8-18-2010 Kingman AZ

The first jump in this journey of mine is not very far. A scant hundred or so miles up to Kingman, Arizona.

 

 

A trip to see my Uncle Donnie, whom I haven’t seen in years. This is him:

I spent two nights up here getting to re-know him, and it has been an absolute blast.

We had dinner at ‘the’ mexican joint in town – El Palacio. Great taco, decent chile rellano.

 

I took the dog out for a five mile jog in the desert, which was beautiful but hot. The local wildlife, a few coyotes, decided to start yipping and yapping at us so we turned around. They followed us for about a quarter mile, which was a little disconcerting. Motivation to jog a little faster, I suppose.

 

After the jog we headed into historic downtown Kingman, located on Route 66, to take some pictures.

 

We visited the scenic Mohave County Courthouse:

 

 

They’ve got a thing for trains downtown, as evidenced by this mural on a water tower:

 

As well as this big display piece with a park all to itself:

 

Of course, there are all sorts of Rt-66 specific shops, as you’d expect. Like Mr. D’z:

 

And of course, it wouldn’t be Route 66 if there weren’t Harleys around:

 

After our jaunt downtown Scrappy and I headed up to Hualapai Mountain park to get a hike in. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. As we pulled up to the pay station the little pitter patter of rain drops started to hit the windshield. Within minutes the huge storm that had been on the other side of the mountain crashed into the park grounds, soaking everything. We decided to drive away instead of wait, which turned out to be a good thing. I kept looking at the mountain throughout the day and it rained up there for a solid five hours!

 

 

The afternoon was spent vegging out at the house, making lunch and editing photos. Today I got in a workout before leaving Unc’s house, and now I’m all packed up and ready to head to Phoenix to see my friend Matt.