After leaving Twin Lakes, we hit the long, boring, and HOT I40 into Kingman, AZ. Multiple sightings of motorcycles on the road as there is some kind of big biker thing going on in Laughlin, NV this weekend.
I always remember Needles as the worst town because when I was a kid, we would always be coming through this during the summer and, of course, we didn't have air conditioning in our car back then. It was always sooooooHOT!. I thought that April would be a little different, but it wasn't.
We were going to stop in Needles for lunch and top off gas, but I saw a sign advertising a Pilot truck stop 9 miles into AZ that advertised gas at $2.93 a gallon unleaded. We haven't seen any gas under $3 a gallon in a very long time, so we continued to the truck stop. Pilot has special RV lanes and two sets of pumps, but some lamebrain had parked his car pulling a trailer with a small airplane in the gas line. So, lots of RV's lined up to gas at one pump. Tons of bikers were gathered as well and it seemed like all the vehicles on I40 had decided to stop at this station.
It was a short hop into Kingman where we had decided to stay the night, in fact two nights since we really dislike one night stands. The good news at the RV park was that we were right next to the pool, bad news - pool broken. We haven't been in hot weather in so long that it seemed unbearably hot, but was only about 91 degrees. Thank goodness for air conditioning, and thank goodness that we will be headed out to the mountains on Monday and get out of this heat!
Today, we went to our first Super WalMart in about six weeks. Apparently, they have never taken off well in LA. After shopping, we found a great dog park, probably one of the best we've ever been to. It had lots of shade and green grass and a small water fountain on the dog's level. Madison had a great time as there were also several young children who just loved to throw Madison's toys for her to retrieve.
Kingman has always been special to me. The summer I turned 15, my mother and I drove out to California to pick up my brother who had been living with our grandparents. On the way out, about an hour or two outside of Kingman, we were caught in a flash flood. Actually, we didn't run into trouble, just heavy rain, but several cars ahead of us were swept off the road. We were stranded on Route 66 for hours and hours until the water receded, and they rescued the cars who had been swept off the road.
By the time we drove into Kingman, we were starving to death. We found a restaurant right off the highway and had dinner. I always remember Kingman as the home of the best shrimp dinner I ever had in my life. When we left the dog park today, we took a tour of historic Route 66 in downtown Kingman looking for the elusive shrimp restaurant. Alas, it is no longer there
 No Shrimp |
Tomorrow we head for Williams, AZ and cooler climes!
