Sun, 13 August 2000

Holbrook to Kingman

Due to some confusion over time zones, we accidentally set off early from Holbrook. Again, today has been a tear-along-the-Interstate day, rather than a meander-along-old-route-66 day. One thing we did stop for was the Jack Rabbit Trading Post - it's a Route 66 landmark, which had ad hoardings alongside the road for hundreds of miles in either direction. We bought some trinkets, but we weren't particularly impressed - there was nothing there to make it stand out from the dozens of other gift shops along the route.

Jack Rabbit Trading PostDebbie Rides a RabbitJohn Rides a Rabbit

Near Two Guns, we stopped to visit the Meteor Crater. It's an enormous hole in the ground, and well worth a visit. They have some nice ariel photograph postcards, but my lens didn't zoom wide enough to get anything like a reasonable idea of how the place looks.

From there on it was a solid 180 miles to get to Kingman, our designated pre-Las-Vegas stop.

What do you least expect to find in Arizona in August? How about hail? In Arizona you see thunderstorms long before you reach them, or they reach you, and we drove through several today, some of which reduced our visibility to about 15 metres. Bypassing Flagstaff we noticed what we thought was spray from speeding lorries creating a mist effect. Then we realised it was either mist or low cloud. We got off the Interstate to investigate what we thought might be settled snow. Cocooned as we were in our comfy air-conditioned car, we were surprised to find it was cold outside - and the white on the floor was settled hail.

Coldness, near FlagstaffHail, near FlagstaffIt's chilly in Flagstaff

Now wer're learning from the TV news that a hiker was killed by a lightning strike in Arizona today.

We're in the El Trovatore Hotel in Kingman, which is quite scummy, but dirt cheap and it has enormous rooms. There's also a great view of the surrounding mountains, and some funky neon.

We ate at House of Chan, a recommended Chinese buffet. It was OK, but the storms were keeping people at home, and there weren't enough customers to create a good atmosphere, or to maintain a high enough food throughput so that the food didn't spoil on the counter.