Today, we drove from Prescott, AZ, Northward to pick up Historic Old Route 66. Then, we drove from Ash Fork along the old highway through Seligman and on down to Kingman. When in Kingman, we stopped at the Harley Davidson dealership to look at the nice hardware and buy a souvenir tank top with the “Mother Road” and Kingman, AZ art on it.
You’ve seen pictures of the highway before, but I wanted to share this beautiful “Red Bird of Paradise” or “Pride of Barbados” blooming outside the Harley building. People often mistakenly call this the Mexican Bird of Paradise, but either of the two names I mentioned are correct. This is one of my very favorite shrubs – sadly, it doesn’t do well in our garden – too cool and not sunny enough, so I’ll just have to keep coming to visit them. Better yet, maybe I’ll live somewhere soon where they thrive.
Click the image to humongify . . .
Somewhere south of Kingman, either on state route 151 or some un-numbered road, you will run into ‘Nowhere’, Arizona. It’s not on any map that know of, but I accidently ran into it some years ago by getting off the beaten path. As soon as I saw the sign over the only building, “Nowhere”, I recalled the On-The-Road series by Charles Kurault…ole Charlie been there, done that.
A couple of years ago, we drove the old Route 66 to Oatman from Kingman. What an adventure that was – winding narrow mountain roads and beautiful scenery the whole way. Not the fastest way to the Colorado River from Kingman, but a spectacular trip.
As much as I love the mountains and the scenery and the years of skiing…and although I spent a career in the Air Force…there’s nothing like the water. Real water, that is! As in ocean! Its the boat thing. Not just any boat. Anybody can drive a boat, but it takes a little bit of skill to SAIL!
Sailing out of the Rhode Island Yacht Club some years ago my wife Debbie, when she came along, always insisted on a northerly route up the Providence River. For if she could not see land on either side, then we were out too far. On the other hand, if I could not see land at all, I was not out far enough…I always did like the challenge of heading south to no-man’s-land (that’s no land at all) and then finding my way back…with or without those new toys (GPS etc).