I arrived in Bullhead Arizona at the home of one of my oldest friends in the late afternoon. Along the way, I drove through some of southern California/western Arizona desert and I gotta tell you- Californians/Arizonans take their desert fun seriously.
I had been driving along, mile after miles of empty asphalt, sand, and what appeared to be dead plants, wondering why anyone had bothered to put a road here when I found myself passing through Imperial Sand Dunes, a B.L.M. (Bureau of Land Management) Recreation Area. Suddenly the empty road was dotted with squat cinder block buildings renting dune buggies and dune bikes and selling everything needed to spend several days blasting around on the sand dunes. Pretty cool.
Anyway. Back to Bullhead. Not a whole lot to talk about. I’d arrived on Memorial Day weekend so most everything was closed except for a Smith’s not far from my friend’s place so we were able to stock up on alcohol and ice and just spend a companionable day and a half together. We have that type of relationship where we can talk every few weeks or go for months on end without speaking and just pick up the thread of conversation where we left it. So we sat and talked and had the TV on but didn’t really watch it. At one point we called Miss Carol and it was during our three-way that she told me not to hurry home, that she was binge watching the French Open and didn’t miss me that much yet. I love my wife.
Bullhead was relaxing. Bullhead was also where the rest of my trip completely changed.
Originally, after I left San Diego, I had been planning on going north to Santa Monica and drive Route 66 end-to-end but that changed after I learned that a LOT of the original 66 is now interstate. So then I decided to head south after my visit to Bullhead into Texas and maybe to El Paso where I was born. But then I found out that approximately one hundred miles of the original Route 66 was just east of Kingman so I decided to drive that and then head south into Texas. But THEN my laptop continued giving me problems and after lengthy troubleshooting with Apple it was decided that I needed have my operating system deleted and re-installed at an Apple store.
Turns out there are only two Apple stores near Bullhead. One in Las Vegas, a 2 1/2 hour drive in the wrong direction and one in Albuquerque New Mexico which was in the right direction but was on Interstate 40. There is nothing wrong with 40, it’s just that I’d been trying to stay off of the big interstates and drive the smaller highways which are typically more interesting.
I’d become addicted to my laptop, so Albuquerque and 40 it was. But not until after I got a taste of Route 66.
oceandoggy.com 