28th May – Flagstaff to Kingman

After watching the weather forecast this morning predicting high winds we scrambled to set off early and got on the Interstate 40 just after 9.

As I checked out of the motel the manager/desk clerk actually smiled at me and wished me a good day. I felt rather guilty as we had just comprehensively trashed him on Trip Adviser. Perhaps describing him as imbecile, the bile-spewing spawn of a scrofulous prairie dog (or something to that effect) was a bit extreme in retrospect.

The first part of the route went through the same country as yesterday and was very similar except for being a four lane road. We went up through the pine trees of the Kaibob National Forest up to the high desert which took us to Kingman. The Interstate differs from UK motorways by having a very wide central reservation and at times the lanes running in the opposite direction are not even visible. The wind was very strong and gusty which made for a very exciting experience. We stopped for a break after about 130 miles and felt like we had been beaten with baseball bats throughout the journey.

At the service area where we stopped we came across an elderly chap in biker gear including leather chaps, who was riding a bike with the word “chaplain” printed on its windshield, He wished us a safe journey and set off on his own, leading us to wonder what exactly he was the chaplain of and whether leather chaps were appropriate legwear for a man of the cloth.

Along the way we saw the usual quota of big RVs with a car or jeep in tow. We noticed that some of the towed cars actually had bikes on racks behind them. It was a bit like the automotive equivalent of Russian dolls.

We got to Kingman just after 2pm and checked into the Holiday Inn. After a session in the pool and “fitness suite” we got a taxi to the Dambar and Steakhouse, a traditional roadside eatery and saloon where we sat at the bar and ate unfeasibly large quantities of steak and ribs. All the staff seemed to be pregnant and everyone seemed to be related to each other. We got talking to a couple of guys at the bar, one of whom was a biker in the usual bandana and leather vest. We were asking about whether motorcycle helmets were compulsory out here and the non-biker explained that, whether it was guns or helmets, people pretty much did whatever they liked in Arizona. The biker then recounted a tale of his father (who he admitted was not a particularly nice person) who, when falling off his bike without any protective gear, had dragged the narrator’s step mother off the passenger seat and ensured his own safety by surfing her to a stop by the roadside. Apparently both of them survived the experience although the marriage was never quite the same again! After that the conversation faltered somewhat.

Tomorrow we’re setting off for Vegas which will serve as a base for a trip through Death Valley and back into California.