Today we knew we’d be crossing the Mohave Desert once we left Kingman, AZ.  And what a day it was!  As we expected hot weather today, we decided to leave earlier than most of the other days.  So, we were up, had coffee & breakfast, packed the car and were on our way at 7:30 AM.

On the way out of Kingman, we took some time to photograph some of the buildings and signs.  Then we found our way to historic Route 66 known as Oatman Road west of Kingman.  Oatman Road continued west over the Black Mountains.  Along the way, the variety of cacti changed from the east side to the west side.  And the road, well, it was a Mini road!  We stopped on the way up the mountain at a local establishment called Cool Springs Cabins where we met and talked with the proprietor while we obtained a couple of Pepsi’s and a post card before continuing on our way.  We got some good advice and learned that the trip over to Oatman was 8 miles and included 122 curves/switchbacks over Sitgraves Pass.

Top speed–20 mph with some places marked 15 and a few at 10 mph.  A great ride!

Oatman, AZ is famous for its free roaming burros.  We saw 8 or 10 and photographed a few.  Otherwise, the town is mostly a tourist mecca.  Moving on to, the next place on our list was Needles, CA.  We photographed some saw tooth shaped mountains and the “Welcome to California” sign as we crossed the Colorado River.

There was a noticeable difference in the arid climate between Oatman and Needles–much drier and the vegetation changed again.  Different cacti!

In Needles, we took a few photos and took an alternative route through town on a second pass following the instructions from our maps.  If doing it again, I’d say these few blocks don’t add any value to the trip.  On the way out of town, we had some trouble finding the route and took CA-95 N heading toward Nevada.  We figured it out after 8 miles and turned around to get back on the route.  When we got back to the correct turnoff, it was marked going south, but there was no sign on the north bound side.

This put us in the direction of Chamblis and Amboy.  This was where Joyce had staked out a geocaching expedition in the Mohave Desert.  It’s a special kind of cache called geoart.  From the map, there were a lot of geocaches 0.1 mile apart that formed the US highway shield, two “6” figures and the letters RT at the top.  Just like the signs.  There was no thought of doing all of these, but we did about 24 in about 2-1/2 hours.  Walking around the Mohave Desert between 1:30 and 4:00 PM was a hot experience!  We had plenty of water, food in case we got lost, walking sticks and a GPSr.  We found all but one on the circular part of one “6” but didn’t want to continue  to finish the 6 because of time in the sun and heat.

Gary in the desert!

The Mohave Desert….

 

Oh, yeah, speaking of heat, here’s how the day went:

9:30 AM       90 degrees
11:30 AM  101 degrees
12:00 N      102 degrees
12:30 PM  104 degrees
12:40 PM  105 degrees
12:56 PM  107 degrees
01:00 PM 108 degrees
01:10 PM 106 degrees
04:45 PM 113 degrees
05:30 PM 107 degrees

We had 5-60 air conditioning until about 12:30 when we turned the A/C on for the rest of the day.

While walking around in the Mohave, we lost site of the car for most of the time.  It would be easy to get totally lost within about 0.25 miles.  On the way back after finding the last cache, I kept thinking what if we can’t find the car (failed to mark it’s location on the GPSr when we started out) or it went missing.  Fortunately, the first cache we found was within sight of the car.

I also found that I could “smell” the heat because the air was different and the arid climate changed the ability to smell.  It was probably 113 to 114 during our caching experience.  Saw a few lizards, a jackrabbit and very little else.  The vegetation was also limited.  We had a good time and drank all the water doing this.

After the cache, we had a cold beer in the car while the A/C ran to cool off the car.  Plus a few crackers for sustenance to get us to Roy’s Café in Amboy, CA.  We found a cache at Roy’s and had a Route 66 Rootbeer each before continuing on our way to Twentynine Palms, CA where planned to spend a couple of nights and see Joshua Tree National Park before returning to the historic Route 66 drive.

Arrived in Twentynine Palms about 5:30 and checked in to the Best Western, unloaded the car and sat back to soak up some cool while watching the news, Wheel and Jeopardy.  Maybe the pool will be next!

No pictures of the desert rats though!