Friday, April 22/2016

Downtown Williams, Az

Kay and I woke up early today and headed into town.  We had a few things to pick up and since we were going in early, we might just as well have breakfast!!  This is a bit of a habit Kay and I had gotten into the last month of our stay at the park as we had been so terribly busy that it was simply easier to go out for breakfast than to waste time cooking it.  And besides.....no one had to do dishes this way!!

Downtown Williams, Az

Williams, Arizona is on the historic Route 66 so like so many other towns with this distinction, embraces the fact and has actually done it with a lot of success.  Everywhere you look, Route 66 memorabilia, signs and store fronts offer one of a kind items for sale.  It is only Friday and this place is packed with cars and people.
Williams is also the home of Bearizona.  A one of a kind wild life experience so of course we had to check that place out.  It consists of two parts - a drive through and a walk through.  It was incredible and well worth the $22.00 price of admission.  John of course, pretended he was not impressed!!

Entrance to  Bearizona

Beautiful woodwork at the entrance

Mountain goats

Sleeping....

Deer

Burro

We actually have seen several of these in the wild

wolf

more wolves

white arctic wolf

bear

thirsty bear!!

tired bear!!

White buffalo and her newborn

Beautiful white buffalo

close up of baby

There is just something about these majestic creatures....

lazy sheep

white peacock

badger

swift fox

fancy chicken

ravens sitting in the tree waiting to steal food from
baby bears 

river otters

sleeping baby bears

overhead sign going into Williams, Az

so many older cars - route 66

the town embraces its route 66 heritage

Bar hopping

After touring Bearizona, it was time to tour a few of the local watering holes.  We started off slowly but managed to finish strong with three bars entered!!  Drinks were reasonably priced and the history of some of the bars was interesting

The "world famous" Sultana bar.   

The world famous Sultana Bar was pretty amazing with the inside of the walls lined with all kinds of wild animal heads.  Many of them were atypical deer heads with massive antlers shot in the area.  I asked the bartender what made the bar "world famous" and she said it was a combination of three things.  First, the infamous Sultana ruby (never heard of it!!), Second, a ship that went down during the Civil war caring prisoners of war that claims to be the biggest marine disaster in history and stating that the lives lost exceed the Titanic losses and, last but not least, the Third reason is that the Sultana bar is the longest running continuous liquor license in the state of Arizona.  It was the first bar to be awarded the license at the end of Prohibition.  Soooo, now we all know why the Sultana is "World Famous"!!
We played a few games of shuffleboard at the Sultana then headed to the third and final bar of the night that also had a shuffleboard and karaoke!!  Woo Hoo.....have not sat and enjoyed karaoke for a while now so that was a lot of fun.

lots of "heads" around the bar

A sign for Gary (back home)

All in all, it was a very good day although John and Kay did say they would feed me (and I really needed to eat!!) they in fact,  did not and I ended up just going to bed while John made grilled cheese sandwiches for himself and Kay.  Life is good.....

keg urinals!!