June 23rd, 2001

Slept like a rock last night... spending most of the day in the car seemed to wipe me out pretty badly. Morning came rather unkindly, breakfast was at Arby's and I downed a Red Bull to kick start me. Alie and I went over the day's drive... it would involve leaving Vegas via Interstate 515, merging onto Highway 93. This, we found out, would take us over Hoover Dam.

The path through the mountainous desert to get to the dam was quite curvy. Unforunately, I wasn't able to get all the pictures of it I'd like because, in my near comatose stupor last night, I forgot to recharge the battery on the camera. It crapped out right before we got to the Dam.

Hoover Dam is massive. We're talking "goddamn that's a damn big dam!" As you approach the structure there are numerous turnoffs where one can pull over to the side of the road and gawk without obstructing traffic. Once you get to the Dam itself there's a 5 level parking garage you can pull into so you can wander around looking at stuff. Again, I had no operating camera at this point so I couldn't take any pictures. Alie had her Kodak Advantix camera with all the groovy panorama stuff so she got some spiffy pictures. They won't show up here until the end of the trip though. =(

In honor of us crossing the Hoover Dam, we decided to name our car "Hoover". This was for two reasons... the first, because it's an amusing name. The second because the car's owner, "Herb", sucks. Like the vaccuum. Get it? Ha ha? Yeah, it's cheesy... sue me. :P

Hoover Dam's resevoir

Once we'd seen Hoover Dam we proceeded down Highway 98. It winds through quite a bit of mountainous high desert country before spilling out into Arizona proper. Our next destination was Kingman. There we would break from Highway 98 and the Interstate and follow Old Route 66 up into the Hualapai Indian reservation, which would bring us briefly within site of the Grand Canyon.

We stop in Kingman and find this impressive information center on Historic Route 66. It appears as though our trip through this part of the South West(at least into Albuquerque) would take us along the old Historic Route... which is what we wanted to begin with.

Ah yes, this brings us back to the itinerary compromises we had to make because of Hoover. To save time and distance we had to forgo a fairly large section of Route 66, which was irksome. It also forced us to give up going to Roswell and the Carlsbad caverns in New Mexico. Ouch. We could've still pulled the latter two off, but we would've had to sacrifice the Grand Canyon and The Painted Desert. Me and Alie agreed that that would've been unacceptable.

Also, the imposed end date changed the tone of the trip from an exercise in meandering here and there into a more driven excursion with a definite time table. This was irksome in a way, but tolerable. Consequently I'll be able to spend a few days visiting relatives in Chicago, our end point.

The route change involves us heading due north from Albuquerque on I-25 instead of a more gradual north easterly route through Texas and Oklahoma. The adjusted route takes us through Colorado, up into Colorado Springs where Alie has friends from the Peace Corps. From there we'll take I-70 east across Kansas and into Kansas City. From there we'll head to St. Louis and join back up with Route 66 and take that the rest of the way into Chicago.

The rest of the route after that remains unchanged.

Anyways... back to the rest of the day. We leave Kingman after an extended break for lunch. We take Route 66 north and into the Indian Reservation. As we drove something quite rare happened... it rained. Not just a little, a considerable amount. Big heavy drops. When they first came down they would hit the road and evaporate instantly but more and more came and soon we were driving in an all out rainstorm, complete with lightning. I asked some of the locals if this was normal and they confirmed that it was in fact a bit of a freak occurence.

After the rain passed the desert cooled off considerably. Windows went down and the smell of the wet desert flooded the car. It was cool... it smelled a lot like hay and damp dust. Rather pleasant. The air outside was almost cold too. Then we saw a sign saying that the elevation was around 5000ft. That too would explain the rapid temperature change.

The Grand Canyon in the far distance...

At one point Old Route 66 comes within site distance of the Grand Canyon as it winds through the indian reservation.

After passing through the Indian Reservation we decide that when we hit the town of Williams we're going to call it a night. As we arrive we notice a lot of biker activity... Harleys travelling all around everywhere. We check into a dinky hotel in the middle of town to discover Harley Davidson style motorcycles parked EVERYWHERE, and an entire lane of the main drag through town blocked off.

It turns out every year they have a huge party at this local club, and bikers come around from everywhere to attend. There was even one guy from Scotland.. in a kilt, no less.

We wander around the town taking in all the activity. The club hosting the party has caged off a huge dance floor and there's a couple hundred biker guys and women dancing to a live band doing covers of various classic and current rock music.

The entire town is alive and in motion... people stream in and out of all the local shops, bars and restaraunts, motorcycles tear up and down the streets. It's fascinating. And there's no violent behavior or any other incidents... just a lot of people who ride motorcycles all congregating and partying.

The night ends quietly, and lots of people watching is done. Then it's time to turn in... the Grand Canyon is tommorrow...