Oatman

Monday, Jan.16

I discovered this morning after my shower that I forgot to load my hair dryer and curling iron (I thought my camper set was in here), so I'm in for more hair issues. 

The Old Town of Oatman

Today's agenda was to drive to Oatman an old mining town on Historic Route 66 that still has some life.  We've been hearing about this town for years, it's famous for the wild burros that wander into town.  It's about 30 miles from Laughlin/Bullhead City, back in the foothills of the mountain range.

It has several little shops, an old hotel where Clark Gable once stayed, and where we had lunch.  We went in and out of the shops but no burros had arrived yet.  They are pretty proud of their jack asses here.

 They must have been forewarned that Joe was coming to town, because there one signed I'm sure was just for him.

Route 66

We drove on through the town to see what was on down that road.  It took us past some old gold mines, one still working, and through some beautiful scenery to the top of the mountain with Kingman somewhere on the other side.  We saw the remains of rusted out, old wrecked cars, that apparently had missed some of the curves.  Mazie and I did a little rock climbing here.  This is still part of the old Route 66.

Burros

We turned around and drove back into town, and just missed the 12:00 gunfight, but this time the burros had arrived.  The Oatman herd is 10 females and 1 male, and there were two babies with them.  We were told that once the babies get about 6 months old, they take them and they get adopted out.  The shops sell little bales of hay to feed to the burros, so they are not afraid of people and will come right up and head butt you if they see you carrying a bag.  The babies can't be fed, though, because they might choke, so they have signs posted on their heads to not feed them. 





My Favorite

I was ready to take this little one home with me.  It was as soft as a teddy bear.

Gunfight

We had lunch at the old hotel, did a little more shopping (I had to find me a burro for the front dash) and hung around long enough to catch the 2:00 shootout.  Then back to the RV, and a little more R&R (happy hour for the guys, gambling for the girls).

We went through one other casino, but Mazie was anxious to get back to her Bombs Away.  She won a little again, and I lost.  Do you see a pattern here????  The guys were supposed to join us for dinner, but they got lazy so we grabbed a bite and headed back to camp.  Day 2 was over, and tomorrow we should arrive in Death Valley