Heading North and Lookin’ for the Strange Stuff!

 

With all of our years traveling throughout the United States, we have always enjoyed some of the unique and strange attractions we find along the road.  So with our trip north to our summer volunteer positions at The National Elk Refuge planned out, we set our sights on seeing and experiencing some of the “Strange Stuff” along the way.

After our winter stay at the Fountain of Youth RV Park down by the Salton Sea in California, it was time to hit the road and head north.  Our first “new backyard” was at a rv park in Mohave Valley, Arizona - just south of Bullhead City and across the Colorado River from Laughlin, Nevada.  One of the many reasons we stopped here was to do a bit of geocaching in the area, which included some GeoArt.  Linda needed her Geo-Fix and this was just the cure.

GeoArt is a series of geocaches set up in a way that, when viewed from a satellite viewpoint, the total caches make up something that looks like art.  This GeoArt is a series of caches to honor the Fallen Granite Mountain Hot Shots (19 firefighters) who answered their last call on June 30, 2013 - they lost their lives on that day.  However, they will not be forgotten.  These guys and girls were the firefighters that lost their lives up near Glen Canyon in Colorado – near where we volunteered last summer.  We had visited their memorial there a couple times when we visited Glenwood Springs, Colorado.  So when Linda saw this on the Geocaching website we downloaded the coordinates and headed out for a rather long and difficult hike through the desert. When you look at the little map above it doesn’t look like a long way.  But when you consider we had a 2 1/2 mile walk to this place (and back) - plus each of those little smiley face things are a minimum of 1/10th of a mile apart – I calculated that we hiked approximately 11 to 12 miles that day - chapped lips, sunburn, really tired legs, crabby husband – yep! 11 to 12 miles alright.  But Linda did get her first complete GeoArt and a new record high number of caches in one day, so even the crabby husband had to admit it was worth it.

 No trip to the Laughlin/Bullhead City area would be complete without a side trip to the delightful little tourist town of Oatman, Arizona.  Oatman is a resurrected gold mining town along the old Route 66 – the “Mother Road” - in the Black Mountains of Mohave County, Arizona. 

 

Oatman was named in honor of Olive Oatman, a young Illinois girl who was kidnapped by the Apache and forced to work as a slave.  She was rescued in 1857 near the current site of the town bearing not only the psychological marks of her ordeal, but physical marks as well.  Traded to the Mohave tribe who adopted her as a daughter, Olive had her face tattooed to identify her as an honorary Apache and photographs of her clearly show the markings.  (I’ve noticed quite a few girls and women in the last few years that are “marked” – wonder if they know any Apaches?)  One of the things that Oatman is famous for is the unverified fact/legend that the Oatman Hotel was the Honeymoon stop for Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.  Supposedly the pics above are of the room that they used back in 1939.  Way before my time!  The story has it that they were married in Kingman, Arizona and were bothered by the ever present news people so they skipped down to Oatman, where Clark liked to play poker with the miners because they treated him just like a real person. 

 A rather bizarre, and one of the more fun things about the Oatman Hotel, is its restaurant and bar.  The walls and ceilings are covered with dollar bills!  Thousands and thousands of signed, dated dollar bills - some with messages of long lost loves - stapled, taped or stuck to the walls, ceilings and/or any fixture available.  This happens to be a hold over from the old mining days when the miners would come to the bar for a drink and the dollar bills were your tab.  Your name was placed on your bill and each time you had a drink a line was drawn on the bill.  At the time this started a beer was only about 2.5 to 5 cents a glass, so a dollar could get you well on your way to total inebriation.  When you used up your tab you would leave a new dollar bill with your name on it – that is if you could still walk!  These days visitors from all over the world leave their dollar and name.  We were no different, we left our signed dollar bill even though I did not get a beer for a mere 5 cents.  There are a number of locations similar to this, one being down in the Florida Keys, one at the Little A’Le’Inn in Nevada and another near Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas.  (That I know of.)

