Oatman

We have had a tough few days of sightseeing. We left Zion National Park headed for Page, AZ to visit the slot canyon in Antelope Canyon. First thing, we end up on a remote rough, dirt road that eventually had a sign that said “dangerous road...not maintained “ so we had to turn around. We finally make it to Page via a scenic highway. Antelope Canyon is on the Navajo Reservation and you have to have a Navajo guide to bring you into the slot canyon. They were booked solid for that day. We hadn’t planned to stay in Page, because it was so hot and not one tree in sight. Then I thought we could rent a Sea-Doo on Lake Powell, but my iPhone hasn’t been working-quickly-with our hotspot (Eli) so we gave up on Page and head for Flagstaff to camp for the night. I was very upset. Although we didn’t want to have firm plans for this trip, the reality of “going with the flow,” is sometimes you can’t do what you want.

We got into Flagstaff very early and temperature was in 70s during the day so we had a comfortable day to relax. The next day we headed for Oatman, AZ. This is a regional sightseeing destination. MJC and my mother visited ~10 years ago with my aunt Janis who winters in AZ. I was so jealous and demanded that we visit on this trip even though it was far out of our way. You have to drive old Route 66 which climbs switchbacks all the way up to Oatman. There were signs on our end that said no vehicles longer than 40 feet allowed. Right before we got into town there is  semi-truck wedged in the road. The people in town thought he might be trying to avoid a weigh station or produce check by authorities.
Lucky for us there was a narrow path behind the truck to pass.

Oatman is a mining town, there is still a modern mine there but the town has wild burros that we’re left by miners when mining was done by hand. The burros come into town during the day and go into the hills at night. It was so great! I loved the historic western architecture and there were so many burros who let you pet and feed them. You can buy a bag of small hay wedges for $1.00 to feed them.
It was mating season. Seven burros were pregnant and the males were fighting fiercely.

Since we were so close we planned to visit Joshua Tree National Park. However, Saara (GPS) would not take us the route we wanted, and when we got to the turn off she took us there was a sign that said the road was closed. We went further and tried again but there was another road closed sign. We could have gone two hours longer to get there, but we had already done four hours that day. So we gave up on Joshua Tree and headed north. Since it was 108 degrees at 5:00pm we are in a motel in Barstow, CA. We are a little concerned about the earthquakes they have been having in SoCal.

Wildlife (since Zion)
2 rabbits
1 squirrel
1 lizard

13 Road kill (since Zion)

Gree’s senior park pass savings to date holding at $ 340+