June 2nd, 2011
Unfortunately we didn't make it to the Grand Canyon. Tonight we're staying at the Silver Queen Inn in Kingman, Arizona. It was 9 pm and we were still driving so we decided to pull over and find a place to stay for the night. We were hoping we'd find a campground but no such luck. Kingman is the opposite of Baker which only had two sketchy motels to choose from - Kingman has too many hotels to choose from. It was hard to decide on which one. Mike told me I was in charge of picking, so I settled on a place called The Silver Queen Inn. I liked the name, it didn't look too creepy, but most of all I was tired of driving around. It's ok. It passed the bed bug test but it stinks of fake chemical cleaner. Eh well. You can't have it all.
Today was great. We started off by checking out the alien jerky place. Clearly the guy who ran the place was not a fan of our president since there was Tea Party crap everywhere like "Obamacare Hot Sauce" that had a ridiculous label depicting Obama in an unflattering manner. We picked up some space cowboy jerky, an Area 51 mug, and Dublin Dr. Pepper, which we've been looking for forever! It's apparently quite delicious.
After that we drove into the Mojave National Preserve. What a beautiful place! The Kelso sand dunes were incredible. You're driving through a brown and red hued desert and all of a sudden you see giant beige sand dunes rising up in the distance. I had no idea sand dunes like that existed anywhere outside beaches or the Sahara desert. We hiked through the dunes and saw lizards, a small groundhog type guy, and an adorable little fox. They were all the same beige color as the sand. There was a movie crew filming a scene with what looked like an Arabian ninja and a snake oil salesman from an old time medicine show. We saw the Arabian ninja guy from a distance and thought it was some guy LARPing in the middle of the desert. Ha.
Did you know the Mojave National Preserve contains the largest Joshua Tree forest in the world? It's true. We drove through it and wow, what an incredible and odd sight. Miles upon miles of those bizarre Dr. Suess trees.
Driving through Las Vegas was hard for me. You know how I love to look at things and Vegas has lots of bizarre architecture and interesting billboards to gawk at. Advertisements for bankruptcy lawyers, magic shows, bunion removal, and strip clubs...Las Vegas is not my bag but I still find it interesting to look at and wonder about. A place where "sin" is sanctioned. America's puritanical uptightness manifests itself in the weirdest of ways.
We spent so much time messing around in Mojave that we missed the last 2 hour tour at the Hoover Dam. We made it to the last minute 30 minute tour at 5 without a minute to spare. It was still fascinating though. What an incredible feat of engineering! Good job, humanity! And the Art Deco design is perfect. We both love Art Deco so we spent a lot of time ooh-ing and ah-ing over the architectural details. I think if they built that dam today they would have designed it to be built in the most ugly, inexpensive, and utilitarian way possible. Sigh.
Alright. I'm tired. Time for bed. Tomorrow the plan is to wake up early and hit the road and get to the GC before all the good camp sites are gone. Wish us luck... and stay tuned.
the trick is to wake up and hit the road EARLY, yes. Sounds like a good day. I can't wait to read your next installment. Good luck on finding a camp sight.
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