Week 6 peterbrownroute666

Sunday 13.10.13 peterbrownroute66, Route 66 blog, Get Your Kicks On Route 66

Bertha has got a very firm rear end this morning so the squirty foam must have done the trick. Our original plan was to go onto the Grand Canyon today, and even though it has just been re-opened I am still sticking to Plan E which is to visit the skywalk on the west side prior to going to Las Vegas. Today we have rode back to Flagstaff to pick up Route 66 where we left off, we've had quite a long de-tour as the road from Page has had a massive land slide and will be shut for a couple of years. Anyway it was good to be back on the old Route 66 there was a couple of long of original gravel road from Bellemont to Williams which slowed us down to about 15mph. We are now at our overnight stop in Williams which is a very nice two horse town with loads of character and plenty of steak houses ( so Pauline it steak for us tonight ).

 

The de-tour was a very good road

 

Didn't see a thing on the road

 

 

It was worth doing this for the experience

 

Williams was the very last Town to be bypassed on October 1984

 

 

Check out the luggage ( who needs to go to the gym )

 

He's got a good hand, I'm out on this one

 

Pam's 1st in the que as she's starving

 

Monday 14.10.13 peterbrownroute66, Route 66 blog, Get Your Kicks On Route 66

Phew! it seems to have been a hard day today yet we have only done 100 miles. It was dark when we checked into our hotel this evening and it's all Bertha's fault. We woke nice and early to discover she had a nice coat of frost and a very flat rear end, as we were only in a two horse town there was no chance of getting it fixed so we limped round to the petrol station for another tin of foam and 50psi in the tyre for good measure. Then it was off to keep to our planned route and worry about it at the other end. The quality of Route 66 has been very good but signage is getting very rare as most of them seem to be have been stolen by tourists. We traveled through Ash fork which has very little to offer. Then onto Seligman which is the complete opposite. Loads of nick knack tack and 4 coach loads of tourists. It was very nice but glad that the whole route is not like this. We then went onto visit the Grand Canyon Caverns, it is the countries largest dry cavern and you can even stop down their for the night at a cost of $700, as there was no wifi we gave it a miss. Then we headed to hackberry trading post. It has changed very little since the last time we visited approximately 7yrs ago on a trip to Las Vegas. Before heading to our overnight stop at Kingman I thought it might be a good idea to get Bertha checked out at the Harley Dealer in the town who gave me some more bad news and hefty bill at the end. Pops I think we will need another whip round as that £5.00 you sent didn't go very far.

 

Route 66 heading to Kingman

 

 

We love these 1 mile trains and they always give us a honk

 

Seligman

 

Pam's bought more goodies

 

 

Hotel room in. Grand Canyon Cavern

 

It wasn't a patch on antelope canyon

 

Hackberry store

 

 

 

 

New front and rear tyre and 3 sets of brake pads and $724 bill.

We Forgot to mention how quick the Harley dealer dealt with us as we just turned up un announced and the whole job was done in 2 hours which I think is excellent.

 

Tuesday 15.10.13 peterbrownroute66, Route 66 blog, Side trip

We've had a 140 mile side trip off Route 66 to visit the west side of the Grand Canyon. A lady at Seligman warned me the road was rough and shouldn't take my bike and boy was she right. We've had to do 18 mile of pure off road dirt track and I'm amazed I didn't drop Bertha. Also the Indians on Canyon west make Dick Turpin look like a saint, talk about daylight robbery. Anyway that's my whinge for today done with. Other that that we have had a fantastic time. We started off with a helicopter ride, then onto the sky walk, but unfortunately you are not allowed cameras. It was then off to Guano Point for a 360 degree panoramic view. It wouldn't surprise me if they lost at least a couple of tourists a week over the edge as there are no barriers and it is a little frightening in places.

 

This was the easy bit

 

 

 

Pam panning for gold

 

 

 

Does my belly look big in the sweat shirt? (Glad it's not a side on shot )

 

Wednesday 16.10.13 peterbrownroute66, Route 66 blog, Side trip

We have left Arizona and are now at Las Vegas which is in the state of Nevada. The ride up has been lovely and was especially nice to see tarmac all the way. Just prior to leaving Kingman we called at the Route 66 museum which was very good. It was then onto the Hoover Dam, which is a marvellous piece of civil engineering. It took 5yrs to build and was completed in 1936 and created the 122 mile long lake called Lake Mead. We are now checked in to the Luxor hotel and have a monster suite, which is the biggest we have ever stopped in and makes our apartment on Anglesey look tiny. O'h forgot to say I got pulled by the police in Las Vegas.

 

Bertha is running like a new bike so thought she deserved a photo

 

Hoover Dam

 

This is just the dining room

 

View of the strip

 

Bellagio fountain

 

Venetian

 

I got a right sorting out off these two

 

Thursday 17.10.13 peterbrownroute66, Route 66 blog, Side trip

As it's final count down to the end of our holiday we decided to make most of the day, so we did a 310 mile round trip to Death Valley which is surrounded by mountains, and has a valley in the centre which in places is 100ft below sea level. The scenery is spectacular and on the way back we called at the Stratosphere hotel as we both wanted to do the scream ride which sends you over the edge of the building ( What an adrenalin rush ). Pauline it's no steak here, It's all you can eat buffet which is ginormous, well my portion is anyway.

 

 

We did a 100 miles before seeing a gas station

 

 

 

 

 

Stratosphere

 

 

Over the edge "scary"

 

Friday 18.10.13 peterbrownroute66, Route 66 blog, get your kicks on Route 66

We headed back to Kingman to pick up Route 66 again. On-route we spotted helicopter rides over the Hoover Dam, so it was a quick U turn and flight was booked, which was far better than the one we did at Grand Canyon West. We then rode through golden valley and onto our dinner stop at Oatman, which was a old gold mining town where two prospectors found $10 million dollars worth of gold in 1915. The towns population expanded to 3,500 people in one year. This little town looked so authentic and even had wild donkeys roaming the streets, as our daughter Joanne informed us it has a bar full of dollar bills stuck to all the walls. We arrived at our over night stop at Needles early enough to enjoy the outside swimming pool and jacuzzi.

 

 

Aerial shot of Hoover dam

 

Lake Mead

 

On- route to Oatman

Oatman Main Street

 

They call these donkey's Burros here.

 

 

Dollar bill bar at Oatman

 

Saturday 19.10.13 peterbrownroute66, Route 66 blog, get your kicks on Route 66

We've had a nice ride along Route 66 up to our 2 night stop at Barstow, however some of the road was in that bad a condition it was smoother to ride on the gravel hard shoulder. We had planned to visit the Pisgah Crater, but the road was that rough we gave it a miss. Next stop was to visit Angela's son Ben who's on a training exercise with the US marines for a few months. Unfortunately we went to the wrong base so I texted Angela who replied back with a garbled message saying she had been on the sherry and will come back to us when she's compesmentous.

 

In the mornings you see the odd tarantula crossing the rd

 

I've got a new hobby which is train spotting

 

Wow look at this one

 

We have only seen about 6 cars and a few bikes all day on 66

 

We did see plenty of abandoned buildings today

 

 

 

I've left my mark on this stretch of Route 66

 

That completes our week 6. Click on newer post on the bottom left to get to week 7.

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