Sept 21/08 - Ghost Town... Gambling Town

Sunday, Sept 21st/08

After breakfast we double up on ‘Paladin’ and head out to the airport to pick up a rental car from Hertz. If we had any other options on a Sunday here in Kingman, Arizona we would have used them. They want an extra $11.00 per day to add Rod as an extra driver. I have rented from many other car agencies and never seen that. It would make sense if it was un underage driver or with limited experience but policy is policy after all… Oh well... (ha ha) I guess I’ll just have to drive. We take delivery of a white Ford Fusion but hopes of Syrius radio are soon dashed. It is in bad need of a wheel balance or some kind of adjustment as driving over 60 MPH it develops a bad shake. It is however, the only car he has so we just keep going. It has California plates so people expect US to do the crazy things we do. It feels almost awkward to be driving a car again after a month on the bike. We take the Historic Route 66 from Kingman to Oatman which is a very narrow, rough, two lane road with tortuous twists and turns. The scenery once again is remarkable and Rod is enjoying taking photo after photo without having to think about riding his bike as well.

Oatman is a mining town in the Black Mountains of Mohave County at an elevation of 2700ft. It began as a tent camp soon after two prospectors struck a $10 million gold find in 1915, though the area had been already settled for a number of years. Oatman's population grew to more than 3,500 in the course of a year which led to long waits at the restaurants. After a few other names, Oatman was named in the posthumous honour of Olive Oatman, a young Illinois girl who was kidnapped by the Apache Indians and forced to work as a slave. She was rescued in 1857 near the current site of the town bearing not only the psychological marks of her ordeal, but physical marks as well. Traded to the Mohave tribe who adopted her as a daughter, Olive had her face tattooed to identify her as an honorary Apache and photographs of her clearly show the markings.

Today, Oatman is quite the tourist attraction as a live ghost town. Wild burros freely roam the town and can be hand-fed carrots readily available in practically every store in town. The burros are descended from pack animals turned loose by early prospectors, and are protected.

Each weekend a number of enterprising young Shriners donate their time to stage gunfights in the street to raise money for crippled children. It is very well done and they obviously have a lot of fun with it. One of the ‘cowboys’ stands in the middle of the street ‘cracking the whip’ an authentic cat ‘o nine tails that would really pack a wallop. As the ‘hold-up’ begins, one tries to get money by bullying and threatening the ATM machine and is quite ‘perplexed’ as he saw someone else get money from it. After the successful ‘hold-up’ of the bank one of the Oatman Boys ‘kidnaps’ me to take me as hostage to Mexico. It makes for many laughs. Some of the onlookers are as interesting as the show itself. We do a bit of shopping among the myriad of tourist spots then head out for Laughlin, Nevada.

Laughlin is a port located on the Colorado River 94 miles south of Las Vegas. Laughlin is the third most visited casino and resort after Las Vegas and Reno and is one of the top 5 destinations for RV enthusiasts. Laughlin is advertised as a more family-friendly venue than its contemporaries, and as such has a greater emphasis on outdoor and family activities as opposed to the greater glitz and adult entertainment found in Las Vegas or Reno.

We have a great lunch overlooking the river at the Colorado Belle then make the return trip to Kingman via Route 68 and enjoy the scenery in Union Pass and Golden Valley. The temperature hovers right around the 100F mark amid cloudless skies so blue it almost hurts to look at them directly.

We went shopping for dinner supplies at ‘Basha’s’ and come home with hot chicken pieces, broccoli salad a nice bottle of wine and strawberry shortcake for dessert. If I keep this up, I’ll have little hope of squeezing into my riding jeans for the trip home.