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Southwest Spring Desert Tour
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Arizona, California and Nevada
March 18 - 27, 2005
Friday, March 25 Baker, CA to Wickenburg, AZ 375 miles
Day 6: Three states in one day
There was no continental breakfast at the Will Wells Fargo motel, by 8AM we had tanked up and were getting some breakfast at the Jack In The Box. The place was crowded. I still had to finish copying the route for today on my post it, we were on the road by 8:45PM. Everyday I wanted to get up and leave super early to fully utilize all the daylight hours, with the sunrise in California at 5:30AM we could have been getting up around 4:30 and leaving at 6:30AM. For some reason the process is always so slow. It takes about 2 hours, from the time the alarm goes off to until we are actually rolling down the road. I don’t know where the time goes.
This morning we started rolling East on I-40. Even though it was 43 degrees when I woke up this morning, now the temperature was already in the upper 50’s. I didn’t bundle up this morning, it felt warm and the sun was shinning, but the interstate started climbing up to 4,000 feet and the cold air started rushing into my helmet. I had wished that I wore my balaclava this morning and even though I had my electric vest on, the power cord for the vest was packed away in my bag. The heated grips helped but not very much at 80-90MPH. At least here the trucks had a third slow lane to stay in as they slowly moved up the incline. The interstate section was brief and we took the exit for 164 East. There was also some nice scenery on this road, some mountains in the distance and Joshua Trees along the way, although the road was mostly straight. A small white sign with blue writing announced that we were entering the state of Nevada. But where was the California sign on the other side? There was nothing. I felt cheated. Had I known that I was not going to get a welcome to California sign, I would have pulled over on I-8 a few days ago to take a picture, like Brian did. We continued to Searchlight, NV, where we stopped for a bathroom break and some gambling. Well, no gambling happened since the poker machine stole Brian’s money, he got his money back and we left heading south on 95 which was a straight and busy road, especially on this Good Friday. Thank goodness for the passing lanes that appeared from time to time. We turned east on 163 heading towards Laughlin, NV and the Arizona state line. 163 starts as wide four lane road but soon it starts getting curvy as it passes though the Lake Mead Recreational Area. The scenery is wonderful and it’s hard to look at everything while you’re taking corners at 90MPH. Once we descend in to the city of Laughlin and cross the Colorado River you are in Arizona. And at least here there was a nice big welcome to Arizona sign, but it was sitting in the middle of a busy intersection with nowhere to pull over to take a picture. There was some sort of a detour and I ended up going the wrong way heading in to Bullhead City. My GPS was not showing me what road we were on, but I knew I was going the wrong way so we pulled over at a gas station and got some gas and refreshments. This is a nice area, many new houses are going up here. And cheap, you can get one for $80,000. We turned around and found 68 East to Kingman, AZ where we turned on 93 and then historic route 66. The road was pretty boring and flat for a few miles, but all the sudden there were small mountains in the way. The road, bumpy and narrow started climbing, the turns tight and steep posted at 15MPH. I have to say that this is probably the tightest road that I have ever been on. If you have ever been to Texas Hill Country, imagine miles and miles and miles of those really tight curves like on 16 between Kerrville and Medina, but imagine the road is way more narrow, way more bumpier with damaged or missing pavement, gravel in turns and way more steeper with no shoulder, no guard rail and a nasty cliff just at the edge of the pavement. Sounds like fun! Well, I’m not a fan of the steep and narrow, very tight roads to begin with , so I rode this one for the scenery. The pavement is badly damaged in many turns and you end up bouncing all around the narrow lane. Brian caught some bad bumps and crossed the double yellow in a turn, I touched the double yellow in one of the turns and I was coasting down on my brakes on this curve, first gear seemed to fast sometimes. I have to admit that the scenery from the road was spectacular, especially watching the road ahead of us twist up and down, clinging very tightly to the uneven surface of the mountains.
There were some cars on this road but many, many more cruisers. The tightest curves are just north of Oatman. A really tiny and cute town, at an elevation of 2,400 feet in the Black Mountains, Oatman was once the last stop in Arizona before entering the dreaded Mojave Desert in California. In 1953, Route 66 was rerouted through Yucca as the traffic had become too much for the steep, winding road. Oatman at one time was considered to be the richest gold mining district in the state of Arizona. Today, the town's one street is lined with historic buildings and boardwalks. The "wild burros", descendants of the work animals of the mines, wander up and down the street posing for pictures and looking for hand outs.