Some of the more famous residents of the town are the wild burros that roam free around the entire town.  They are descendents from the pack animals of the old gold mining days that were turned loose by the early prospectors that didn’t want them or need them anymore once the gold ran out.  They are now protected by the U.S. Department of the Interior, so they pretty much have the run of the town and stop traffic whenever they feel like it.  Weekends in Oatman can bring classic car shows, motorcycle rallies and the occasional mock gunfight – which seems to happen most everyday, burros included.

 

 

Just across the river from our campsite is Laughlin.  Laughlin is like a fond memory of long ago Las Vegas – a relaxed, casual, desert resort destination, instead of the glitzy cheesy overly commercialized mega resort destination of Las Vegas.  Las Vegas has its place but one doesn’t find peace and relaxation in Las Vegas as you will in Laughlin.  Laughlin is a small town on the banks of the Colorado River located on the southern tip of Nevada, 90 miles south of Las Vegas.  You really need to see a map to realize that Laughlin is like the end of a dogs tail – way down at the bottom of an iceberg shaped (some say beer can opener shaped) state.  Laughlin is also unique because it is the meeting point of three states -California, Arizona and Nevada.

Laughlin is laid back - yet has big casino hotels and tons of pretty good dining and entertainment establishments – without the traffic jams, the scammers, the hucksters, the people trying to shove nudie flyers in your face, or the accompanied rapid depletion of your wallet or purse.  Don’t get me wrong they can still do substantial injury to your purse or wallet, but they aren't quite as blatant about it.  Many people have asked me why I like Laughlin?  I guess it’s because Laughlin is still what Nevada was famous for - the old, relaxed, restful Southwest desert town with casinos, some rather cheesy outdoor entertainment that only the totally inebriated (and some of the locals) can appreciate, and the lazy meandering Colorado River nearby to boat or float on, swim in, fish in or to lull you asleep as you watch its clear waters flow by.  (But don’t be there during the annual River Run Motorcycle Rally, people get shot there when the rival clubs don’t see eye to eye.) 

 One morning we headed in to Laughlin – well, just to the north of it, to take a hiking trail that we had heard about called the Colorado River Heritage Trails.  They had just recently completed this project and now have a very nice trail system/day use area that extends from the north end of Laughlin to the Davis Dam right along the Colorado River.  The Davis Dam stretches across the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona and forms Lake Mohave.   

All too soon it was time to move the rig a little bit further north (we decided on just a little bit because it’s too cold further up north for us yet) to Nellis Air Force Base just on the north side of Las Vegas.  For those of you that don’t know, we lived in Las Vegas for a few years in a prior life and even before that we were regular visitors and have seen many years of changes to this gaudy-over-the-top city.  What can you say about the modern mega corporate - profit at all costs city?  Other friends have shared stories of a Las Vegas that has grown into a glitzy, plastic, no service, impersonal service international city – with too many, too busy people all looking to see who is looking at them.  The marketing machine here is incredible with packages for your entire stay, ensuring a calculated manipulation of reality as you pay extraordinary prices for everything you eat, drink, watch or even take a picture of.  Then if you’re still not happy with and/or have not paid enough for your experience, every channel of the local television stations have bottom feeding lawyers advertising their solutions to your being some sort of victim – just in case your luck at the casinos didn’t end well, or you have a medical problem, or a car accident, or you did something you weren’t suppose to and got caught, etc. etc. etc.  Yes, you gotta love Vegas!  They do love you – at least your money anyway! 

If you really want to see and or experience the strange stuff in Las Vegas, you have to go to Fremont Street.  Once considered a family-friendly destination (long ago) the Fremont Street Experience has morphed into a kind of otherworldly dimension where the average Vegas party-goers converge with an erotic freak show.  It isn’t for everyone and can be a bit on the extreme side.  It is an interesting and eclectic place where at times just about anything goes (some rather inappropriate) and the weird just comes out of the woodwork.  The Heart Attack Grill is an American hamburger restaurant that fits into that category quite well. From what I heard, this place started in Chandler, Arizona but got kicked out and ended up in Las Vegas – which really isn’t too much of a surprise.  It has been a bit on the controversial side with its super high calorie menu - with the Single, Double,Triple and Quadruple Bypass Burgers and their Flatliner Fries (which are cooked in pure lard) all served in a hospital themed setting with waitresses dressed as sexy nurses.  For those customers that are unable or unwilling to finish their meal, the nurses provide a robust paddling, with the option to buy the paddle afterwards.

