Donkeys and Route 66

The wind was a bit less this morning, but still blowing, so we decided to jump in the truck and see what this area had to see.  Our first stop was the town of Oatman, AZ.

This was originally a mining town, but has been converted into a tourist destination. And the tourists (including ourselves) were out in force today!

Oatman is about 30 miles southeast of Bullhead City, and has been maintained in the state that it was in in the early 1900's when the mines began to play out and people left.  The stores are still made of weathered wood or adobe, and the "sidewalks" are made of wood.

When the miners left, they left some donkeys behind.  The "burros" have multiplied and now "live" in and around Oatman.  They wander main street begging for handouts, and of course there is no lack of food for sale in the stores.  You can see that Donna made a friend early in our visit!

One of our traveling rules is that we don't backtrack if at all possible, so since there is only one road through Oatman, we had to continue on through town and see where the road took us.  We had not noticed any signs along the road that we took into Oatman, but evidently the road follows the original Route 66.  As we left Oatman, and began to climb into the hills, we saw a number of signs that let us know what we were actually driving on:

The road is still original in places, and is being maintained as a memorial to the people who traveled the road in the depression years. The section of road from Oatman to Kingman (where we eventually ended up) is about 28 miles long.  It was really exciting to travel on the same road as our parents and grandparents.  As we crested Sitgreaves Summit at 3558 feet, I had to think about the tough drive it must have been for those people in their rattletrap cars. We noticed that Kingman has transformed its downtown/old town into a Route 66 memorial also, and has restored most of the old buildings that lined the road back in the day. What a nostalgia trip!

Of course, it was getting late in the afternoon by the time we made it to Kingman, so we cruised around old town looking for a place to eat.

Along with a fine meal, we noticed a display of Redneck tools.....the chainsaw is my favorite...

The ribs were delicious!

After eating, we found our way out of Kingman and headed back to Bullhead City through Golden Valley on a road that leads to Laughlin, NV.  Those of you familiar with this road will recall that it is a nice divided highway, straight for the most part, but with a 12 mile 7% downgrade at the end leading into Laughlin, with a stoplight at the end of the grade.  I'm sure glad that I wasn't pulling the trailer!

I leave you with a picture of the perfect 1930's service station.  We saw this about 15 miles south of Kingman.  It is still in operation, pumping gas and selling souvenirs.