At the end of the curvy road we were rewarded with the very charming town of Oatman. The town looks like it just finished filming an episode of Gunsmoke (minus the bikers in town that we caught up with). The whole town is only about a quarter mile long and has wooden raised sidewalks with covered awnings in front of the stores.
In Oatman the burros rule the road as they wander freely about town. Many of the stores sell carrots so you can feed them. The burros are very tame and will follow you around. We found one little one who followed us for a short while then decided to rest in the middle of the road. She laid down and I rubbed her belly.
Just on the other side of the Oatman mountain pass is the state line into California. I managed to get a picture of the Route 66 emblem painted on the highway. We've seen these in every state and are very helpful to let us know we are on the right road. Luckily there hasn't been much traffic and I can just walk out on the road and take a picture.
In the Mojave Desert just west of Fenner hundreds of travelers have stopped to write their name in rocks along a roadside berm. This went on for miles, many miles. We thought for a short time about adding our own names but our travel guide book says "be careful of heat stroke and snakes" so we changed our minds.
I had been waiting for weeks to unload a pair of shoes on the "shoe tree" near Amboy (also in the Mojave). We almost missed it because the tree has fallen over. I hopped out of the car and added my own contribution.
Just past the shoe tree is the old Roy's Motel and Cafe. The motel consisted of six little cabins no longer in use. One had an open door so we went in to look. There were two rooms plus a bathroom. Nice for it's time. It's all vacant and looks like a ghost town but the cafe is still "open". They don't serve food but you can still have a seat at the counter and look through old photo albums about it's history. 
We found more really unique art near the roadside in Helendale. The very cool Bottle Tree Ranch is the work of Elmer Long and consists of countless colorful bottles arranged on "trees". We found this totally fascinating and walked all through it. I must have taken two dozen pictures here.
Probably the funnest place to stay along the Route is in a Wig Wam Motel tee pee. One of only two left on Route 66 is this one in Rialto, California. This was our stop for the night. The tee pee is very comfortable inside and much larger than you'd expect. We're getting a kick out of this place!
You've seen so many things that we didn't see. I wish we had gone through the desert to Amboy, but as I said in my blog, I was afraid of the rough road and my old car and lack of cell phone service.
ReplyDeleteI have really enjoyed following along on your trip. Thanks for taking the effort to do a daily post.
We stopped to take pictures at the Wig Wam motel in Rialto, but pushed on to finish our trip that day.