The day started off with driving along
one of those long, hot straight roads, into the distance. By this time
in my travels, I was becoming accustomed to such roads. Along the sides
of Interstate 40 lay such towns as Seligman, Kingman and Peach Springs.
These were the real heart of Route
66. This is the only point where 75 miles of the historic highway survives
intact and away from the I40. However there was no time for wandering round
these towns, lovely though they were. For now they will remain pictures in a travel brochure, but one day I shall return.
 <
|
At Kingman, the I40 swings south round the Hualpi Mountains and into California. However, I was now heading north on highway 93 towards the Hoover Dam. Highway 93 starts straight, flat and wide, but as it approaches the Colorado river, it starts to rise into the mountains with many twists and turns, and then suddenly, with little warning you appear on the clifftop looking out above Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. |
|
A parking lot on this clifftop allows the traveler to stop and look down
onto the dam and lake in the canyon way below, then the road zigzags slowly
down the side of the canyon through several parking lots and then onto
the top of the dam and from Arizona into Nevada. Although there are several
car parks available, these were all very much close to bursting point,
due to the immense number of visitors who had also journeyed to view this
feat of engineering. Eventually, I managed to find a space, and made my
way over to the visitor centre. I had been under the impression that Winslow
was a little bit warm, but this was seriously hot. |
|
|
You have the choice of going on the 35 minute tour which departs every 10 minutes, or the hour long "hard hat" tour which departs hourly. From the visitor centre you drop over 500 feet in an elevator through the rock sides of the Canyon to the base of the dam to start the tour. When the tour concludes, you are free to wander round the obligatory souvenir and gift shop. |
| The dam was built in one of the narrowest parts of the Colorado Rivers course as this area is formed from very hard and stable granite. The Dam was built from 1931-1934 and contains enough concrete to build a two lane highway, six inches deep from San Francisco to New York. 96 people lost their lives during the construction project, and this is where the design of the construction workers hard hat evolved. For their efforts the workers were paid the princely sum of 60cents per hour, but in the midst of the great depression workers from all over the country flooded into the area to seek work. The mammoth project was undertaken by a combined effort of the six largest construction companies in the land, but amazingly was completed well within budget. In 1930, before work began, Las Vegas (30 miles away) had a population of just 2500, and water was on sale at 25cents for 5 gallons!! The building of the dam with the ability to store water for irrigation and consumption, coupled with generation of electricity gave birth to the population boom of this part of the country. |
|
|
From the Hoover dam, the road climbs out of the Canyon into Nevada and onto Las Vegas, where it joins onto Interstate 15. It was now 4pm on Friday afternoon, and, believe it or not, the roads around Vegas have much in similar with any other city at that time of the day/week. Had I been a couple of hours earlier, I would have taken time to drive down the strip, but with another 100 miles or so before me, I pressed onwards. |
I was heading to a town called Baker, which I had located on the map, conveniently located between Las
Vegas and Los Angeles which was my destination tomorrow.
An hour or so south of Las Vegas
the town of Primm came and went, and with that I passed over the border
into California. The traffic was heavy but we were getting slower and slower,
and after about 20 miles we stopped completely. For an excruciating two
hours, we crawled along, until, just a few miles short of Baker, the two
lanes picked up speed and we were moving again. I could see no reason for
the delay, and apart from one police car which went past on the shoulder,
there was no sign of official presence.
It was something of a relief when the exit for Baker appeared and I left the interstate to seek a motel for
the night. Sitting at the end of the exit ramp were as many police cars as could be fitted on the ramp and as many policemen as probably existed,
here in the middle of nowhere.
On checking in at a motel, I enquired about the general state of chaos outside, and was informed that a policeman
had pulled over a motorist (for reasons unknown) and, taking exception to this, the motorist pulled a gun and shot the policeman. Now what did
that sign I passed a few hours back tell me, oh yes, "Welcome to California". Oh Dear. I never did find out what happened to the poor policeman.
|
Baker, California. The name sounds innocent enough, but there was something my map had neglected to tell me. Here was a town, in the middle of nowhere (just an empty space on the map), about halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, but in fact it was in the middle of the Mojave Desert, on the edge of Death Valley. And boy, was it seriously HOT or what? I had previously thought Winslow was hot, and then changed my mind to consider the Hoover dam as really hot, but now I had to reconsider again. |
| Death Valley holds the record as the warmest place in America, set in 1934 at 56 degrees (134F) and to commemorate this fact, the town of Baker sports a 134 foot high thermometer on the side of mainstreet, which can be seen from many miles away on the I15 (I had wondered what this big thing was for a while before getting into town). I arrived an hour or so before sunset when the temperature was just 112F, and by sundown it had cooled to a respectable 107F. Interesting that the top scale on the thermometer is 134. I'm not sure what happens if the temperature exceeds this point, I would prefer not to be around to find out. |
|
Apart from this claim to fame, Baker does not comprise of much, a couple of shops, motels, restaurants
and a gas station or two. Most definitely a two street town. However, I must make mention of the best Cable TV channel I found throughout my travels
in the USA. If memory serves me right it was Channel 37, billed as the "Pool Channel". And yes, you've guessed right. It was Bakers outdoor
public swimming pool, right there on town-wide Cable TV! During the many hours I spent watching (joke!), there was not a single swimmer with enough
courage to get into the pool in front of the eyes of the town, and I had to content myself with viewing the pretty mountains in the distance.
Baker townsfolk obviously live a fun filled life.
