Saturday, Feb. 14/15 - Happy Valentines Day!

After we left Laughlin,NV. we headed back over the bridge across the Colorado River to Bullhead City, AZ. to find a Starbucks to get a collector mug for Kyla.

We GPS’d it and found the closest one just happened to be in Safeway - a double hitter seeing that we needed a few odds and ends. I went inside while Dale stayed in the Rig with Henry. I found the mug right away but I was 13th. in line to pay and every customer had to have their order taken and cup written out etc.etc.etc. - 25 minutes later!

Kyla's Arizona Mug

I think that there should be a rule that if you’re collecting something you should have to go and get it yourself - not have Mom & Dad bring them from their world travels! Groceries were bought and the blog was done using their WiFi and away we went. 

We decided to see a little more of Route 66, as we had a bit of a sidetrack so south towards Needles,CA. we went. We headed west on I-40 and took the signed exit to “old Route 66”. We went over the freeway to the other side where we found the road barricaded - washout! Why don’t they sign it on the freeway exit sign????? Turn around in the gravel - hoping not to get stuck and back over the freeway and onto the ramp, once more heading west on the I-40. I got out the map to plot us a new destination and saw Mitchell Caverns - that sounded like a good place and wasn’t that far ahead. Soon we saw an exit sign but it said Providence Mountains S.R. so not sure if that was it we went by. It was it! I got out the map again and saw Kelso, quickly googled it seeing as we had service and it sounded good - an old train depot in an abandoned town since 1985 turned into a visitors Centre for the Mojave Reserve.

We took the right exit and started out on our favourite type of road - a slow, winding, hardly used backroad. We stopped a few times for “Kodak Moments”.

We didn't see a one!

We saw a sign that said “Watch for Tortoises on road”! I was a little nervous about crazy stampeding tortoises and so we kept our eyes peeled but didn’t see a one. We did see a dead rabbit as road kill so it only goes to show - if they got the rabbits crossing the road -Tortoises didn’t stand a chance!

About mid afternoon we hit the old town of Kelso. We toured the Visitors Centre, watched a film about the Mojave Desert Reserve and it’s inhabitants, checked out the other exhibits, visited the usual gift shop (Bought nothing once again - all the same old stuff with a different name stuck on it) and headed out into the desert again. I did talk a little to the park ranger there and asked about the Tortoises. Apparently it’s the #1 mortality rate for Tortoises so they like people to be aware of it.

 As it was nearing 5:00 PM, we were feeling kind of peckish so we started to look for a site for the night. We passed a number of RV’s out in the distance but didn’t want to disturb them so we kept looking. It wasn’t too long before we found a great location just off the main road. We were quickly settled in and having a chicken & vegetable stir-fry/soup - it was going to be a stir-fry but I decided I was too hungry and didn’t want to create a “thickening gravy” clean up mess so I served it in bowls with the broth instead. It was Yummy. We stared at the stars for a while - the sky is amazing out in the middle of the desert. Off to bed with a thriller movie - “Gone Girl” with Ben Affleck which we really enjoyed.