The Quadruple Bypass Burger with its 9,982 calories has been labeled as one of the world’s worst junk foods.  It consists of four half-pound beef patties, twenty strips of bacon, eight slices of American cheese, a whole tomato and half an onion served in its own grease on a bun coated with lard. This place is very proud of the Guinness World Record it received for Quadruple Bypass Burger and even displays this sign out front.

If your wondering – no, we did not eat at this place, nor will I ever eat there.  With my real bypass history and my family genetics, it would not be in my best interests - besides there were more than enough fools in there when we visited to keep them very, very busy.

 

 

 

 

Down Fremont Street from the Heart Attack Grill is a place they call Container Park.  It’s a sort of activity hub made up of you guessed it - large shipping containers.  It also has a rather unique recycled metal giant Praying Mantis blasting 20 foot flames out of it’s antennae at random moments, occasionally accompanied by music. Another one of those little odd things that we like to discover as we travel. 

For those of you who are not familiar with Fremont Street in Las Vegas, it is the original downtown Las Vegas "Glitter Gulch" which has been blocked off from traffic and turned into a five-block pedestrian mall (and, at dusk, an occasional and fierce wind tunnel). It's lined on either side by extravagant, neon-fronted casinos, bars and strip clubs, and infested with all kinds of music, shops, sidewalk performers, panhandlers and the occasional lonely Christian missionary.  

Along the downtown section of Fremont Street, the five block section is covered with a 90 foot towering canopy of more than twelve million LED modules, 1,500 feet in length which after dusk turns into the Biggest Big Screen on the planet.  At intervals the neon along all five blocks goes dark while short animated "movies" play with music booming sound from it’s 550,000 watt sound system.  This part of Las Vegas is the ultimate block party where each night there is live entertainment on some or all of the three concert stages.  There is a group of unique (and sometimes) bizarre talent there with the musicians, artists and contortionists - but with the pretty cool, comes the pretty disgusting - being very scantily dressed, highly interactive street performers (not exactly the prime specimens either) who will gladly take your money for the opportunity to get a picture with them.  It’s a place where people watching is a jaw-dropping experience and uniquely interactive as the alcoholically-lubricated massive crowd gets a bit rowdy at times and you have no question whether or not they left any morals they did have at home.

While we were in Las Vegas waiting for the weather up north to warm up a bit, we were able to collect a few more of the oddities that we like so much.  In the collage above are the “Worlds Largest Working Fire Hydrant”, the “Burlesque Hall of Fame” and “The Worlds Largest Pint Beer Mug”.  All of these are accessible along Fremont Street but not right in downtown.  We took the time to visit these oddities and add them to our collection – sometimes you just have to ask why someone would build things like this.  Very seldom do I get an answer.  But with many of these things they are interesting conversation starters.

It’s time for us to move again as we make our way north and head for the calmer and a bit more low key area of Nevada called the Extraterrestrial Highway.

 While staying in the small town of Alamo, we headed north along Hwy 93 to Hwy 375 (otherwise known as the Extraterrestrial Highway), we realized just how remote of a location this is – if you want to go rural, I mean, really rural, this is the place to be.  As we made the turn onto the E.T. Highway, we ran into a little rest area with the green sign with all the stickers.  From what I understand, the Governor officially renamed Route 375 to the Extraterrestrial Highway in 1996, why I don’t know.  If you go just a bit further up the road you will run into the next little oddity on the right hand side of the road – this is the Alien Research Center.  This metal quonset hut and large metal alien used to be a sort of welcome center and gift shop to the E.T. Hwy but has since moved its wares and such up to Rachel and the Little A’Le’Inn. 

