It's That Road Again

Having arrived in Needles we were once again on Route 66. As we drove through the quiet town it definitely had the air of having been bypassed by Interstate 40. We had planned to stay at North Shore RV, as  it appeared to be reasonably priced, only to find that it is a privately owned club, which we clearly did not belong to. So we pulled into what looked like a very seedy motel and RV park next door, only to find that once past the rather rundown gate, that it was a very pretty little park which enabled us to camp right beside the Colorado River. Very pleasant. We spent some time in the evening just sitting by the river, which flows very fast at this point, which is about 30 miles south of Lake Mojave and 100 miles south of Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam.

Sunday morning we set out to cross the Mojave Desert to reach the more populated areas of California. Before leaving Needles we drove to the site of the Harvey House restaurant, which in 1909, when it was built, was called the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of the Harvey Houses. How times change, Needles has been bypassed, the railway is used almost exclusively for freight and the town has died. ‘The Jewel in The Crown’ is now just an empty shell.

One thing that was becoming more apparent is that Route 66 substantially followed the East West Rail track. What was also apparent was that there is an enormous amount of freight transported by rail. Every few minutes we passed giant trains moving across the desert. We counted one train at 151 wagons long, being hauled by 4 locos. The bulk of the wagons had containers piled two high on them, taking freight from the giant cargo boats coming into Long Beach from China to the Eastern and Northern States. One could imagine the containers full of T-shirts, toys TVs and goods already for distribution to Wal-Mart’s, for us to buy them.

Rather than driving on the probably very bumpy I40 we followed the old Route 66 where possible. It was till desert, but had that historic feel to it. We stopped only in Amboy, which is a town built by a man named Roy, who in the 50’s saw great things for this part of the desert, that is until the I40 bypassed it. His legacy is the place known as Roys Motel and Café, which is now an iconic destination on Route 66. The 50’s Motel is still there complete with furniture, just locked up, the little motel ‘houses’ are still there and you can walk through them, though they are stripped bare. The café does not serve food and had nearly run out of gas ($4.99 p gal). The owners seemed content to let it return to the desert from which it started, in contrast to a lot of the places on Route 66 which are trying to develop the Route 66 industry. Driving on a few miles we stopped at Bagdad for our picnic lunch. We knew it was the town of Bagdad because the map said so, the town had been abandoned and all buildings had gone. All that was left was a couple of people looking for stuff with metal detectors. We couldn’t even find the sign for the town.

We rejoined I40 only to turn North at Daggett. We crossed Route 66, but could not find the border patrol point mentioned in Grapes Of Wrath, where to get into California they had to lie about Granny needing to get to see a doctor (she had died about an hour before). Driving up into the mountains we crossed the I15 at Peggy Sue’s Diner, continuing on to the Calico Ghost Town County Park and RV Park.

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