2026 Western Route 66 - Day 6

 Grand Canyon Caverns

After a great breakfast at the Calico Cafe, we loaded and headed out for the day. I decided to take a small detour through the historic downtown section of Kingman. Here classic autos were lining up with their owners nearby. Perhaps a rally, or just the morning meet-up over coffee.

I spotted the Mohave County Courthouse up the hill and wheeled up to check it out. 

It seems like most buildings in Kingman with a blank wall have a mural. Here seals of Kingman, Arizona, Hualapai Tribe, and Mohave County are all represented.

The El Trovatore Motel was a classic 1939 vintage motel that just barely survived the road widening, but as more modern properties came on the scene in the 50’s it devolved into low-rent weekly usage before being completely abandoned. Renovation started in 2011 and in the spring of 2012, the renovated neon sign tower lit the Kingman skyline after nearly a half century of darkness.

Land office turned Souvenir Store and Radiator Springs police cruiser in Antares Arizona.

Again today much of the Route 66 followed the old Santa Fe rail line. This bridge was just outside the next stop in Hackberry.

The restored Hackberry General Store and gas station was a favored stop on Route 66 and dates back to the mid 1930’s. Today it’s full of Route 66 memorabilia and souvenirs. There are many old vehicles on the grounds and it was an interesting stop. A tour bus pulled in while we were there. It was full of tourists from Michigan. They were on an 19 day trip from Chicago to LA and back! A couple of older guys (at least older than me) wandered over to the PacTour trailers to find out about our ride. They both were bike riders ‘back in the day.’ They said that they stopped at half of the attractions on the way west and would cover the rest on the return east.

Another failed business on Route 66. Was Bert’s Country Dancing studio a victim of the Interstate by-pass or does everyone around these parts already know how to country dance? You decide!

We had a fair amount of climbing on today’s route, but mostly it was gentle uphill grades on quite roads.

This is the Valentine Indian School. It was founded in 1901 as a boarding school for area Indian children. Valentine was a very small town, but today there are very few residents and all the businesses are closed. The only operation is The Bureau of Indian Affairs agency office nearby. 

This photo was taken from the current Route 66 alignment. On the other side of the tracks we could see the roadbed of the original 1926 alignment. Part of the fun of this Route 66 ride is finding and possibly riding on one of these old sections,

Here you can see the road bed passing by the Croizer Canyon Ranch. The ranch dates back to the 1870’s and has the distinction of being the oldest continuously operated ranch in Arizona. Traffic on the National Old Trails Highway and the original Route 66 flowed right through the ranch yard. 

Continuing along the highway I spotted an old bridge and a gravel road connected to the current highway. So I slipped past a No Trespassing sign and back tracked to the bridge.

There was no date on the bridge that I could find but it looked like 1950’s vintage construction.

Back outside the gate, I rejoined the main highway. Across the road you could see the alignment continuing on the Crozier Ranch, that side of the road also said ‘No Trespassing’ but that driving through was allowed. I couldn’t tell where that road headed so I continued on the current Route 66.

The Frontier Motel sits in Truxton AZ. Our guidebook describes the town as one on the newest ghost towns on Route 66 with origins in the 1950s.

Van stop in Peach Springs on the Hualapai Indian Reservation. This was the turn-around point for a 300km Brevet I rode years ago. It was nice to take a short break in the shade. My criminal trespass at Croizer ranch put me in the back of the pack, so I made it a quick stop.

There were several climbs out of peach springs and I started to see the old road bed off to the right.

The cue sheet indicated old Route 66 was just south of the highway and ran for 2 miles. I found a gate that was unlocked and jumped on the old road.

The old road moved away from the highway, but my GPS indicated they would rejoin so I continued on,.

On the flat portions there was relatively new packed gravel, but on the uphill sections the gravel washed away and original Tar-Mac was exposed.

After two miles the road came together but there was no gate, but the barb-wire fence had collapsed behind a roadside pull out so I hopped over and rejoined the current alignment. Continuing on the highway I could see the old route and this bridge.

Here the old route crossed the newer Route 66 and there was a gate to get through. I probably could have continued for a total of four miles, but from this angle there is a lot more grass in the road, so I think it was good to cover just the first two miles.

Just beyond the gate, there was a culvert on the original alignment, I looked for a date or highway department stamp but couldn’t find one.

We continued to the Grand Canyon Caverns for lunch and a quick tour. It actually took longer for the food to come out at the restaurant, than the tour lasted. It was great to check it out, and I’m glad it was on the agenda, a nice roadside attraction, but certainly not a destination cavern. Today it is owned and operated by the Hualapai Tribe, although it is not on tribal land.

After lunch it was a quick 1 mile ride back to the Grand Canyon Caverns Motel. Brant, Lou, and I decided to take the ‘Motel Trail’ back instead of the road. A bit of tricky single track and two unlocked gates put us back at the motel to start the end of the day routine.

We returned (via van) back to the Restaurant for dinner. We clocked the wait from order to food delivery at 55 minutes. A full 5 minutes faster than lunch! I had a great chicken salad and a cold beer, so who’s complaining?

