cowboys

With the Pacific Ocean calling to us from just over 400 miles away, we were tempted to hop on I-40, and make some time. Luckily, the owners of the Rusty Bolt, a biker/souvenir shop in Seligman convinced us to take the scenic route through Kingman and Oatman. It added an hour or so to our trip, but we all agreed, it turned a day of making tracks into a day of making memories. In fact, that one side trip, along a treacherous road that twisted through the desert, showed us unbelievable sites seen only before on Saturday Morning cartoons. Unfortunately, some of them were moving a bit too fast to be photographed. I posted what we had, but included some photos from other sites for illustration purposes. We saw: Road runners–Real live road runners, who on a few occasions scooted along the dusty trail beside us, just long enough to be seen before zipping off into the horizon (Our sympathies to Wile. E. Coyote. He will never catch up!); Old Mines (“Scooby Do, Where Are You?”); The Mystery Machine (Instead of Fred, Daphne and Velma, however, the passengers were what my children called “Real Live Hippies.” They kindly pointed out some wildlife to us, and moved on, before we could get a good picture. But not before giving us a heartfelt peace sign…really.); There they go! A Desert Big Horn Sheep, which our hippy friends pointed out to us as it jumped off a precipice, and crossed the road just 10 feet in front of us before disappearing over a hill; Artistically wrecked vehicles; Artistically abandoned buildings; Wild Burros In Heat; A wildly curved abandoned road, just perfect for a movie car chase; And finally Oatman, an old mining town with a population of less than 200 that specializes in old-timey, Old West charm. There are gunfight reenactments in the center of town and a herd of semi-wild burros that roam the streets begging for treats. We fed the friendly beasts, grabbed a few snow cones from a local shop, and hopped on the highway with our sites set on San Onofre State Beach. California or Bust.