The long road home

Since I chronicled our car trip to Arizona for my trike ride, it seems fitting that I tell you about our long trip home; it was very much in line with our 'Hey, that looks interesting" method of instant planning.  After completing my ride, we stayed in Seligman for the night and made the trip to Kingman on Saturday.  It wasn't a long day, because we got a late start and we also had to do laundry; we did a short jaunt around Kingman and saw some nice flowers,

and Barbara checked out some new shoes.

The view from our motel was quite nice.

The next morning Barbara got a chance to get up close to a locomotive

and then we were off for a small town we'd heard about: Oatman on an OLD section of Route 66.  The scenery on the twisting road was great.

We saw a reminder to slow down:



and then we hit Oatman during rush hour.

Yes, they allow--even encourage, burros to roam throughout the town.




After watching the High Noon gunfight

and browsing through the shops,

we were on the road again: destination-Lake Havasu City where we found an intact London Bridge.

                                                                                  We then drove into Laughlin, Nevada where we spent the night and paid our final homage to the gambling deities. The next morning, Roy did a quick loop around the top floor of the parking garage

before he loaded everything and we were off to Death Valley. We got there in time to take a spin on Artists' Drive

                                                                                  and a quick stop at the Artist's Palette.


                                                                                  From there we were able to drive to Badwater before dark.

The next morning we were off again, this time to Zabriski's Point,

Twenty mule team canyon,

and Dante's View, where we could look down on Badwater and get an overview of most of the Valley.

On our way out of the Valley we stopped at Mosaic Canyon,which Roy wrote about in A walk in the sun

We drove into Bishop, California for the night and were greeted by the snowy Sierras the next morning.



Next up was a trip past June Lake and it's waterfall and colorful foliage.

We crossed the highway and entered the wonderful world of Mono Lake

with it's fantastical tufa deposits:

The next morning we entered the realm of mountains: Lassen Peak, which looks a lot like Mount St Helens,

and Mount Shasta.

After Weed, we soon entered Oregon and the desire to get home and end the trip trumped any further side trips or pictures. We had a great time and the only problem with taking trips as we do is that there can be no planning--"hey, that looks interesting!"