The Grand Canyon Caverns Motel, my room is the very last one on the end, almost at the Kingman City Limits! Not everyone made the trip for dinner, I am glad I did. Rich took this great photo while we were waiting for our dinner.

More fence hopping and heavy cross-winds are predicted for tomorrow’s run to Williams. 6:30am breakfast and 7:45am load and go!

Debby will be joining me Williams for Mass St. Joseph’s church and dinner with Fr. Ramirez.  The next update may be delayed!

Steve

Click here for GPS data

Click here for the 1 mile trail ride back to the motel

2026 Western Route 66 - Day 5

 Kingman AZ

Oatman burros!

After a great breakfast at the Wagon Wheel Cafe, we rolled out of the hotel 8am and within a couple of miles we crossed the Colorado River and entered Arizona. The actual Route 66 is now under I-40 and makes a loop further south. Instead of riding I-40 or frontage roads, Lon selected a more direct route toward the days first objective of Oatman AZ.

We rolled north for 6 miles through farms fed by the Colorado river along the Mohave Valley Highway. It is a busy 4 lane highway and most motorists gave us plenty of space. This photo is after we turn east toward Oatman on Boundary Cone Road. After several days of favorable winds, we had huge head and cross winds today. Combine that with 4500 feet of climbing and that’s not nothin’!

We rejoined Historic Route 66 on Oatman road for the 6 mile climb to Oatman. 

Yours truly pulling into the van stop at the Route 66 junction and a chance to refill bottles and reload the pocket food. 

The road twists and turns and through mountains in the Mount Nutt and Warm Springs Wilderness areas. 

Oatman was founded in 1906 and by 1931 the area’s mines had produced over 1.8 million ounces of gold. But the gold played out in the mid-30’s and the boom was over in 1942. The last remaining mines closed during the war. The town is famous for its wild burro population. The animals were used for hauling in and around the mines. As the mines closed and people moved away they simply released the burros into the surrounding hills. The ones that roam the town now are descendants of those burros, and of course you can buy burro food from most of the vendors in town.

The Main Street only allows moto parking and the place was packed with them. As I rolled through it was quite busy, and I keep rolling to the Post Office at the far end of town.

I stopped here and rolled back to take a photo of an information panel that had a short history of Oatman.

Meet Audrey and Lori! They just opened a small souvenir shop next to the info panel. The shop is in the green shipping container just behind them. They opened the store this year just after Easter and like being at the quiet end of town. Audrey creates baskets from old lasso ropes and Lori’s shop has many items with graphic designs. 

The headline photo of this blog entry is a tile that Lori created and ‘finished with AI’ to enhance the image. I bought a tile and wished them well and headed up and out of town. 

The Burro on the right was crossing the road in front of me so I stopped to let it by. It plopped down by the one on the left in front of this gift shop and gas station. With no work and plenty of tourist feedings its no wonder these two look so plump.

Rolling out of town there is still three miles of steep climbing to reach Sitgreaves Pass, look out for burros!

At the base of the climb I noticed some mine conveyer systems and figured it was abandoned mine works. But as I got closer, you could see the mine was operating. There was a guard booth at the gate and I rolled up and asked the guard what they were mining. She says look at the name of the mine, gold of course. She told me that she has worked here for 6 years, but the mine was shut down when she started and only reopened in July of last year. She said her job is much more interesting when it is operating.

Continuing up the pass there are a number of abandoned mine shafts. This one was blocked by an iron gate but was nice place to take a photo break before the final push to the pass.

There was an impromptu van stop at the pass and I topped off my water bottles and prepared for the descent .

The locals call this stretch of road the sidewinder; lots of switchbacks, steep grades, and lots of fun. Just watch out for gravel washed onto the road from our wet winter.

From here it’s about 15 miles of 1-2% climbing to reach Kingman. Crosswinds were still strong so it felt like slow going.

Brant was stopped at this rock shop talking to Agiz the owner. He was very interesting and his partner offered us water bottles. He had some great dogs that he had rescued and interesting stories about the rock business.

This old Suburban sits in front of Dans Auto Salvage just outside of Kingman. A friend of mine is currently restoring one by taking the old body and mounting it on a Tahoe frame and drivetrain. He calls the project the TA/Burban, so I shot this photo to Andy to let him know another project awaits him!

Interesting rock formation entering Kingman. I rolled into town and joined others from the group at Mr. D’s diner for lunch while we waited for our rooms keys to be assigned. 

We received an update on our WhatsApp group chat that the rooms were ready so we paid the bill and headed to the hotel. I stopped at this park featuring this old steam engine. It was part of the Santa Fe Railway. This engine was built in 1927 as a coal burner. It was converted to oil fuel in 1941. It served the passenger run from LA to Kansas City for many years making 10 round trips monthly. East bound it averaged 54 mph and westbound 60 mph. Kingman was a water stop. It made its last run in 1953 when diesel power replaced steam on the Santa Fe Line. When it retired it had covered 2.5 million miles! It was donated to the City of Kingman in 1957.

Tomorrow we have 64 miles to Grand Canyon Caverns. Load and depart at 8:15am, don’t forget to bring walking shoes to throw in the shoe bag for the walking tour of the caverns!

Steve

Click here for GPS data