I’m back from another wonderful 3,300 mile, three and a half week motorcycle journey around the Southwest, so here’s the first video from the trip; I hope you like it :)
To me, Oatman, Arizona is the most distinctive surviving “old west” town in the Southwest, so I always enjoy motorcycling through it whenever I’m in that part of the country. Oatman is on the famous old Route 66, known as “The Mother Road”, and when the “modern highway” (to ME, “modern highway” translates directly as: “BORRRING!!!” LOL) Interstate 40 was completed, negating the need to travel 63 miles on the narrow winding Route 66 via Oatman, one would THINK that Oatman would have gone the way of many similar small towns along Route 66, and would quietly have died away. The unique character of Oatman, however, has allowed it to continue to be a town frequented by other bikers, RVers, and those wanting to relive the old days via old Route 66. Often times you can still see old Model T Fords, and other vintage cars traveling slowly through town.
About 30 minutes after I arrived in Oatman, a bunch of other bikers rumbled into town on their big V-twins, and it turned out they were travelers mainly from England, with some of the bikers also from Sweden and Greece, so they were all part of a tour that was biking the entire length of Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles.
The mountainous portion of Route 66, with its tight turns and steep dropoffs, from Kingman, Arizona to Oatman was considered so intimidating to “flat landers” during the 1930s and 40s, that many of them would hire locals to drive their cars through that area, rather than attempt it themselves. (As you can imagine, most adrenaline junkie motorcyclists like me LOVE the challenge of that stretch of narrow, mountainous road LOL)
One of the fun highlights of Oatman are the wild burros that roam around the town. These burros are the direct descendants of the burros that were used by Gold Miners as pack animals during the Gold Rush days. When the mines dried up, the miners released the burros to roam the arid Southwest.
Here’s a website that talks about the burros of Oatman: http://www.oatmangoldroad.com/burros.htm and here’s a website describing the quirky nature of this interesting town: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13961
The song for the video is “Run Mustang Run” by Lacy J. Dalton. The song is obviously NOT about burros, but is about the wild mustangs which also inhabit the Southwest along with the burros, but I like the sentiments in the song and how it goes with the video clips, and, at the end of the day, they’re all “equine” :) Here’s one final website link that talks about both the mustangs and the burros: http://www.gatewaytosedona.com/article/id/518/page/1
Rating: User: LifeJourneyGuy 2008-06-19T19:35:29.55Z
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LifeJourneyGuy | Oatman | Arizona | Burros | Travel | and | Events | Route | 66 | Old | West | Towns | Animals | Southwest | Equine |