Amboy

Today I picked up mail at the post office, and found a letter from my step father.  He sent me an article from the Los Angeles Times that was about Roy's Cafe in Amboy, California having a new owner.  This new owner is planning to repair and restore the facility.  I  haven't been there in years,  but I used to drive through when going east from my home in Running Springs.  I liked to drive on the old roadbed of Route 66 wherever I could.

In the case of the stretch from Ludlow to close to Needles there was a practical reason as well.  During the awful heat of the summer months, the steep grades on the interstate would leave motorists disabled. The interstate has three summits.  The grades on the old Route 66 roadbed were not as steep, and there were two summits to crest. There is a practical reason for this:  the old course of Route 66 pretty much traversed along with the railroad routes.  Being a train enthusiast I know that rarely did the rails exceed about a 3 percent grade.

My step father's dad, a lifelong prospector at one time had mining claims on the Amboy crater.  I learned about that at about age 12, and for the rest of my life I could not pass that stark cinder cone without reflecting on that tidbit.  The entire stretch of Old Route 66 from Yermo on to Needles is pretty much what the movie CARS shows it to be.

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