This morning saw us head off into the desert on our way to Kingman, Arizona. The landscape is pretty desolate! We saw a huge wind farm across a mountain ridge in Tahachapi, I’ve never seen one this big before. It was so big, I couldn’t get a photo that took it all in. We also saw our first cactus around here - that was a big moment (we high fived). Not much further along was an aeroplane graveyard and of course, a boat repair place for all the boats in the desert. There are a ton of those shiny silver ‘Silver Stream’ caravans on the road. We saw one once at GOMA in a ‘California Dreaming’ exhibition. I thought they were long gone, but they are here, beautiful to look at, with happy owners behind the wheel.
I drove again. I feel I should mention this every time as it’s a complete feat of magic on my part. I drove for ages actually. I even overtook lots of trucks. Look out!
We stopped at a little cafe in Ludlow, on the old Route 66 - you have to do that, don’t you? The town, hmm, ok, the cafe and the few empty old garage and mechanic buildings seem very lonely. There isn’t really anything out here, including trees. It has it’s own beauty though. The cafe is one of the originals, and even has the chairs where you can sit at the counter, as well as booths. We took a booth and ordered cherry pie (feeling very touristy). Mark had a coffee, but after a couple of sips, it was passed into the hall of bad coffee fame. The cherry pie was nice though, as was the waitress. Outside the cafe, I took a few photos and an old guy in a pickup drove past and yelled out his window that the “whole town is for sale”. Made me laugh.
Back on the highway again (as I type this) heading for ‘Needles’ which is a town with a very cool name, obviously. Old Route 66 runs parallel to this highway and there’s a train track as well. We just saw two of the longest trains ever - each had at least 30 containers after it. Other than that, it’s just big hills, little shrubs, and a dead straight road. It’s still bloody exciting though! I meant to say a couple of days ago, we’ve seen raccoons. here roadkill, but we’ve seen them. It”s a little like the badgers in the UK - you kind of almost get excited about seeing them but it’s all sad at the same time.
We’ve just left the Wagon Wheel restaurant in Needles, CA. It’s a kitschy little diner, taking advantage of the ‘old route 66’ thing. But, we’ve had the best sandwich of the trip so far. It was a pot roast sandwich with horseradish that had the biggest horse kick I’ve ever had. The meat was melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness and it came with a really nice coleslaw on the side (as well as a Bud light for Mark). There was all sorts of memorabilia on the walls, including a photo of Steve and Bindi Irwin. The tag on the bottom was “visit from Bindi Irwin, 1998”. I asked if Bindi was more popular than Steve, and was told it was just because she visited after he had died, but that “Bye-n-dye” was very popular here indeed. I can’t say I’ve ever heard it pronounced like that! There’s a first time for everything.
Mark had read about a little ghost town on old Route 66 named Oatman and so we decided to go and have a look. I got really excited when I saw a sign that said ‘donkeys’ for the next four miles. I really hoped we’d see one. We came around a curve and there it was, a donkey, on the side of the road. It was a very exciting moment. A couple of curves more and we were in the Main Street of Oatman - and it was FULL of donkeys. This is no longer a ghost town. They've worked out there would be a great tourism opportunity by reworking the shops and saloons and letting the donkeys wander through town, being fed by the tourists. It was a very cool little place and it’s something I’d recommend. We wandered down the Main Street, but like so many, we were more fascinated with the donkeys than the shops. Coming back to the car, there was a pregnant donkey in the middle of the road, who just didn’t want to move. People were trying to coax her with food and all sorts of things. She eventually moved on of her own accord.
Back onto Route 66 and seriously, with Oatman included, this is the absolute best part of Route 66. Windy roads took us around the canyons with the most magnificent views of the mesas. The road was not only windy, but smoothly bumpy (?) as in the dips and curves were a little like a roller coaster and great fun. We came around a corner and there was an all white donkey just standing on the side of the road (the side looking out over the valley) looking very majestic. Sadly though, I don’t have a photo that I can show you as I had my video camera out at the time instead. You’ll have to wait a bit on that one!
We made it into Kingman. I think most of these towns are the stop over/sleep over place for people touring the route. We went down the road for dinner, something Mark found that had great reviews. I don’t know who did those reviews but they all had bloody bad taste. As with anything that isn’t a rather formal restaurant in America, it was all burgers, fried and wings. We settled for wings this time, thinking it was something a little different. I don’t understand the American obsession with smothering everything in tomato or BBQ sauce (sorry guys). The wings were smothered, they were pretty awful. Then, the rather old, rather balding, paunchy, sleazy manager felt up one of the young waitresses. Ugh. Don’t go there. At that point, I felt pretty happy with the political correctness eating up Australia.
Back to the motel, getting ready for a drive into Flagstaff tomorrow, which hopefully would include a side trip into Winslow!
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