June 18th - Kingman, Arizona (BST -7hrs)

The El Rancho is billed as a former “home of the stars”, as many westerns were made in the area during the 40’s and 50’s and numerous actors had stayed there. The bedrooms may be a little on the small side by today’s standards, but the hotel retains a lot of its retro charm. It also serves good steaks and Mexican dishes, and has a bar of its own. Not staying in the ‘official’ Rally HQ hotel (the ghastly Red Roof Inn) meant that we were pretty well free to choose our own itinerary for the day.

I was concerned that Mum would be worried if I didn’t call again today, so borrowed John’s mobile and left him to order breakfast. It was a beautiful morning as I sat outside in the sun, listening to birds nesting in the eaves of the hotel. It was quite warm compared with previous years, but there was still a pleasant cool breeze.

We blew through the Painted Desert but stopped in Winslow, Arizona. The Eagles’ famous ‘corner’ has been reconstructed after a fire last year, and it was now cordoned off with a police escort awaiting the main group. Again, very impressive organisation from George for his first year as Rally Master. I put some postcards in the post and posed with John for the obligatory photo, with the bronze statue, in front of the mural of the girl in the flat-bed Ford. We then speeded on to Flagstaff to sort out Joanne’s spectacle issue and had lunch while waiting for the new glasses.

The Gallup to Kingman day is one of my favourites of the Rally. The next stop was in Williams, Arizona, for a chocolate malt at Twisters. Then we joined I-40 as far as Seligman, where John had hoped to get Angelo Delgadillo to cut his hair. Here we met up with fellow stragglers, Willie and Jim (”the Irish”), Mark and Cathy, and Karen and her group.

Karen has been riding as much old road as possible due to Ed’s nephew, Mike, having the ropiest bike on the Rally. At speeds over 60, it develops an expensive-sounding knocking, so they have been keeping off the Interstates, with occasional comical consequences.

Today’s adventure began when a stretch of road they believed to be original Route 66, turned to gravel. They stopped and asked a police officer whether they could ride through. Reassured, they ignored a couple of warning signs, and found themselves in a flooded underpass, which was supported by scaffolding. The bikes, including Mike’s ancient Goldwing, made it through, but Bill’s trailer was simply too wide to pass between the supports. Determined not to be outdone, the four of them, Bill, Dave, Karen and Mike, unhitched the trailer, tipped it on edge, and carried it through. Sterling stuff, you might think. However, a few hundred yards further on, the gravel road petered out and became dirt … Reluctantly, they came to the conclusion that this was not Route 66 after all, and so began the painful process of retracing the 16 miles or so to where they had started.

We arrived in Kingman around 6.15pm: earlier than usual, but just slightly too late to join George for his night-time ride to the ghost town of Chloride.

This entry was posted on 19/06/2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under US Trip 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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