Driving toward Las Vegas from the south, we could see something that one doesn’t often associate with Las Vegas.
This is snow-covered Mt. Charleston just outside of Las Vegas. It makes for a nice contrast from the barren desert.
We crossed the new bridge that was recently opened to bypass Hoover Dam.
The bridge is 890 feet above the Colorado River and is the highest and longest (2,000 feet long) arched concrete bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It is the second highest bridge in the USA.
There is an elaborate access to a walkway that is the full length of the bridge on the dam-side of the structure so we could get a good look at Hoover Dam. We walked about half-way out and took pictures.
This is Hoover Dam from the bridge walkway.
There is also several display boards of how the bridge was built.
The bridge has been named the Mike McCallahan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. Mike McCallahan was a govenor of Nevada and Pat Tillman, an American soldier was killed in the Iraqi war.
After walking out on the bridge, we went a little further on and we were able to see Lake Meade from a nearby view point.
Then we drove down to nearby Willow Beach.
Willow Beach is one of the places that Don used to go with his Dad to fish back some 27 years ago. He has been telling me stories from those trips for years so he wanted to stop by and reminisce.
We planned to have lunch in the old restaurant that he used to go to down there. Time to relive the good ‘ol days.
Well, the Colorado River was still there…
…but the old restaurant and that housed so many memories had been torn down and in it’s place, a huge blacktopped parking lot and a large brick building that still smelled new. They told us there would be a restaurant there in a month or so.
Don was rather depressed at the loss. We went back to the motorhome and had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. It was not quite the same…
That night we had a great time at dinner with our good friend, Mason Safa. Mason used to work for Don at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles. Mason has lived here in Las Vegas for several years now. He also works for the company that did the engineering on the Hoover Dam bridge.
He has recently bought a beautiful new house that he showed us. He is doing a lot of upgrading work on it in his spare time. It was really great to see him and spend a little time with him.
Our seven-year-old grandson, CJ, is totally into NASCAR racing and there was a big race in Las Vegas the weekend we were there. Someone told us that there would be practice races on Friday and going in to watch would be free.
Well, we are not NASCAR people, but for the opportunity to get some pictures for CJ, and since the price was right, we went. It was rather impressive…and LOUD!!
We were also allowed into the infield, which made taking pictures more interesting.
It’s really hard to photograph cars going by at a couple hundred miles per hour, but I managed to catch a few of them.
You will have to ask CJ who drives these cars, (he can tell from the colors) because I have no clue. He will also give you more info on these cars and drivers than you ever wanted to know.
The Las Vegas Speedway is directly across the street from Nellis Air Force Base.
In the middle of all the cars and noise, a Stealth jet plane took off and zoomed overhead. The Stealth is even harder to photograph than race cars!
We also saw my brother, Larry and his wife, Sandra who live in Las Vegas. It was a short visit as Larry is quite ill at this point. It has been good to be able see both my brothers on this trip.
Next we are heading up to Zion and Bryce National Parks for a few days.
The next place for us to visit is Oatman, another “living ghost town” about 25 miles from Kingman. This one was more fun than Chloride.
It is also on the old Historic Route 66.
The road to Oatman starts out on the desert and quickly the scenery becomes impressive. There are a couple of old (very old) points of interest along the way.
Cool Springs, which sits between the edge of the highway blacktop and the lip of a cliff, now consists of only one building where you can buy a Coke and off to the side, an outhouse. (Forgive me for not photographing that!)
Then there was Ed’s Camp. I don’t know what to say about that place. It pretty much defies description, except to say, there was actually somebody living there. I have no idea why!
Route 66, if you will remember, was the main road across the country. It was an incredible piece of highway, very narrow, extremely twisty, and there were no guard rails anywhere along the route…
…no matter how high the road or how deep the canyon…
We found a turn off at one point that wound up being a very unusual stop.
This place was high on a cliff off a hairpin curve in the road. It was not visible from the highway. I walked a short distance to the edge of the cliff intending to take a picture of the valley. When I glanced down the steep hillside slope, I found what at first I thought was a cemetery.
However, apparently the numerous crosses that are here are memorials. It is sort of a strange place as it is pretty inaccessible, but it does overlook the valley and is just a couple miles from Oatman.
It is hard to tell from these pictures, but this is a very steep downhill grade. I wouldn’t walk down to where the crosses were. Don checked out a few of them as he is more sure footed than I am.
Next, we passed Goldroad Gold Mine. This is an old mine that has been there many, many years and produced a lot of gold in the past.
However, in recent years, when the price of gold dropped, it was closed. Needless to say, at the current gold price, it is once again actively producing gold. (Sadly, no tours or free samples were available.)
