Monday 13th April
We left earlyish for Las Vegas this morning hoping to follow the Route 66 to Kingman rather than the interstate and I managed to mis the turning and ended up on a small road that looked to be going the same direction so carried on but then it just ran out and turned to gravel as we had a full tank of gas we thought we would just follow it and see where we ended up. At worst we would turn around and come back. There were a couple of side tracks along the way which we ignored, then we came across the train line and had the choice of turning left along side it or crossing over. As Route 66 is said to follow the railway I decided to do the same. We stopped to take a couple of picks and decided to carry on, shortly after the road got much rougher and 2 up with a full tank and fully loaded with luggage it took a great deal of concentration. I took my eye off the road for a quick glimpse of the scenery and ended up in a shallow gravelly rut, and found it quite difficult to get the bike out of it having road tyres was not a great help but added to the fun. We saw loads of squirrels who like to run across in front of you. Then all of a sudden it came to an end and we rejoined the highway.

We kept on the old Route 66 as much as we could but after Kingsman we had no choice it was the interstate or nothing. It was getting hotter by the minute now, we stopped for a drink and parked our bike in amongst a bunch of unfriendly Germans on rental Harley's, we then carried on to Kingman where we stopped for some food and petrol before we turned on to the interstate.

We took a brief excursion to the Hoover dam, it's now 95f. They have heavy security at the Hoover dam and we had been told that they often stop motorcyclists and search there luggage especially heavy loaded bikes with foreign plates. But we sailed through no problems. We road through the dam stopped took a few quick pics and got back on the bike as it was just to hot and no shade anywhere. On our way out there was the group of Germans on Harley's, they had been stopped and were being searched. The dam was impressive but what I find bewildering is the drought they have had for 3 or 4 years has left the lake very low so low that apparently if it gets much lower it will stop generating power, yet they seem to be carrying on regardless using water as much as they like where as in UK if the sun shines for more than a week we have a hose pipe ban.

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