California, Here We Come!

Wednesday, May 5 for Monday, May 3, 2021


I mentioned in closing yesterday that we were not very happy with the motel we were in overnight, and even though the weather was great, it didn't seem much better in daylight! It was cute outside, but like their very impressive neon-lighted tower, below, not much worked the way it was supposed to. However, it did make it easy to get out of there early.



We stopped at another of those stereotypical diners on Historic Route 66, this one called Rutherford's Family Diner.

The chow was good!


After breakfast, we were able to visit the Powerhouse Visitor Center, the Route 66 Museum inside, and also received a ticket for the Mohave Museum.

We had been hearing about Edward Beale, and his name is all over Kingman, AZ. In a nutshell, he developed Beale's Wagon Road, which ran along the 35th Parallel. The Government officials who sent him on this mission wanted a route that was far enough south to enjoy favorable weather, but not too far south to run into the slavery issue politics at the time. His route was so good, that later transcontinental routes followed very closely with what he had done.


The museum was fun, educational, and varied in its presentations and interests. There was an entire display and section dedicated to the "dust bowl refugees" and the story, The Grapes of Wrath, which we chose not to include here -- pretty depressing (no pun intended).


While there was a bit of information about Andy Devine, mentioned in yesterday's post, there was even more in the Mohave Museum.


I mentioned before that I have a soft spot for Studebakers, since my Dad owned at least three of them when I was a kid.


This one even had a window air-conditioner, which wasn't uncommon back then.


Another Burma Shave-type sign ...


There was even a room devoted to electric cars, starting with very early ones, and the development of them over the years. The example below is from The Ohio State University College of Engineering, which enters one most years in an intercollegiate contest for speed and originality, among other qualifications.


Randy was acting up, and was put in time out!


Below was part of the one-room display of Andy Devine in the Mohave Museum. We thought they could have done a lot more for their favorite son.


The character below is called Froggy the Gremlin -- does anyone else our age remember that from Andy's Gang TV show (1955 - 1960?)


The picture below is from Google, but I still have a Froggy character that is from my childhood. (Much the worse for wear from my childhood!)


As we left Kingman, we headed towards Needles, California, traveling a nice stretch of Historic Route 66. 



Along the route is Cool Springs. Originally built in 1926, it had become pretty tumbled down. It was rebuilt once for the movie Universal Soldier in 1992, and apparently fell into ruin again. It was more recently brought back by a Chicago real estate agent, with his contractor basing the restoration on old photos, according to the EZ Guide to Route 66.



We had been told that as we approached Oatman, AZ that we would see burros along the way, and especially in the town of Oatman.


As we slowed down to get a picture of this guy, he tried to get into the window where I was taking the picture, so we caught him going away!




Oatman has a gunfight and shooting display re-enactment, which we were able to see. Very corny, but still entertaining.



We could not find an attribution for this statue, but it sure looked like Remington.





We've mentioned that we took Randy's 2018 Toyota Prius on this trip. It was a little tight, but we got everything we wanted to bring into the car, and have been able to put in a few souvenirs as we travel on. Our goal with this version of the Prius (it is our third one) is to reach close to 60 MPG in most normal driving. Sometimes a bit more, usually a bit less. For some reason, on this journey out of Oatman, we must have been going downhill most of the way, but you can see, with almost 73 miles traveled, we were averaging 75.4 MPG. That is the highest either of us had ever hit, especially with that many miles traveled. (On May 5, we are still on that same tank of gas, but our average now is around 56.5 with a lot of hills and heat.)


We crossed the Colorado River, and left Arizona for California.


We checked into a very nice Best Western Hotel, leaving behind the older-style motels, having a pool that was open and a comfortable room. We ate at the Wagon Wheel Restaurant, another traditional Route 66 place, and had a very good meal.




That was it for the day! We called it a fairly early evening, took advantage of a good Internet connection, and downloaded pictures and did a blog entry.




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