The walls between the rooms are not at all sound-proof though and it the couple in the room next to us were, well, practising synchronised mating calls early the next morning!
We didn’t have too far to ride today, just over 100 miles to Lake Havasu, so Jackie and I had a leisurely start to our day, We headed for the Oatman Highway which would take us south to, err, Oatman.
I had been looking for a Route 66 sign painted on the road, but hadn’t found one. The road to Oatman is part of the old R66 and just south of Kingman, I found what I had been looking for....
Not far after that the 15,000th mile of the tour was reached and as usual, a photo looking forward at that point was taken....
As Jackie was here at the 15,000 mile point, we took a picture with both of us in....
The road to Oatman could have been a fantastic ride. The scenery was certainly excellent....
The weather wasn’t good though, but the sad part was the quality of the road surface. It wasn’t great, with many rough spots and a few thousand miles of road snakes, which meant instead of enjoying the sweeping curves, I had to keep a close eye on the road surface in front, and that never makes for an enjoyable ride.
Oatman itself made up for that though. It is just like stepping back in time, with old wooden buildings lining the main road through the tiny town....
Back when the town was a centre for mining locally, Burros were used to carry supplies. When the mining declined, many of the burros were released into the wild and they continued to breed and today number about 300. Some come to the town to be fed with carrots and Burro food sold by one or two of the shops in the town. Jackie loves donkeys ....
We ate in the Olive Oatman Restaurant and Saloon....
The weather had improved a little after lunch....
The road south out of Oatman was as spectacular as the part north of the town....
Did you see the movie The Day of the Triffids? This was about plants that had intelligence, could communicate with each other and had a whip-like sting that was capable of killing humans. We passed a hill covered in strange plants that reminded us both of Triffids....
As far as I can tell, Havasu is a new city famous for one thing – it has a water channel crossed by a bridge – London Bridge....
The bridge used to cross the River Thames in London, but was too narrow for the traffic that needed to cross it, so it was sold and dismantled stone by stone, moved to Lake Havasu and re-built in its former glory. It works quite well in its new setting....
Havasu was hot – maybe 85 – 90F degrees and no wind as we left early in the morning, but it didn’t stay that way for long. We stopped in Kingman at Mr D’s. A diner in cool old-fashioned style....
Jackie fell in love with the turquoise and pink interior and is talking of plans to decorate one room in our house in those colours. Hmmmn.
I had spoken with my friend Ian Solley from the UK earlier that morning and we were just about 100 mile apart, both riding across the US. Ian was riding to Oatman and I was hoping to bump into him in Kingman, as I guessed he might be travelling that way. It wasn't to be though. Ian is writing about his current trip on his blog.
Our route back to Flagstaff took us along route 66 in the opposite direction from two days previously, so we were able to replace the Route 66 stuff we lost on our outward journey. Somehow, we seemed to buy a lot more trinkets the second time around!
As we rode east, we could see some rain coming from the south. The wind was very strong and we leaned into it in order to ride in a straight line. We were playing dodge the rain with some degree of success, but the clouds became darker and darker....
We reached Peach Springs (not at all Peachy) and found a derelict gas station to shelter under....
The rain passed and we rode onto Seligman mainly in the dry where we stopped for a drink at the Snow Cap....
However, our skill at playing dodge the rain ended there and we had to endure the next 70 odd miles in heavy rain which was made to feel even worse as the road slowly climbed to nearly 7,000 feet above sea level in Flagstaff. We arrived cold, wet and hungry. Red Lobster soon cured the third of these!
At the hotel, something had arrived in the post for me. I will write a post about the post tomorrow!
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