Past Oatman the curves continued but not as tight as before and the pavement improved. The road became more enjoyable to me since I dislike turns that are tighter then 25MPH. It was very warm and sunny now, in the low 70’s so some layers came off again. The beautiful scenery continued although there really wasn’t a lot of places to pull over on their road to take a picture. Seems to be a trend on this trip, although I still managed to take hundreds of pictures. Getting closer to Golden Shores there was an abundance of sweepers and not too many tight turns, we arrived in Topock and took I-40 east for a bit to 95 South. There was plenty of beautiful rock formation along I-40 and on 95, where the road twisted back and forth with some enjoyable sweepers with the all important passing lanes every so often. We arrived in Lake Havau City where we intended to grab some lunch. On the right in the distance there was Lake Havasu, bright turquoise-blue against the pale rocks.
Brian took the lead looking for a memorable place to have lunch at. We pulled over at the London Bridge. Since there wasn’t anywhere to park close by we parked next to some cruisers on the sidewalk next to the entrance gate – rock star style. This was as touristy as it got on this trip for us since I usually like to avoid the tourist traps, but I have to admit this is a neat place not to be missed. In 1962, London Bridge was falling down. Built in 1831, the bridge couldn't handle the ever-increasing flow of traffic across the Thames River. The British government decided to put the bridge up for sale, and Robert McCulloch, Founder of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and Chairman of McCulloch Oil Corporation, submitted the winning bid of $2,460,000. The bridge was dismantled, and each stone was carefully marked. Everything was shipped 10,000 miles to Long Beach, California, and then trucked to Lake Havasu City. Reconstruction began on September 23, 1968, with a ceremony including the Lord Mayor of London, who laid the cornerstone. On October 10, 1971, the bridge was dedicated. Beyond the gate there are a few attractions, obviously the bridge is the biggest. There are rides to be taken on the river, shops and food. We didn’t have time to walk around too much, we went in to the first place with outside seating to grab something to eat and relax. The place was called the Oasis, Brian had fish and chips and I had fried shrimp and fries, the fries were Ok, but the shrimp was really good and there were a lot of them too. This is a place we could easily spend a few hours at.
Continuing south on 95 towards Parker, the sweepers continued though the canyons. We would cross the Colorado River again. I was planning on stopping at Parker Dam but I had a truck on my butt though the sweepers as we passed the signs for the dam, I couldn’t really figure out where to pull over at. I like the dams that you drive over. This one wasn’t visible from the road and since we didn’t have time to waste we kept on going. Since we got cheated on the welcome to Arizona and California signs I wanted to make a right on 62 in Parker and take some pictures there, since the state lines was just across the river less then 2 miles away. What a disappointment when we found no welcome to California sign there either. We turned around heading back to Parker, we passed a welcome to Arizona sign perched up high above the truck weight station, not a place I want to stop for pictures. Shortly after we turned towards the southeast on 72, a mostly straight and flat road, we cranked on the throttle as the sun hung low behind us, illuminating the road in hues of orange and pink, our shadows riding ahead of us, distorted and long. There were not many cars on this road, at 60 in Hope we took some time to layer on some clothes, it wasn’t cold yet but the sun had already set and it would start getting cold soon, I didn’t want to pull over again. Gas replenished, clear shields installed in our helmets. Next stop was Wickenburg, AZ.
60 heading east was so far the straightest road on this trip, even the interstate had a few curves in it. It was OK though, at night I don’t need any curves. The moon was still big and bright and the sky was mostly clear, there were a few big, dark and fluffy clouds in the sky, one of those clouds managed to spit at us for a few minutes while we rode underneath it. The electric vest and grips were on but it wasn’t really that cold tonight, upper 40’s I would imagine. We pulled in to Wickenburg at 8:30PM and found the Super 8 with no problems down the road on 93. We were lucky again since he only had two rooms left, a handicap room or a suite. We took the cheaper one and parked the bikes out back next to our motel room door. There was a guy working on his boat out there, it looked like he would be there for a while. We walked over to the only place on the road that served food, a Denny’s. Not very hungry having eaten a late lunch today, we split an order of nachos.
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