Kingman, Arizona

Our next destination after Las Vegas was Kingman, Arizona.  After sitting for a bit over six weeks, it was with a slight bit of apprehension that we fired up the rig.  It turned right over as always, the slides pulled in, and the chassis aired up exactly as it was supposed to and always has for us.  We rolled south out of Las Vegas and across the new Hoover Dam bridge we had visited during our Vegas stay.  It was as uneventful in the motor home as it was as the car.  We pulled into the left lane of the two on our side of the bridge as the road signs indicated.  We could just barely see over the outer walls of the bridge.  There weren’t any winds blowing through the canyon that day.  There was nothing to it.  And we caught the shot below right of the ribbons of road on the other side of the bridge in this barren rocky landscape.

At our first rest stop after crossing the bridge, we caught some great views of the Colorado River south of Hoover Dam passing through the rocky terrain it had cut a channel through.

We were going to Kingman for some personal business.  About 35 years ago, Gary bought some investment property in that area.  It had been a number of years since we were last down that way so we wanted to go visit the “ranch” and check out land values in the area.  Our parcel was once part of a large cattle ranch.  The roads back to it get progressively rougher so we rented a 4X4 pickup truck to get back there.  The last mile is just a jeep trail not really wide enough for a rented truck so we parked and walked back in the rest of the way.  Land prices peaked there a few years back and then declined along with the housing bust.  They have recovered a bit so we will be getting it on the market within the next year.  Anyone need a half-mile square of Arizona property that has a spring, trees, and some amazing views?

Kingman was a good place to decompress a bit from Vegas.  Kingman is a growing town and the valley is surrounded by various ranges of mountains.  It was a significant stop on Route 66 and is in the heart of the longest remaining continuous stretch of that storied highway.  We were taking in bit of the highway in the older section of the town when we just happened to see a building that had Black Bridge Brewery written on its window.  We stopped and found a new brewery that was only about two months old and wasn’t yet even in the the listing of Brewing News.  We gave the owner/brewer a copy of the magazine article about our travels and brewery visits.  He is a now former homebrewer who is living the dream of opening his own brewery business.  He was using equipment he had improvised instead of commercial brewing equipment.  He was putting out great brew and seemed to be attracting a crowd each of the three times we wound up visiting his establishment.

We rode up into the Hualapai Mountains where a number of people of Kingman live partially to escape the summer heat of the valley.  We envision our property looking like this one of these days.  We caught a shop of some strange-looking wildlife up in those mountains as well.  Beware!