Oatman greeted us somewhat as one might expect…old buildings, dirt street…
…and a note of caution about folks packing heat, just in case you were wondering…
Stores and shops in town were authentic and original with just enough updating to keep them from falling down.
Sidewalks were either boardwalks or uneven broken rock. This spot involved “sucking it in” to avoid getting stuck by cactus thorns that overhung the walkway.
The Oatman Hotel is actually a rather famous place.
It seems that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their honeymoon in this hotel and would return periodically for romantic get-aways.
Clark Gable would also play cards with the miners. The actual Honeymoon Suite was currently under renovation, so we did not get to see it.
The bar in the hotel is completely covered with one-dollar bills. There is literally thousands of dollars stuck to the walls.
Most are autographed or have notes handwritten on them. The bills are all still very spendable. I don’t think any excuse to touch them would be acceptable...remember, they carry guns here, so I guess the cash is safe.
One of the biggest attractions in Oatman arrives on four legs and pretty much takes over the town…
…Burros…lots of burros! They OWN Oatman! Just ask them! OK, they won’t answer, but if you watch them, you pretty much get your answer…
They totally ignore traffic…
… have no respect for the high-noon gun fights in the middle of the street…
…they don't bat an eye at the very loud gun shots…
…and they never miss the opportunity to shake down tourists for a snack.
There were two babies among the burros that visited town that day, one white one and one grey one. Babies are fuzzy little guys, especially on their foreheads.
The little grey baby got either tired, or bored and decided to take a nap by just laying down on the sidewalk. Mom stood close by and kept an eye on him as people walked around him. A store-keeper told me that this is a common sight.
The burros come into Oatman every day. Watching them was a lot of fun.
When we got back to Kingman, we went to a Route 66 Museum. Another museum close by had a great mural on the building (a little different than the murals at Chloride!)
In the Route 66 Museum was a display associated with the Ernest Hemingway book, Grapes of Wrath, because many of those who traveled the highway back then were part of that movement of desperation.
These pictures showed what the movement looked like at that point in time. It was rather disturbing, actually to get a hint of what these people went through…
On a lighter note, a display of old Burma Shave signs and rhyming sayings brought back fun memories.
This old Studebaker also brought back memories…note the window air conditioner.
If I remember correctly, and that means going back a long, long time, it was called a “Vornado.” And if that’s not right, it is probably because I was just too young to remember it correctly.
I certainly hope you are buying off on my excuse…it was the best I could come up with.
Our next stop included spending a few days in Kingman, Arizona and from there, visiting a couple ghost towns.
The first one is Chloride, a “living ghost town,” meaning that there are still people living there in spite of most of the town being long gone. It was originally a silver mining town which, of course, no longer goes on there.
There is a reconstructed “Old West Town” that is open on weekends with a few shops and the compulsory “shoot-out” at high noon.
A couple shops/galleries were open when we were there, but not much else.
The old-time filling station was no longer open, but certainly looked authentic. I know this shows my age but I can remember stations that looked exactly like this when I was growing up.
As we drove around town, we saw a sign painted in a rock saying, “Murals” so we decided to follow the road and see what was there.
We were not prepared for how BAD the road was. It was a single lane dirt/mud road with large rocks and ruts in it heading out into the mountains. Fortunately, my Honda CRV is 4-wheel drive and could handle it at a very slow and careful pace.
There was snow on the high side of the road and the contrast of snow on cactus was an interesting sight.
The road was so bad it took us about half an hour to go just one mile.
Periodically there were arrows painted on rocks indicating that we were still headed in the right direction. If not for that, we may have given up thinking no one would seriously want folks to keep heading into the wilderness like this.
Finally we find the “murals.” The main one says, “The Journey, Images from an inward search for self.”
There were also lots of ‘Hippie-esq’ pictures that pretty much defy description. In short, we figured the guy who painted these was dipping into various (probably illegal) substances to find inspiration for his art work...or to quote Don, "I think he was smokin' HOOKA!!"
We wandered around up there just a bit, not wanting the trip out insane excuse for a road to be a total waste of time… We were sort of laughing to ourselves that we had risked getting stuck in the mud or breaking an axle out in the middle of nowhere for THIS!
When I had looked up Chloride on the web previously, I had seen something about petroglyphs in the area.
As we stood there shaking our heads at the...a...“artwork” in front of us, we wondered where the petroglyphs might be. We wanted to see something of more value than these murals.
As we stood there taking in the valley views…
…I noticed some rocks just opposite of the “murals.”
Amazingly, we had found the petroglyphs only about 50 feet away.
It was rather ironic, art work by an ancient people, the meaning of which we don’t understand, directly opposite the rather psychedelic-type of work by a more “modern” person that we don’t understand either.
I now end my rather short career as an Art Critic.
