9. Route 66, Mojave Desert Pt 3

Halfway through this day’s leg of our road trip, that is between Barstow and Needles, the 250- foot high black dome of the extinct Amboy Volcano Crater broke the desolate landscape of the Mojave Desert. Its lava field stretched toward the road.

The dome’s location is only about one and a half miles south of old Route 66 and two and a half miles southwest of Roy’s Motel and Cafe in Amboy.

Roy’s, founded in 1938 and expanded in the 1940s to include a gas station, cafe, and motel, is truly an oasis in the desert. The space-and-atomic-age-influenced Googie sign with its stylized boomerang shape (emblematic of speed and motion) was added in 1959 as was the Googie-style reception area with an upswept roof (to give the suggestion the building was hovering above the ground).

Once a very popular stop, the business dramatically declined when the construction of I-40 bypassed Amboy. Roy’s was sold and then eventually went into foreclosure. Albert Okura, who owns Juan Pollo Chicken and who turned the original Googie-style McDonald’s in California into a museum, bought the Amboy property in 2005 with the promise to restore Roy’s to its historic Route 66 look. Roy’s reopened in 2008 on a limited basis. Acquiring water and electricity to this remote location is a challenge. Though the kitchen had not yet been reopened at the time of our visit, we were able to quench our thirst with bottled Route 66 Root Beer at $2.00 a pop.

A plaque on the outside wall of Roy’s provides some historical background:

Amboy, settled as early as 1858, became a water stop when the Southern Pacific Railroad laid its tracks through the Cadiz Valley in 1883-84. Following the course of the Railroad and the National Old Trails Highway, Route 66 was opened in 1926. Amboy soon saw heavy traffic along “The Mother Road” as Flivvers, Dust Bowl Emigrants, soldiers, and vacationers made their way through the Mojave Desert. Facilities included a cafe, service station, school, motel, and post office. Water was hauled by rail from Newberry Springs, 50 miles to the West.

Roy’s has served travelers along Route 66 from the beginning. Opened by Roy Crowl and later operated by his son-in-law Buster Burris, Roy’s has provided hot food, a cold drink, and gasoline to many a weary sojourner. Motorists could spend the night at the motel while vehicles of all types were serviced at the garage. Even after Interstate 40 bypassed the town in 1973, Roy’s has served as a welcome oasis in a lonely stretch of desert.

The motel has not reopened. The bungalows house exhibits, one on water resources at the time of our visit. Albert Okura has plans to continue restoring Roy’s.

East of Amboy, in “East Amboy,” just west of Chambless, sits in isolation the abandoned Roadrunner’s Retreat Cafe and Station. In his 2015 edition Route 66 guide book, Jerry McClanahan reports that the head of the giant roadrunner on the roadside sign had only recently been decapitated. An actual nest resting on the sign adds a nice touch….

We continued to Cadiz Summit. Here the ruins of a garage, originally part of a cafe/gas station/garage/cabin complex, now serve as a cinder-block canvas for colorful graffiti.

We continued through the Mojave Desert….

(to be continued….) SUBSCRIBE to my post at the very bottom of the page!