We left the RV park, drove one more time through Williams without stopping and went right on to Seligman with only one short halt to photograph a neat hair salon.
Seligman is as much alive as Williams but without the Grand Canyon action. It’s claim of fame is the fact that it is situated on one end of a 150km stretch of old Route 66 Mother Road from Seligman to Topock. Furthermore it is home to yet another Harvey House -now the Black Cat Bar- and to two iconic brothers, Angel and Juan Delgadillo.
Angel had a barber shop and is well respected for all his efforts to keep Route 66 alive.
Juan, who died a couple of years ago owned the Snow Cap Drive-In, which is still open, now run by his son who has a great talent to make people laugh, just ask for some mustard and you think you will be wearing it … and it was only some string popping out of the mustard bottle.
Well fed and happy with our little purchases we went on, passing through some remnants of villages, laughing foolishly about signs declaring these dusty valleys as flood zones and began climbing into mountain areas. At Cool Springs Camp, a neat store next to a camper with fake palm trees on its roof, we met George who is the distributer for Arizona of our favourite Route 66 Soda. Besides this job he is the man behind the counter of the Cool Springs Store with the pink cap.
The building was rebuilt for a movie set at one point and is now a great place for a chat, some ice cream but -at least when we were there- not for Route 66 Soda.
Off we went to climb the steep and narrow road through beautiful mountains to Sitgreaves Pass. What a beautiful view.
We then saw our first real former Gold Rush town, Oatman, or so we thought. There were buildings like in a Western movie, some for sale, the others open for tourists. Donkeys were walking through the street. The reason for this was, that once the Gold Rush was over, the working donkeys were let go and they took to the desert to live but come to town to be fed. The people who stayed after the gold mine closed tried their luck with catering to tourists. But at 6pm the bustling town became quiet. Donkeys and people left the place to go home and now it really was a movie set after the lights went out.
The gold mine is back in business though. We saw the operation and the warning signs that tresspassing was strictly forbidden when we came down the mountain on the other side.
We couldn’t believe it, we did make it to California, the land of milk and honey after all. But we really can feel for the Okies (refugees from Oklahoma, seeking work in California after the Dust Storms in the 19th century) who found yet another desert, the Mojave desert, after crossing the Colorado River. Their track through heat and desert would continue for a long time.
Needles, the first city we reached, is one of the hottest cities in the United States with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit frequently. When we drove through in the afternoon it was 42 degrees Celsius. Gas, which had been in the $3.59 to $3.89 range throughout our trip, was $4.99 in Needles.
We had enough for today. With no RV park in sight we stayed at the gas station of Fenner -the only thing left of this town- and even this gas station, close to the Interstate 40 but still on Route 66 is fighting for its life, as their signs made very clear to their customers. Gas was over $5.00 here.
