The state line, that is!
But I am getting ahead of myself.

We slept in our FREEZING cold room under piles of blankets.  This is the little cot we brought for Katriel.  We found out on this trip that she can sleep through a LOT.

I was up earlier than the rest, so I scooted out for some coffee and sunshine.

This little Best Western, in Kingman, Arizona, was probably our favorite stop of the trip.  This fabulous breakfast didn’t hurt its rating.

We spent a lot of time on Route 66 this trip, though we didn’t join it from it’s starting point in Illinois.  The businesses along this route tout it left-right-and-center.  It’s understandable, given it’s the only claim-to-fame many of these once thriving communities have. 

We headed out to Oatman, Arizona.  A  town that looks a lot today like it would have 100 years ago when it was a thriving mining town. 

We only had a one hour (construction ridden) drive from Kingman to Oatman.  About 25 minutes into this drive I suddenly realized that I had left the camera battery and charger plugged into the wall in the motel.  We knew we had to return to get it as.  Bummer.

The drive was – um – remarkable.
Remarkable = terrifying. 

Just like our Yellowstone drive, I don’t have adequate photos.  A still image can not quite capture what it feels like to drive inches from the edge of a cliff on a narrow, rapidly curving road.  I didn’t have the guts to take a video until it was almost over.

This is a good representation of the curving nature, though I was more level at this point. 

Oatman is also known for it’s wild burros.  As we drove into the community, the steep, barren hillsides were dotted with the occasional burro.  Once we parked in town, we saw some of the town-friendly ones out and about in the street. 

Now – think about this…

If there are donkeys in the street, there is donkey p_ _p in the streets, too.  Watch your step!

There are fees for this and fees for that.  They are nominal and we paid for some and not for others.  We like this kind of place and want to see the business owners make it.  We shopped a little, but had the cloud of driving back to Kingman lingering over our heads.

Marie was one of the first to pet a burro.  She started gingerly, but by the time we left she knew many of them by name. 

Had we not had the drive lingering over us, I would have liked to have spent the time getting an old time photo taken AND supporting this business I’d read about online.

(*next time.)

We snaked our way back out that dastardly highway, slightly less fearful as we had the inside lane on most of the mountain hugging curves.  Heading to California directly from Kingman changed the plans for the stops we would have had from Oatman to California.  We also used up two hours of time in the process. 

We drove and drove through dry desert.  While I loved the hot hot weather the arid landscape started to grate on me.  I didn’t verbalize this, but when we pulled off at one point to look for a restroom, we had a sudden, unexpected glance at the Colorado River.  Multiple people from the back van rows called out, “Look! Water!”  I clearly wasn’t the only one affected by the parched scenery.

We found a gas station and after recovering from the sticker shock…!

took turns using the bathrooms.  This took forever and was one of slowest stops throughout the entire trip.

Finally we made it across the line.

If one thing was a given on this trip, it was that we were going to make every effort to visit the Grand Canyon.

We woke up early and packed up like it was our purpose in life.  Yeah – we were that good.

Of our eight hotel nights, this is the only one that did not include a hot breakfast.  We went to McDonald’s and it cost a ridiculous amount of money.  And it was gross.

We drove through town, filled up with gas, and drove one hour north to the Grand Canyon.

Five hours and almost 300 photos later, we realized our camera was on some whacky setting that made all the photos black, white and, pink?

We discovered this problem with our late lunch and incredibly enough, I did not fall into tears.  Now, this is most likely because I had already had every fiber of my anxious being tormented by the harrowing edges and the six children I was keeping my eyes on.  Seriously, this is not the place for an anxiety-plagued person to visit.  At one point I had to speak tersely to my less-anxious offspring.  While their enjoyment of the canyon might, in fact, increase, say 10% by going past the trails and barriers, my enjoyment drops no less than 100% with every move they make past these markers.

Once we discovered the problem, over that standby Grand Canyon meal of – pizza – John determined the best option was to go out to the one trail we had not yet investigated and take more photos there.  Nan opted to stay in Grand Canyon Village and we thought we’d be about 45-60  minutes. 

Almost two hours later we met up with her again.  We couldn’t catch one of the buses that came by because it wasn’t permitted to stop; a van was parked in the bus drop-off/pick-up lane and the bus only lingered a moment to see if the van would move before sped right by.    We waited close to 30 minutes for our ride back.

We headed to our hotel in Kingman, which was “only” a Best Western motel. Well, it turned out to be a rocking good choice.

We enjoyed a swim under an Arizona sunset.

And the hot tub was so welcoming.

We walked over to a restaurant a few doors down …
It made much of its Route 66 location.

We were welcomed in… and warned they only had a few items on their menu.

Turns out their supply truck had not come in two days prior, and they were cooking what little they had left.  The restaurant was large, but there was only one other party in the establishment.  There were two gentlemen working, and they were doing all the jobs. 

Given it was after 8PM on a Sunday night, we had little choice but to just find something on the mini-menu to eat.

It’s too funny how places have not had food twice on our trip.  Who knew that was a thing?