Sunday 5th May Via Oatman to Vegas

Off on the final stretch of the old road in Arizona today and on to California

The migrants in the thirties drove along this part of the route thinking they were nearing California but as the progressed west they saw these hills looming and must have wondered how they would cross them, 

 

 But cross they did following a winding, cliff side hugging road, so steep in parts that they had to reverse up. I’ve always thought they did that because reverse gear is lower than first. That is part of it, but I now know from talking to the old guy in Kingman that it was also because most of those early vehicles had gravity fed fuel systems and if they went up too steep a hill the engine starved of fuel. Ok, boring!

However, when they got to the top, instead of seeing a green land of riches they simply saw more of the same desolate landscape.

 

These hills once held gold – perhaps still do if you are patient or lucky enough - but their mines have now been abandoned. When the miners moved out they set loose their burros which they neither needed nor could afford to keep. Descendants of those burros – I don’t know how long a burro generation is - now roam the area wild. These two went along with the “what the …” theme.

Nestled on the west side of the hills is Oatman. Bypassed by the Interstate in 1952 it is a gold mining town  which is trying, and succeeding, just, to survive by being a living museum of its past.

 

Then a long drive down from Oatman to Needles and across the Colorado to California.

At this point I doubled back along the Interstate to Kingman and up the 93 as I wanted to go to Las Vegas and see the Hoover Dam and Boulder City on the way.

The road to the dam was a beautiful sweeping road with views of the Colorado River of he the west and of course the Hoover Dam is on the river.

 

When I was last at the Hoover Dam you could drive across it but they were in the process of building a massive bridge across the gorge above the dam as a by-pass. This time that bridge was finished and in use and in fact all road traffic across the dam has been stopped. You can though still park up and walk across but the day had been too long for that.

 and Vegas called!