WINDING ROADS IN OATMAN, ARIZONA

On our returning trip from Santa Monica, we travelled eastbound on Route 66 from Golden Shores, California to get to Oatman, Arizona.  (At the beginning of the trip, we drove half of Route 66 and part highway westward and saved interesting attractions for the eastbound trip knowing the drive home would be long after almost a week on the road.) Along the way, we saw mining remnants of "once upon the time" prosperous times from the Arizona Gold Rush. The road to Oatman from Kingman is very narrow with several sharp hairpin curves.  No vehicles over forty feet in length are allowed on this road.  (I still have nightmare from our drive up Pikes Peak, Colorado, in the T-bird, seeing an RV coming toward us around the narrow curve!)  The elevation is only at 2,710 feet (830 m) but from these photos you could see that the long and twisty roads through the Black Mountains of Mohave County is a bit scary.  I don't know how many times I had to get out of the car, waited patiently while my husband took thousands of pictures of his precious Mustang because the scenery was so "magnificent" at every turn around the curves. 

Unlike Colorado, I did not see any "Falling Rock" sign as the road twists back and forth down the Black Mountains.  Oatman is definitely the most desolate yet thrilling stretches of the old Mother Road.

The old road on a breathtaking 2,100 foot change in elevation, steep switchbacks and 15-mph hairpin turns around the angular Black Mountains was a very short eight miles but at that time it felt like eternity, especially when looking down at "is that really the road" stretch between a large boulder and a steep cliff.

Since we are on the subject of cliff, I am sort-of paying attention to the discussion of the "fiscal cliff".  I don't have a total understanding on this subject matter.  Besides, it is too much of double-talk and "fuzzy math" depending on who is doing the talking or what "side" the person is on.  I did learn a new word "sequestration" from reading about the fiscal cliff.  Sequestration, according to an online article, "is a budget cut across the board on spending reductions for the entire federal government" includes cutting defense budget which some argues would put national security into jeopardy.  It sure sounds like driving on that narrow twisted road looking at a large boulder and a steep cliff of the Black Mountains!