Saturday April 8th 2017

Today I took a drive on old route 66. The iconic route connecting Chicago with Los Angles passes through this area. This is one of several areas across the country that celebrate the road and use its history as a tourist attraction.

Desert in bloom at the base of the Black Mountains

The section of road I drove is now called the Historic Route 66 National Back Country Byway. It is a section of old route 66 that goes from Kingman AZ to Needles CA over the Black Mountains. It actually was replaced as route 66 in 1953 by a less mountainous route around most of the Black Mountain range through Yucca AZ following the path that is Interstate 40 today. I can understand why. This is a real mountain goat path up and over the mountains. The road is barely two lanes wide. It rarely has guard rails, tight turn and extreme drop offs are the norm. The west bound route, which I was on, had the drop off side all the way through the mountains. I seemed to always meet on coming traffic at the worst possible locations. The sign said no trucks over 40 feet long. I think it should have been no trucks period. Maybe that would have discouraged the one rental Class C motorhome I had to contend with.

Historic Route 66 hugs the side of the mountains as it climbs to Sitgreaves pass.

I crossed over Sitgreaves Pass at 3556 feet and started down the west side. The scenery going up and the distant view coming down was very nice. Taking picture was out of the question. I had two hands on the wheel and there were no shoulders or pull offs. The trip down passes by an old gold mine that still has hopes of starting up again and the town of Oatman AZ.

Oatman was formed to support the gold mine. When the mine shutdown during World War II, the town still had the tourists traveling on route 66 to support it. The Oatman hotel is famous as the wedding night stop for Clark Gable and Carole Lombard in 1939. The town has been using that tidbit of trivia to support tourism ever since. When route 66 was redirected in 1953 the town suffered greatly. It’s resurgence as a pure tourist attraction is attributed to tours from the gambling centers of Laughlin and Las Vegas Nevada. My first exposure to the town was on a tour from Las Vegas.

Shootout in front of the Oatman Hotel.

To enhance the tourist attraction of the town a couple of times a day a mock shoot out by bank robbers is held on old route 66. I watched one of the shows today. It is over the top campy, but fun to watch at least once. The other tourist attractions are “wild” burros. They are the decedents of burros that worked the mines in the area. They are wild in the sense that they are not bred by humans, and are not kept in fenced in areas. They are free to go where they want and they do. They are well feed by tourists using purchased cubes of grain and I think by the town.

Burros stop traffic

I hope this woman doesn’t have anything in her pockets.

Time to try some other tourists.

I’m less than 3 feet away.

Today there were three burros in the center of town and a group of ten or more blocking the road to the south of town. The three in town walked down the center of the street, on the board walks and tried to enter the tourist shops. They come right up to people looking for food and no problem sticking there heads into bags and pockets looking for food. They even posed for selfies with trusting tourists.

After Oatman, old route 66 proceeded across the desert toward Needles CA. I turned more directly west toward the Colorado river town of Bullhead City. This a large community across the river from Laughlin NV just down river from the Davis Dam. Bullhead City has the businesses that support the area. Laughlin has the hotels and casinos. I returned home on route 68 a nice divided highway across the Black mountains into the Golden Valley area near Kingman. It was a long steady climb up and down. I didn’t have to negotiate any hairpin turns or 10 mile per hour blind turns on this route. It was 55mph to 75mph all the way.