We are in Barstow CA at Country Inn and Suites. To tired to post tonight. Jerr
Some have had problems posting to the blog, just send to my email address. Jerr
Today we awoke to a bright day.
Ate a regular breakfast, nothing out of the ordinary at Westside Lilo’s Café. Worth the stop as they had some good looking regional breakfast items. Just not up to them today.
As we head down the road the plains of the desert are light brown. We now noticed some light brown critters running around, one even ran in front of us but he knew I would not hit him – no points. We travelled down the line and saw a herd of antilope laying on the ground getting ready for the days grazing. Saw only one crow and one turkey vulture over the first 50 miles.
One of the nice things about doing the back road route 66 is that few people fast travel these roads. Most saunter down the lane, stop where they want to take a pix and drive on.
Today we stopped at the Hackberry General Store. As we pulled up a tour bus of Germans was loading up to take off. It had many old cars, rusty but scavenge able, and old signs and he had a 57 orange Vette in his driveway. Now that’s the second one. I was standing there and mentioned that it was a 57 and the guy next to me said he saw a similar one at Holbrook at the Wigwam Motel. I said, we met him in Albuquerque a couple days ago, his vette was turquoise, he said yes. Still a small world. Then a couple guys pulled up on some bikes (BMW) and as they talked about the vette I noticed a German accent. They were from around Cologne. Then as I was taking another picture of the place but waited for a guy to take his. I excused myself and the guy says I don’t speak much English. They were fro Wurzburg. We talked a bit with my broken German his broken English but we made the best of it. These meetings again strengthened the comments we have heard along the way. The Europeans know more and understand more about The Mother Road than most Americans. The roads I am talking about go straight for 30 miles or so, then take a soft turn and more straight line highway. Of course when you think of it the straighter the line the less miles. The problem comes when the hills get in the way and the way around is greater than up and over.
Stopped at the Route 66 Museum in Kingman AZ. It was a nice exhibit but after the other ones we have seen no need to stop at this one.
Jerry K. Cave Creek, mentioned that we should do the Oatman AZ for its scenic nature. Here was another great moment in my driving career.
The curvy up and down, no guard rails but nicely signed for speed. This was like a road course that one would dream about. Some areas there was no room on the right, it was just straight down hundreds of feet. I have learned through my lifetime that just driving sanely makes for a more interesting drive, and Shirleen thought the same. In my old days, it would have been a little more aggressive down and around those corners. Ah, the old days.
Now into Oatman AZ. Some of you may know what happens there. The burros hog the downtown road, only a block or three long. These
We found a parking spot at the soft edge of town. Got out looked across the street and what was there? Another 1957 orange corvette, what made this different was the plate said Minnesota. I dropped my travel card in is front seat and chuckled. The only other vette’s I have seen have been a couple C-6’s
Ate at the Oatman Hotel Restaurant and Saloon. We walked into the hotel side and into the restaurant side. Wow, dollar bills stapled all over the walls, ceiling and any other place you could. Waiter said 65,000 bills.
Most are one dollars, they give you a marker to do anything on the bill you want. Some had intricate designs, added color, names, country’s, messages and I saw a two dollar bill and a couple of foreign ones. One of the most unique was a bill with Japanese characters, well I don’t know if it was Japanese or some other oriental language. We ate lunch there, Shirleen a grilled cheese sandwich and a bottle of Miller light. I a California buffalo burger and a Bud, we split a order of burro ears – homemade potato chips with seasoning. We walked the street and were slightly bothered by the burros; we did not make eye contact nor carry bags of carrots around like some did. It was fun to watch the burro come toward someone with a bag in their hand and assault them for the carrot. Then we saw a mom burro and young-in fight back and forth over a soda cup that was dropped on the ground. It goes to show, these wild – now domestic – because of their being fed carrots, know what other items may carry. They walk freely down the street, even put there heads into open windows of the cars. They walk freely down the street and even lie down on the dusty street for rest. What a hoot.
Now we want to travel a little bit further down the road to find a place to sleep. Well it took a while. We took the long back road of route 66, called route 66 public art corridor, Amboy to Cadiz Summit, there are miles of abandoned rail bed.
It is about three feet high and some one came up with the idea of taking the multitude of stones and writing messages, names, phrases, and hearts on the banks of the roadbeds. As I said it goes on for many many miles.
We came to a town that had an old route 66 motel, pulled up and it said to go to the Budget Mart and register, it looked to us that no manager would be at the motel, so off we go but, not much to choose from here out. It looks like another hour to get to Barstow CA. Stayed the night there and ate at Quigley’s, Shirleen a cup of bean and ham soup, I eight fiery hot chicken wings. Later - Jerry
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