Goodbye Arizona, Hello California!

Our venture today took us from Williams Arizona on Old Route 66 to Barstow California. The terrain changed from mountains, to Rocky dry dusty landscapes, to desert and back to mountains. The temps fluctuated from a beautiful 71 in Williams to a hot 102, then back into the low 90's, then to the high 90's, and finishing in the 80's. It was a day of change! It was windy and dusty all day long, I asked a Biker outside of one of our stops if it was a tough ride today because of the wind, he said he was "Getting blown around like a turd in a bucket" That was a new one on me! All day long you would see small dust

tornados blowing across the landscape.
Our first stop was in a little town called Seligman, where we had lunch at the Snow cap Drive-in, an old time restaurant with great burgers and shakes, and a huge collection of artifacts of days gone by. Across the street was an old motel with some neat murals on the outside. There were 2 or 3 interesting restaurants in town including the Roadkill Café. We continued on through Peach Springs which was very close to a section of Grand Canyon where the Colorado river dips way to the South, but did not attempt the Indian road leading to it because it was only partially paved. We made a stop at the Hackberry General store, where the current owners are trying to restore it to original, it had all kinds of things for sale, a simulated 50's diner inside and a Corvette parked out front.
We made a quick stop in Kingman at the Powerhouse Route 66 Museum. From there we picked up the Oatman Highway, a pre 50's

highway that took us through Sitgreaves Pass, a National Historic Scenic Highway. A 40 mile trip on a two lane road that was the width of a single lane today. It was full of switchback curves, off level road, a short concrete "guardrail" on the sharp turns that looked like it was built by Fred and Barney! The speed limit was 45MPH and you really couldn't drive that speed, many of the switchback curves you needed to slow to 10 MPH.
The road ended at Oatman, an old Mining town, it's one street looked like a movie set for an old western movie. It hangs on to life today as a tourist town. Many Burro's wander the town looking for handouts from tourists, and leaving deposits in the streets. The Oatman Hotel was supposedly the Honeymoon spot for Clark Gable and Carol Lombard in 1939.
It was a long day on 66 so after we rejoined highway 40 after Oatman, we crossed the Colorado River and entered California. We stayed on 40 and in about 100 miles made it to Barstow for the evening. We are

only about 146 miles from the end of our journey on 66 "The Mother Road", and should finish this portion of our trip tomorrow.