The second night in Phoenix ended in Patty’s bar in Scottsdale. Now this is how I would imagine a wild west bar would look and feel. The barman explained how Patty (now 87) had set the bar up some 40 years ago and her family had pinned dollar bills to the wall as a good luck sign. The walls, ceiling and anything that stands still long enough gets ”billed’ and it makes an impressive site. See the gallery for pictures. The games room was really lively and at one point a barman cleared away our glasses of fireball while we were playing pool even though they weren’t finished. When confronted, or shouted at and he turned round I initially thought I’m glad I took out that medical cover!! But despite his manner he came back from the bar with two free refills 😋😋😋 and not his shotgun! Seriously though there have been a couple of bars visited with signs outside saying ‘No Firearms’. It must be an Arizona thing. So, hitting the road again, first stop was Montezuma’s Castle which was an early Indian settlement carved into the face of a cliff. It is a five storey twenty room house which accomodated a family group of forty-five people! an astonishing achievement back in 700 AD. Then onto Sedona which is situated in a spectacular valley of red rock mountains and buttes which most of the town is built from. Here we saw our first forest fire, the whole area had smelt of smoke for some time but it was only when driving over the top of a ridge we saw the smoke and then the fire planes dropping water. It was far enough away as not to be a threat and no closed roads so far. After Sedona was Flagstaff, and this is a western town in every way and a throwback to the West of old complete with old steam trains on display in the sidings. Brilliant!! It was in Flagstaff that we joined the iconic Route 66 and took it, on and off, to our next night in Caverns Canyon. More on that tomorrow.