A bit of the long and winding road:
Flagsstaff is roughly a 7-1/2 hour drive from our home in Orange County.
It was time for a lunch break in Kingman, Arizona, and the highest-rated restaurant on Trip Advisor was Redneck's Southern Pit BBQ. We love good barbecue, so we decided to give it a try. The exterior doesn't look like much...
...but it's shiny bright inside, and much larger than one would guess from the exterior. And it was gooooood! I had a fantastic pulled pork sandwich and fries. The service was extremely friendly and helpful, and the bathrooms were immaculate. This will definitely be a stop on future trips to Flagstaff!
Classic film buffs will enjoy noting that one of the major thoroughfares in Kingman is Andy Devine Avenue.
Andy Devine was born in Flagstaff and grew up in Kingman, and he attended Northern Arizona University, which had a different name at the time.
I hadn't eaten at a Cracker Barrel in many years, as there aren't any in California. Happily there are Cracker Barrel restaurants in both Kingman and Flagstaff; we ate at the latter location. I've always loved the little bottles of maple syrup!
After moving our son into his dorm we went on a walking tour of historic Downtown Flagstaff. The Hotel Monte Vista dates from 1927.
Across the street is the 1888 Babbitt Brothers Building, which houses a sporting goods store:
I love the painted sign which identifies the Babbitt Brothers as "Ranchers, Merchants, and Indian Traders."
The year on the Hotel Weatherford sign is 1897:
The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany will celebrate its centennial next year:
Some of the NAU student volunteers helping on move-in day recommended Bigfoot Bar-B-Q, located in the basement of the Old Town Shops. We don't often have the chance to eat good barbecue in Southern California, so we enjoyed it two days in a row in Arizona!
Bigfoot was excellent; here's the Trip Advisor reviews.
With all this good eating, thankfully we did a great deal of walking on our trip! In fact, I wondered why I was feeling a bit winded the first day, given that I walk several hours each week for exercise, and then I realized that Flagstaff's elevation of just under 7000 feet was even higher than the spot where we camp in the High Sierras. That definitely takes a little bit of acclimating.
As a side note, perhaps it just happens to be where we ate, but Arizona seems to be a heavily "Pepsi" state. The non-chain restaurants and the NAU campus all carried only Pepsi products -- the one food-related disappointment of the trip for me, a dedicated fan of Diet Coke. :)
The Lowell Observatory and The Arboretum at Flagstaff are on our "to do" list for future visits, when we look forward to becoming better acquainted with the city.
That's so cool about Andy Devine Ave! Mmmm, now I'm craving a pulled pork sandwich. . .
ReplyDeleteWonderful photos. I love the opportunity for some tasty BBQ, especially pulled pork sandwiches, but you're right, I don't think that is one of California's specialties. I haven't eaten at a Cracker Barrel in probably a decade, but I remember getting an awesome breakfast there once while driving cross country. Sounds like your son will be eating well! Cool fact about Andy Devine.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had a great trip! I didn't end up getting BBQ this weekend, as the place I thought was BBQ was just poorly named. lol
ReplyDeleteMissy
The guy that now owns the house Andy Devine was born in Flagstaff is restoring it. Maybe you were not aware about the Hotel Monte Vista in downtown Flagstaff, it was used in the movie Casablanca, the lobby, and one of the rooms in the hotel were used in a few scene's during filming. Flagstaff was actually considered to be the new filming location out west in the old days before Hollywood was ever created. My father in law told me this story decades ago. I have researched this and found it to be a fact. In 1914 Cecil B. DeMille and his partner Jesse Lasky were going to produced the first feature-length film, "The Squaw Man". After a cross-country search that started on the east coast. On this location scouting of sorts, DeMille actually stopped in Flagstaff, Arizona, where bad weather(a big snow storm) spurred him further west as far as the train would take them, to the Hollywood farming community, where they started the first studio in an old horse barn.. Then Ted Danson also grew up at Flagstaff he graduated from Flagstaff Highschool in 1965. The house he grew up in is a neat old historic home on 180 across from the Museum of Northern Arizona.. My mother in law was born in Flagstaff in 1936, and my husband in 1958, so was our son. I love the old Flagstaff history..
ReplyDelete~ Colette
Thank you so much for sharing that, Colette!
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Laura