The long, long, long and winding road

We started out from Barstow around 9am for the daunting 6 hour drive to the Grand Canyon. Most of this was done on the historic Route 66. There was a section of the road that we had to get off for the risk of losing our teeth, it was so bone-rattling-ly bad. Full of potholes. We did see a lot of the same scenery, however, it did change and managed to keep our interest for the most part.

The long straight road

The long winding road

We have always maintained that the best experiences are to be had on the "B" roads, even though they are often more circuitous and therefore slower. By far the best part was a mountainous climb through a place called Oatman. We do try to do some research before each destination, but this place had not come across our radar. Oatman is an old gold rush town in the middle of nowhere. As we approached it, all we could see was the main street dotted with donkeys! Excuse me? What the? Even though we still had some hours driving ahead of us, the temptation to explore was too great and we had to get out to see what this was all about. It really was like an old western kind of place. The donkeys are wild, but come because the tourists give them food. They are the descendants of the original donkeys or "Burros", that did much of the hard labour of carting and carrying back in the gold mining days.

A stagecoach on an awning.

This one was almost going shopping!

Main St, Oatman

The place had a very Maleny feel about it (probably because it was so touristy), and apparently gets very busy in the summer. We had a very late lunch, later than we thought, because we unknowingly gained an hour when we crossed the state line into Arizona.

The landscape continued to fascinate us, Jason and I having growing up on a wealth of TV westerns and TV shows like F Troop, kept waiting  for the "Injuns" to ride over the horizon. The girls (well Alex) having watched lots of CSI, kept looking for signs of a buried body in the desert!

We saw lots of the rock piles along the way,
so we had to make a Gehrke one!

 We drove and drove some more, the sun sets at around 5pm, so not much to see after that. We had decided to drive right through to our accommodation very near the Canyon, but I was doubting myself as we saw many cars driving in the opposite direction, and not much to see but the moon rising over the deserted landscape. Then over the next rise, it was like a vision, a mirage, a virtual oasis in the desert, our Bethlehem! (dramatic I know, it was a long day). We had arrived. We're staying a place called Tuyasan, which is a small "village" just a few km's from the National Park. I tried to write the blog last night, however, the internet was too slow. We're now looking at a sunny day at around a fresh  2 degrees. We love the room that we're in at the Holiday Express, it's like a mini two bedroom apartment. We may yet stay another night. It's been a slow start to the morning, we'll get to the Canyon this afternoon in time to see the sun set, then maybe a full day there tomorrow. Who knows, that's the way we roll! (like a tumbling tumbleweed)