No Thru Traffic

This is something that we forgot to mention that’s worth bringing up.

On our way from the Grand Canyon to Los Angeles we found ourselves in the vast expanse that are the deserts of Arizona. Our one solace was going to be this small stretch of scenic road that would supposedly lead us to a ghost town – a sight that has eluded us our entire trip. Well without us planning on it, we stumbled upon a stretch of historic Route 66. Our road trip was now complete.

After getting lost on our way and nearly crashing again on a terrible gravel road, we found ourselves on a stretch of backcountry road that was paved in the original asphalt from the Route’s heyday. It was terribly bumpy and narrow and awesome. When we stopped to grab a picture, a local Harley rider told us that this particular stretch of road was known as Blood Canyon or something like that because of how treacherous it was for the drivers back in the day. There are still rusty heaps of metal on the canyon floor where the crashed cars were never recovered.

It’s a very weird feeling to travel on the original road, asphalt and all, that once connected east to west. What a journey that must have been, back when the Route was just opened.

The ghost town turned out to be nothing but a couple of foundations so we blew right by them.

Just a few bends beyond we stumbled upon Oatman – a tourist-trap of a town in the middle of nowhere.

The big draw of Oatman is the wild Donkey’s that roam the streets nudging you with their snouts until you feed them. They left Ryan pretty much alone though, I think they could sense his vegetarianism and their was a silent mutual respect that resulted.

Oh, and they closed down the street for a gunfight.

Pretty cool stretch of road. Unbearably hot, but cool.