Another lazy start to the day with a 9am breakfast after a great nights sleep! This motel has been especially comfortable!
Set off following Route 66 through the desert and up through some mountains, passing numerous old mines and then at Goldroad we saw a modern operating mine smack back in the middle of nowhere! How the hell the early settlers got themselves through this arid country and then over a 1,500 metre range is beyond me - man, they must have been tough!
Further on the winding road we came to the little settlement of Oatman - and boy, it was an eye opener! Tiny little place looking exactly as it probably did a hundred years ago, with ramshackle old shops and a pub or three, but the biggest shock was the wild burros (mules) that wandered the streets and footpaths and even got in the shops!!!! There was burro poop everywhere and the place stank to high heaven - but there were tourists galore - feeding the burros and shopping curios! Never seen anything like it - and really don't want to either!
Then it was on to the town of Needles on the Colorado River - the beautiful blue waters of this mighty river making a welcome relief to the cactus, rocks and dust we driven through all morning!
Being a Saturday, the locals were out in force with dozens of boats and jet skis belting up and down the river! Some of the ski boats were ultra big and powerful - as you would expect - and there was a marina and boat pens in a little man made lagoon!
The temperature outside had reached 41 degrees, so it was a very quick photo stop and then back into the Dodge in the air-con!
We decided to give the next section of the route a miss and hit I40W instead and made into Barstow by mid afternoon - booking straight into motel well away from the huge rail yards in the town. Barstow is a rail hub and we had seen all sorts of trains along the way - mostly carrying double decked containers and also road trailers! One particular ore train had 4 engines at the front, 3 in the middle and 2 at the rear! It was unbelievably long!!!!
We had also passed a huge solar power station which apparently has just opened and has the capacity to power 88,000 homes!
Back in Barstow we braved the century heat after checking in and drove to some factory outlet stores nearby, but found many shops in the big complex were empty. There were still quite a few open and we browsed in the cool for a time before returning to the sanctuary of our rooms!
Tomorrow we thankfully head out of this heat and this desert region, towards the coast and San Diego! I have always known that the USA had some vast areas of unproductive country, but now I know just how much there is - I don't reckon even rattlesnakes would live in some of the bits we passed through today! As much as it was very boring, it has been a lesson in US geography!