Standing on the corner

    Here I am , standing on the corner of Winslow, AZ on a cold December day. It has been about 50 years since my sister and I were travelling on Route 66 from California heading east. Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey had yet to publish the iconic song "Take it Easy". I think we were heading  to the Petrified Forest , so you  gotta' go through Winslow, AZ. I remembered it as a small western town with not too many people and not much to see. Id like to say a lot has changed but...                                                                                       It was a railroad town, headquarters for the Santa Fe RR.; Hubell trading post had its warehouse there, and Fred Harvey  built his luxurious hotel, La Posada in 1929 for travelers to eat and perhaps spend the night. Harvey, an Englishman, was the original entrepreneur. He hired single women of "good moral character  who had to have an 8th grade education. The designer of the hotel was Mary Jane Colter , who also did buildings at the Grand Canyon.               But everything did not stay the same.People stopped taking the RR; Route 66 was replace by interstate 40 in 1965.  My sis and I travelled route 66 where we could. This lovely sculpture was not there yet, and La Posada was a deserted building. In 1994, Allen Affelt and artist wife  Tina Mion started its transformation. It is now fairly close to what it looked like in the beginning: Southwest design with real Navajo rugs in the rooms; the delicious Turquoise room for dining  and for us art aficianados , Mion's large surrealistic paintings in an upstairs gallery.  So Winslow Arizona is back on the maps and it was such a fun sight to see. Comments?