Dam Good Coffee & Rt. 66 - May 8

Tuesday, May 8th

Early out of town, the Hoover Dam being today's first destination. A beautiful combination of engineering ingenuity and art deco style, I have never been so impressed by any man-made construction before. You don't get any idea how large it is before you stand at the edge, looking down on tiny cars at the bottom of the curved concrete barrier. Google it, because the pics I took do not do the place justice.

Of the dozen or so pics I had other visitors take of me, only this one came out acceptable. 

After interstating it for a while, I jump on 'Historic Route 66', eat breakfast in a town where the whole 'old part' is dedicated to Rt. 66. The cafe also has coffee mugs with 'Dam Good Coffee' on them (Harvey Keitel would approve, no?), and is but one of dozens I see today milking the Rt. 66 myth to the max. Some do it in style, one was downright nauseating, guess most are ok. At least they saved a lot of old cars from being scrapped, decorating the places with Yank Tanks in various degrees of rusty decomposition.  

Aside from 10 gazillion Rt. 66 signs, US license plates, pictures of James Dean, Elvis & Marylin Monroe and another 20 gazillion other pieces of Rt. 66 stuff, some of the shops actually have classy things to offer. 

The infamous Jackalope, a cross between a very large rabbit and a very small deer. The bastards actually made me fall for it back in 1982, creating trust issues forever as far as Midwesterners are concerned.

Downtown Willams, AZ, where tourist rent all sorts of silly stuff to drive around in.

In Las Vegas the Polaris Slingshot 3-wheelers below were popular.

In between The Hoover Dam and tonight's motel in Williams, I notice how desert shrub and tumbleweed is replaced by farmland with a scattering of cattle. Flat roofed adobe houses in sand colours appear next to traditional bungalows. Driving in the opposite direction I see on the nearby track a freight train with four locomotives up front, then an infinite number of rail cars with containers stacked two high, then another two locomotives, and another infinite number of rail cars, and then at the end further three locomotives.

   Before computers ran this kind of machinery, a good engineer (lokomotivforer) in charge of all the locomotives at both ends, would know to power down the front ones when a peak had been passed, but let those at the back end still push at full power - a hard earned skill no longer needed.

Carefully looking for rattlesnakes, gila monsters etc., I walked up close to take this pic on the reservation land of the Hualapai tribe of American Indians. 

OK, enough for now. The bar down the street was playing Danish band Volbeat, so I'm going for a beer.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXhjp85UNJI)