Kingman AZ
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| 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
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