into Arizona

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August 7th 2008

Published: August 7th 2008

Well, things started smooth enough today. We left Henderson at a decent time (although later then I wanted) and got on Rt 93.

We crossed over the Hoover Dam, but first stopped at the overlook that looks out on Lake Mead. We were going to take the dam tour to see the inner workings of it, but it was $30/person, so we decided to skip it. Besides, there was quite a line ahead of us. So we took some pictures from the top, enjoyed the air conditioned restrooms, then headed into Arizona.

We took a side trip to drive through Chloride, which is a "living" ghost town (pop ~150 IIRC). Lots of old structures, trailers and vehicles. We saw no people though. It was, however, the first dirt road that I got to take DarkStar down. Nothing like some of the rally roads back home though. Anyway, we were set back by a tire that decided to develop a broken belt in Kingman. Actually, I think it started to become problematic a few days ago, when I noticed a vibration in the steering at highway speeds. But now the tire was starting to deform. Since we had nearly 4000 miles yet to go, much of which across desert highways, I decided to have the tire replaced at Shell station/tire shop that we came across.

We then headed off in the wrong direction - west - but did so on purpose. We drove out to Oatman, AZ, which is also considered a ghost town. Well, actually its a mining camp, having never been incorporated as a town. It got by for some time after the mines closed as a stop on the original alignment of US66, but by the '50s even Rt66 bypassed Oatman, taking a more round-about but fasted routing from Kingman to Needles. After driving the road into town, I can see why. There was about 15 miles of twisty, tortured, narrow, mountainous roads with nary a proper guardrail. The twins saw 5 or 6 easily spottable wrecks of old cars down over the cliff sides. It was clearly a dangerous road at a time when cars had skinny, bias-ply tires, leaf springs, drum brakes and no seat belts. We drove most of it between 15 and 20 mph to try to prevent car sickness. Even then it was close...

Anyway, we got into town just in time to see a genuine-simulated gunfight in the street. See, now days Oatman plays up its old-west heritage and has become a tourist attraction in and of itself. There a lot of shops along the main street selling all sorts of trinkets and stuff. There was a large group of bikers that had riden in, although none of them spoke English.

More pictures from town.

Then we left town, drove back out the twisty narrow road, and followed Arizona Historic 66 up to Saligman. Our last touristy stop was at the Hackberry General Store. A lot of neat old stuff there. The place was strewn with Rt66 memorabilia and carcasses of period cars and trucks.

We drove on to Williams, AZ, where we're spending tonight. We had dinner in Goldie's Rt66 Dinner but were generally a bit disappointed with the place. Service was friendly but very slow and the food was marginal. But we have to try it. In the morning, we're taking the Grand Canyon Railway up into the park and will camp there tomorrow night. So, don't look for a blog entry tomorrow, as we won't have internet access. I'll update it again after we get into Flagstaff the day after. Anyway, it's late and twins are already asleep, so they can't proofread my entry this time. I need to get to bed too, we've got a train to catch in the morning...

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