The course of the Dust Bowl exodus in the 30’s and later a cultural icon, carrying generations of vacationers, wanderers, and adventurers from the central states to the sea, Route 66 has long since fallen from grace. With the rise of the interstate highway system, countless settlements and rest stops dotting the once-bustling road have dried up as the highway has fallen into disuse and disrepair. However, as any urbexer knows, such tragic declines have a silver lining.
UECAL and I drove out into the Mojave Desert along the route to check out some of the many ghost towns (and semi-ghost towns, as several have refused to completely die) along it. When the larger and more-direct I-40 was built through the desert, it subverted a huge swath of Rt. 66, and a long chain of towns formerly dependent on the road’s traffic were left to scorch in the desert heat. At least two of the former towns we drove by, Siberia and Baghdad, had completely vanished without a trace, despite still being marked on maps. Luckily, there was still plenty standing at towns that we were able to check out. I was in a bit of a rush, so we didn’t get to explore as much as we liked, but it was well worth the drive and hopefully I’ll get the chance to go back soon.
Imgur Album
https://imgur.com/a/jUN3NOi 1.
Just a neat old room we found open to the elements. There was an ancient book of English Business Grammar on the piano.
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A boarded-up Church. I thought the intact painting above the altar looked pretty sick.
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Elementary school that, judging from the dates of the books lying all over the place, closed somewhere in the early to mid nineties. On a sidenote, sorry for the stupid rookie question but how do you rotate vertical photos? Apologies for the sideways-ness.
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The floor of the entire building was covered in a pretty deep layer of old textbooks, notebooks, and posters.
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The gym. It looks like they were building some sort of set for a play.
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School exterior.
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In a house next to the school. Is this what it looks like? No clue - it looked pretty cheaply constructed and there wasn't any clear way to open it.
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An old auto shed with a bunch of tools lying around. The next up top is a crow's nest. There were two decaying crows lying on the ground inside.
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Obligatory "Open Road" pic. Just
try to go to Rt. 66 and keep yourself from taking one, I dare you.
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One of the two "Foo Dogs"/"Guardians of Rt. 66" spaced 1/4 miles apart a few hundred feet from the road. There were a bunch of figurines and a notebook on it, but I wasn't able to find the origin or age of the statues themselves. They have a Facebook page, and according to the article below, people only started reporting on them online in 2013, but no one knows who put them there. Quite mysterious.
http://www.route66...ese-statues-amboy/ 16.
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