Route 66 to Alaska: Mojave Desert

We left Searchlight, NV this morning before 7:00 in order to beat the triple digit heat that was forecast for parts west in California. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with the owner of this place last night. Brad is from Australia and Ling is from the Philippines. They provided us with a very large, comfortable room with a kitchen, but it was Ling's entertainment that we shall remember the most.

Another beautiful day in sunny California, though I did feel as though we went to a California spa. We were treated to a sauna, a deep tissue massage, an old fashioned shaker and a skin exfoliation. We drove through part of the Mojave Desert, so the near triple digit temperatures were the sauna, the deep tissue massage was the wind flapping my shirt pounding it into my skin, the old fashioned shaker were the terrible roads that shook us, and lastly, the skin exfoliation was the sand being driven into our skin. All in all, not a bad spa experience; so cheap, almost free.

Another day with beautiful mountains, though every day from this point on we will be seeing mountains.

As we are driving in the absolute middle of nowhere, I mean there are no buildings around, no animal life, no fences and no sign of people anywhere, we come across a gas station oasis. We knew we would need to stop as there is no other station for miles.

The sign tips us off that we may be in for a surprise...

...and yep, welcome to Oasis California...

but you pay for the ambiance!

This is a chunk of the old mother road that is in deep need of repair. Seeing this road in this condition, it is hard to envision the day when this road carried all travelers west. As Angel Dellgadillo stated, it used to take him 15 minutes to wait for traffic to clear in order for him to cross the street.

We were surprised when we encountered County road trucks with large plow blades attached. We then realized that they plow sand off of the roads.

And another great oasis in the middle of nowhere is the Bagdad Cafe. Bagdad is a ghost town along Route 66. It was founded in the 1880s due to the railroad being nearby. When I-40 bypassed the town, most of the businesses and people moved away. This old cafe stayed and a movie and even a TV show carried the same name. After the movie, the cafe chose to rename itself to whatever name it used to be. This appears to be a must stop for all bikers. As we were waiting to get waited on, a tourist group on a bus pulled up.

The walls and ceiling are decorated with T-shirts, hats and flags of people passing through.

Even one section for police patches from all over.

A word about the railroad; the railroad came through this area in the mid 1800s. Route 66 mostly follows the railroad tracks. I was not aware of the prevalence of so many trains until this trip. While staying in Flagstaff I heard trains constantly passing. As I researched, I found that Flagstaff has up to 100 trains pass a day. Virtually every train we have passed has been a BNSF (Burlington North and Santa Fe) train. Most every train has 5-7 locomotives either pushing or pulling or a combination thereof. They are after all, hauling through the mountains.