Friday, April 15, 2011
KINGMAN, AZ – What a difference a couple hundred miles can make – in Arizona, anyway. This morning we could almost see our breath and clumps of snow were still melting in the woods, and tonight we’ve opened all the windows, the ceiling fan is running and Val is in bare feet and shorts!
We’ve gone from an elevation of 7,600 feet to around 3,000 feet. We could really see that on the highway as we traveled west from Williams to Kingman. We went down a lot of hills! We also left a region with tall pines and grassy hills, and entered into a desert zone again, with prickly-pear cacti, agave plants and the tall thorny sticks known as ocotillo, which are covered now in tiny green leaves and a bright red blossoming plume at the top of each stick.
As we drove, the temperature rose from 47 after breakfast to 90 just before we came in for supper. We were forewarned, so I put my winter jacket back in the closet, for the time being anyway. I know I will be digging it out again before long!
Our drive from one KOA to the next was short; we got here in time for lunch. But once we were all set up and had eaten, we set out again to visit the ghost town of Oatman. We had heard about it from a couple we met on our train ride in the Verde Valley. They said there were wild burros that live there and wander free in the town. The animals are descendants of the burros that carried ore out of the mines in the area. When the mines closed, they were left to run free.
On the map, Oatman looks fairly close to Kingman, but the topography was a different story. We headed toward the Black Mountains west of Kingman, and ended up driving right into them on the historic Route 66, a two-lane, twisting highway with hairpin turns, no shoulders and sheer cliffs off the passenger side on several occasions. I waited till we were past them to tell Val I had seen several car wrecks rusting at the bottom of the drop-offs.
Rugged hills and mountains surrounded us as we continued on our way, and on the roadsides were spring wildflowers in colourful clumps. The land was very dry and scattered with agave plants, spiny chollas and sagebrush.
Just as we turned one bend, we caught sight of a lovely grey donkey grazing by the roadside, all by himself. It made the final eight miles of twists and turns a bit easier to take, knowing there would be more sightings to come.
Finally we rolled into town – little more than a single street, flanked with old-west style store-fronts of weathered wood with equine names like Jackass Junction and The Classy Ass. We found a place to park and headed over to the main street where, sure enough, several burros were standing, surrounded by tourists.
There were three or four babies with stickers on their foreheads that read “please don’t feed me”, since they are still surviving on their mothers’ milk and don’t really need chocolate bars or potato chips to supplement that diet yet. To be fair, there were vendors selling brown paper bags with donkey fodder for people to dole out. As soon as the donkeys heard the rustling of a paper bag, they swarmed the person holding them like bees to honey!
There were signs indicating a staged cowboy shootout would take place at two o’clock, so we enjoyed an ice cream cone and a browse through the town and then left before the guns blazed. Val actually spotted a fellow strolling along in blue jeans and a stetson, and hanging from his belt was a holster and gun. And he wasn’t part of the show!
We continued along Route 66 rather than retracing our journey of switchbacks and sheer cliffs. It brought us to the town of Golden Springs, and after miles of desert scenery, we were amazed to see a bright blue-green body of water – the Colorado River, fresh out of the western end of the Grand Canyon and flowing along the Arizona-Nevada border. It was a day of contrasts, for sure.
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