for this evening we discovered here.

That’s it for this evening.  We have more murals to find and more to share with you so stay tuned.

Darkness has descended upon us and our day on The Road of Retirement has come to an end.  We stayed in today and enjoyed the coolness of Elvira.  Tomorrow, well we may or may not go out.  Probably not.  Especially since most attractions we want to see will not open until Tuesday.

I just had to include this.

We hope you enjoyed the murals as much as we did.  We’re also grateful for each and everyone of our readers and their comments.  See you tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Elvira and it’s two intrepid travelers.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have never been before.

See you on down the road!