Barstow to Albuquerque
As I’m packing up the bike this morning, my neighbor from the next room comes out to leave. He’s a Londoner, with a classic Cockney accent, who tells me that he makes a trip over here at least every other year. This time he started in Chicago and drove Rt. 66 to here, and will leave for home from Los Angeles today. He has a place in Devon, he says, and recommends that the next time I come to England, I visit his area (he didn’t offer me his place, though). The pull of old 66 extends across the Atlantic.
Not heading for England, but I’m starting out from Barstow, following Rt. 66 into the rising sun. Town doesn’t last long and soon I’m out on old Rt. 66, the Mother Road. Mom needs some maintaining however, as the pavement is rough and broken in many spots. It occurs to me that back in the day, this perhaps would have been the direction of defeat, in that folks came west for the opportunities in California and when they were headed back east, it may have meant that things didn’t work out so well. Like that line from Dionne Warwick’s “Do You Know the Way to San Jose ?” ” … and all those stars, that never were, are parking cars and pumping gas.” No such angst for me, though, I’m on a sidecar rig early in the morning in California and riding on 66. That’s good enough for me.
The desert continues on, as it always does, and before long Needles California, often the hottest place in the country, appears. Brenda and I stayed here one night back in the 90’s when we were herding a rented Harley Electra-Glide (in blue) around these roads. On that occasion, we took the old road up to Oatman, Arizona, a tiny town up in the mountains famous for movie star honeymoons (Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, if I recall) and free roaming wild burros. On our last visit, Gable and Lombard had long left town and the burros had done likewise, leaving only their unmistakable calling cards on the streets. I decided to go back for another look. The mountains up here are stark and dry, with rocks succumbing to gravity everywhere, decorating the flats and often the pavement. The town just suddenly
The pass above Oatman, AZ
springs up out of the dust, a collection of buildings arranged along one street, with the old mining apparatus rusting at one end. This time the burros have kept their appointment with me, standing in large groups in the middle of the road as I come into town, waiting patiently (as burros are wont to do) as I ease forward inches at a time to make my way through. Some come up to me to see if I have loaded the sidecar with burro snacks, but are disappointed. This is Easter Sunday and the tourists are out in force on the street, petting and feeding the critters and leaving nowhere to park a rig if I wanted to, so I move slowly on through. On the upside of town, going into the higher mountain pass, the road is worse than I remembered. I recall wrestling the HD through these curves on a hot summer day with the melting “tar snakes” causing the tires to wiggle and slip (something of a concern when two-up on a rented bike far from home !) Today it is not nearly so hot and there’s no difficulty with trying to avoid the snakes….the pavement seems to be composed almost entirely of the wriggly black lines, as if the DOT had given up on asphalt and decided to just paint the road like a
Some Oatman Residents
Jackson Pollock with these instead. But, no worries on the rig, with three wheels planted on the road, it could slip all it wanted. The curves have lots of dirt and gravel in them, usually just around the blind side, which would have been seat-clenching on a two wheeler, but not a problem for the outfit. I’m going very slowly, due to the road and the altitude of the dropoffs, so I can see for miles around me. The dry mountains and precipitous valleys just go on and on as far as the end of world, it would seem. I think about what it might have been like to be a miner and his family up here in the 1800’s. Nothing but hard work and dry, dusty, rock, and the worry about finding water.
The road down from the mountain top into Kingman is a long, straight decline that might make a good landing strip for a 747, should that be required. It finally reaches bottom at I-40 and I must make up time now, so onto the slab I go. All good things come at a cost, and for me the cost of several extra days in California, along the coast, is that I have to burn some miles to get home for the work duty that calls early next week. The four lane numbs the senses so that the land changes slowly, almost imperceptibly as I near Flagstaff, with the flat desert scrub becoming now high pine forest, without my ever realizing the difference. I see signs warning me of elk and then bear crossings. I will keep my eyes open. The wind is picking up, dropping in temperature and the light is beginning to fade.
Flagstaff appears, and with no trouble at all I find a Motel 6, which has an AARP connection, giving me a nice clean room with wi-fi for $43. There are some perks to being old.
Earlier today, while lubricating the chain, I noticed that the sprockets and chain, which looked serviceable 1,400 miles ago in Washington are now looking pretty thin. In my experience, sprockets and chains, like tires and rolls of toilet paper, go much quicker toward the end. I’ll have to see if the dealer in Albuquerque has replacements. These might get me on home, but best not to chance it if not necessary.