Rachel is up the road another 40 miles.  Rachel is located along the E.T. Highway, over 130 miles north of Las Vegas and over 50 miles from Alamo.  This tiny town receives a substantial number of visitors, tourists and travelers of all types and nationalities, wishing to bathe in the unnatural green light of UFO tourism or conspiracy theories.  If you absolutely need to have a bumper sticker or a coffee mug with a bulb-headed alien on it, this is the place to go.  If that's not enough, Rachel has even added a couple of flying saucers to pose next to.  (Gotta have that family + Alien pic!)  If you have the inclination to find out what really is out there, there are a number of dirt roads that head towards Area 51 or Groom Lake from Rachel, but most are dead ends and the others only help you meet some of the security folks at the base – neither which are really that enjoyable.

 While in the area we just had to do a bit of geocaching there since this is the “mother lode” of geocaches in the world.  We chose the “Alien Head” GeoArt (really!) to start with and almost bit off more than we wanted.  By the end of the day we covered over 8.5 miles biking and hiking to complete the form.  We were constantly startled by the many sonic booms we heard that day – one that almost knocked us off our bikes.  (Some of the locals say that the booms are only the military jets, while others say they are from the Alien spacecraft slowing down as they are coming in for landings at Area 51.)  Also in the area is one of the longest (if not the longest) geocaching trail in the world.  Every tenth of a mile or so a geocache has been placed all along the E.T. Hwy – it covers a lot of miles.

 

As we were looking for the geo- caches and biking along, we ran across a few of the local residents in the form of lizards. I knew they weren't aliens because none of them asked me to take them to our leaders.  This one – a Western Horned Lizard (or horny toad), even posed for me.

 

 

 

 

 

This pic to the right is just a small example of what we saw as we traveled the E.T. Hwy.  It is one lonely and long road!  It is a lot busier than I thought it would be though – I saw at least 10 vehicles over the 59 miles we drove as we headed to our home. Oreo was waiting in the wings to have his say – it seems that he had quite the experience while we were up in Rachel. 

 

 

The Wisdom of “Oreo”

I believe!  I truly do believe!  The date was April 22, 2015 – it was a peaceful morning at a little campground in the Nevada town of Alamo.  My pride members had gone on another one of their silly geo thing (I think they called it geocaching) adventures early that morning to a place called Rachel, Nevada.  My male pride member told me that there were aliens up there as well as this supposedly super secret military testing site called Area 51 somewhere close.  I told them to go play, I was going to have a good catnap up on the dinner table (I do that when they are not home) under a good warm sunbeam.   

I was happily napping, having nice little cat dreams, when I heard a soft hum and felt this weird tickling sensation.  I woke up with a start as I saw this thing looking in the window at me.  It was kinda like me, but not, it was ugly!  The weird sensation took a hold of me and I think I passed out for a while and then later woke up in this all silver metal room strapped down to a table with lots of tubes and equipment all over the place.  On a table next to me there was a small dog with a group of these cat aliens surgically mutilating and removing pieces and parts from this poor dog as they laughed and giggled.  I thought I was doomed!  Then out of a side panel came two of the best looking little felines I had ever seen, it was enough to bring an old Tom Cat back to playing like a kitten.  (They were green though!)  They started doing things to me as I was strapped down to the table, you know – things.  I tried to tell them that I was fixed but they just kept on.  I think I passed out again from pure pleasure!   I woke up some time later back on my dinner table in my sunbeam – all my parts still attached and like nothing had ever happened.  When my pride members came home I tried really hard to let them know we have an alien infestation and to get away from here now.  It’s really hard to explain to human pride members who don’t speak cat very well what had happened.  They just thought I was hungry and gave me a treat.  Oh well, at least I got something out of it.  But a word of warning if you are ever in the high deserts of Nevada – watch out for the Alien Cats.  You might get probed! 

You may say it was a dream, but I believe!  I truly do believe!

(No – I was not in the catnip again!) 

Oreo

 

 

With all that behind us, we are moving into a more “normal” lifestyle once again and can get back to our biking, hiking, volunteer work, visiting more scenic locations, parks, preserves, monuments, cities and an occasional unique experience or happening.  Enjoy and cherish your every day and remember that the “normal” is only a state of being -when the abnormal, strange, or weird can’t be found or isn’t available.  Break out of the “normal” - enjoy life!

 

Home is where we park it!

Lee & Linda