On the way we decided to spend some time on Route 66 instead of sticking to I-40. After passing a few of the famous BurmaShave signs, we started looking for them around each turn. These were "re-plants" and not the orignals, but still fun to look for.
It wasn't long before we hit Seligman Arizona which is supposedly featured on the "Cars" animated movie. It took just one pass down the street to see why. The town has all the elements of the town in the movie. There is even an old "tin lizzie" sitting inside one of the garages (now a store) and several cars from the 40's, 50's and 60's are sitting around the town. I spotted a 1957 Ford Ranchero sitting behind a shop. If I had a trailer or even a trailer hitch on the wife's car, I would have been doing some negotiating to drag it home. I wonder if maybe this is why the wife suggested I leave the truck at home?
We decided due to the time of day to spend the night in the Aztec Motel there in town. A combination of nice clean rooms and a cheap price made it as easy choice.
A few hours sleep and we were on our way once again. We decided to stay on Route 66 as far as we could. One of the guys in Seligman said this was the longest section of the old highway still in existence, something just under 100 miles.
Once we got to the dam it was very clear that the water level at Boulder Dam was wayyy down as you can see from the pictures.
And once when we made it across and over to Lake Mead, it was even more apparent at the marina. We parked our car where water would normally be 20-30 feet deep.
When we got to the marina, the temperature was about 102 degrees, the hottest we'd seen so far. I went in to rent the jet skis and found out that you had to be 18 to rent and drive one. This left both Ethan and Zachary a bit depressed. And they weren't interested in riding on a three seat water ski. Well, Zachary didn't want to. Ethan still wanted to go out and play on the lake.
I decided our options were to wait until the next morning and rent a ski boat for a couple of hours @ $80 per hour. Or we could head on to Los Angeles and go visit Universal Studios for the entire day for about the same price.
With the temps as high as they were and the fact that we would only get a couple of hours in the boat on the lake, the boys decide to do Universal Studios.
I dodged a bullet there *grin*. I wasn't excited about camping in 100+ degree heat.
So, we loaded up and headed to L.A. It was even hotter in the Mohave Desert as we drove across. The top temp we saw on our dashboard was 109 degrees as we drove across.
We searched for a campground as we approached L.A. but couldn't find one. We even took a 30-40 minute ride out into the countryside following signs to a state park. It turned out to be a day use only park once we found it. By this time it was pitch black outside and we were tired of looking. So, we spent the night in a hotel there on the highway. This was the hotel where Ethan locked the keys in the trunk of the car (see previous post). This made our third night in a hotel in 15 days of travel. Not too bad I must say.
It was a good thing we had setup Zachary's phone with a AAA roadside assistance plan. We were able to call them and have someone come over and unlock the car. It took the guy about 15 seconds to open the door and let us in. Once we got that straightened out, we checked out and headed to the theme park.
I'll post some stuff on that later this evening.
We are getting ready to go see the new Batman movie and it's almost showtime.
Until next time!
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