Friday – March 31 – Happy Birthday Mike! We started out by going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and calling Mike to wish him a happy birthday – it’s hard to believe our baby is 34 now!!

We decided to go to Oatman, an old Ghost Mining Town which was born in 1906 as a tent camp, and flourished as a gold mining centre until the 1940’s. It produced over 36 million dollars in gold at 1930 prices.

We decided to take Route 66 to Oatman and what a drive. The first 20 or so miles were through a valley, then we started to go up, and up and up we climbed with many hairpin turns along the way. We reached Sitgreaves Pass at an elevation of 3550’ and what a view from the top of the pass. On the way up I decided that there would be no way I could do the Baja Peninsula if this is what the drive would be like, I did not like the drop offs with no shoulders and to look down gave me the willies. To look straight out was okay and the scenery was beautiful, there are so many different shapes etc. to the mountains but I found it a very nerve wracking drive. At one point we met a motor home on a hairpin turn – he had a lot more nerve than we did to try a drive like that with such a large rig. It is extremely hard to believe that at one time this was the main east/west route.

Otaman was much like Tombstone with a gunfight on the main street (at least here we didn’t have to pay to watch it) and numerous stores selling mainly the same things. There were wild (?) burros roaming the main street looking for carrots and posing for pictures. It was evident that life there would have been very tough during its heyday.

After Oatman we drove to Bull Head City then crossed the river to Laughlin. The casinos were everywhere and looked very interesting but we didn’t stop and go into any – saving that for Las Vegas.

We came back via Highway 68 which again was very scenic and mountainous, but at least it was a divided 4 lane highway and therefore much easier to drive. When we left Laughlin the temperature was 24C and when we got back here it was 12C. That’s what the difference in elevation can do. The other problem here is that again I have no cell phone service, what a pain!!