Day 11 - The West got a little too wild.

I thought I should spend this day getting a little closer to Vegas to cut down on my drive for the next day, so I left Phoenix just short of lunchtime, enjoying the rest of my 

vegetable pizza on the freeway. Using my atlas and Road Trip USA book the night before, I planned a day of driving and sightseeing. I was excited about my first stop - 

some outdoor exploring at Hassayampa River Preserve, on the outskirts of Wickenburg, AZ. Hassayampa River mostly runs underground but surfaces here to help create a dense forest of willows and cottonwoods, which provides a home to over 200 species of birds. As I was driving, I could 

see where the river was winding at the bottom of the hill, just by watching the changing vegetation. I arrived at the gate. It was closed! If I had left a day later, I would have been able to visit...

Feeling much disappointment, I continued on into the town of 

Wickenburg. Wickenburg is a town that developed out of the Gold Rush in the 1860's, and the buildings and the old cowboys you see through town still give you a feeling of the old wild west. Wickenburg is also home to a number of dude ranches, where out-of-towners can come to ride and learn a little cowboying. I had really wanted to spend a few days at one of these ranches and researched them before leaving home, but the minimum stay is for a week. 

The town had a museum (the Desert Caballeros Western Museum) that detailed its history, along with some general history of the West. I grabbed a coffee and went for a visit. The town is named after Henry Wickenburg, who discovered gold in the area in 1863. He founded Vulture Mine, and the town grew in order to service the workers. The town also profited from its location: at the fork between the only road running from northern to southern Arizona and the road to California. The museum had dioramas of the mine to help illustrate its history, as well as a life-sized replica of the town during its heyday, complete with general store, church, gun shop, post office, and rooms of both an old town house and a ranch house. 

In addition to highlighting its own town history, the museum had exhibits on cowboys, rodeos and Wild West shows, as well as some Native American art, a collection of rocks and minerals, and a collection of Western art and sculpture. (This was quite an amazing museum for such a small town.) I found the cowboy exhibit the most interesting of all, since I used a lot of the things shown back during my horse-riding days. The exhibit did a wonderful job of detailing the history and cultural significance of everything from spurs to bridles to chaps and saddles. 

A few interesting cowboy facts...

Originally, bridles and harnesses were made out of strands of dyed horsehair that were individually tied together and assembled by prisoners. Chaps were created to protect cowboy's legs from desert cacti and brush, rope burns, and horse bites. (I always just wore them to look purdy in my horse shows.) "Woolies" were made to be worn on the colder, northern plains. And the word "chaps" is really to be pronounced "shaps," since the derivation is from the Spanish word "chaparejos."

And here's a few tidbits of some Wild West advertising:

Barbed Wire: "Light as air. Stronger than whiskey. Cheaper than dirt."

To get riders for the Pony Express: "WANTED: Young, skinny, wiry fellows, not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week."

Of course, I also enjoyed the rock and mineral collection at the museum, in particular the florescent mineral exhibit! They had a display full of minerals whose electrons were activated by the ultraviolet energy from a black light and, in turn, emitted brilliant glowing light! Add this one to the list of the coolest things I've ever seen.

After walking the streets of the town a little more, I went on to Vulture Mine to get a little wilder into the west. The mine was out in the middle of desert nowhere, and the drive that took me there was another of the nicest ones of the trip. After paying the only person I saw in this deserted desert (and she was hungry for conversation, too), I received a hand sketched map of the trail connecting all of the dilapidated buildings (and "dilapidated" is an understatement). Upon entering the trail, I wondered why I didn't have to sign some type of waiver or certainly, at least, give proof of my last tetanus shot. But here is the only warning I got, from the front of the map: "Welcome to Arizona and especially to the Vulture Gold Mine. It is our sincere wish that your visit will be safe and most pleasant. In the interest of safety we remind you that the Vulture Gold Mine is situated in a remote part of the Sonoran Desert, and as in all desert areas, the careless or unwary can, and do, get into serious trouble." Translation: "Try to not fall through any floors or ceilings while you're here or, while walking, to stab yourself in the eye with a piece of rusty metal, because if you do, there will be no one to help you. Also, watch out for wild animals and, despite our poor directions (We know you will get lost while you're here.) don't wander off too far and die." Let's just say, the mine was... ummm, interesting. I saw everything from the old mine shaft to the stamp mill to some abandoned living quarters. Most of the time I didn't really know what I was looking at or if I was going to make it back to my car, but it was interesting, nonetheless. Most of all, I just enjoyed the way the desert landscape looked through all the rotted wood walls and broken glass, and I did take more pictures on Day 11 than on any other day, so that says something. I also thought about what life must have been like here for those 400 workers at the height of the mine's gold extracting days. It looked like a rough life, but at the same time, they were also surrounded by this incredible landscape.

By the time I did finally make it back to my car, the sun was about to set, and I knew I needed to drive on westward and make it to my stop for the night, Kingman. I boarded Highway 93, for part of the drive designated the Joshua Forest Parkway, which was, in fact, filled with Joshua Tree dotted desert. Aside from Bumblebee (which was technically a detour), this drive gets #1 stretch of roadway for the trip thus far. I drove for 2 1/2 hours through nothing but perfect, pretty nature. The only bit of civilization I saw was a few emergency phones and a gas station and restaurant about halfway through the drive, in Wikieup. I even got to enjoy a desert sunset, uninterrupted by nothing on the horizon but mountains. 

When I arrived in Kingman, I bypassed the strip of motel chains for something a little more historic: the Hotel Brunswick. The Brunswick was located on Route 66, but the 1909 hotel actually predates the old highway when Kingman was a significant stop along the Sante Fe Railroad (My nightstand came with two sets of earplugs...). The hotel originally featured a restaurant and a full bar, where I got my first real dinner of the trip (salmon, risotto and grilled vegetables). And it was during dinner that I learned from my waiter that my room was haunted. He gave me an excerpt from a book to read, and apparently, the hotel has three ghosts! One is the daughter of the original owners, who died while riding her tricycle on the second floor. She can be heard some nights still riding it up and down the halls, and sometimes she leaves trails of pennies on the floor. The second is an unknown ghost, probably a woman, who is meticulous about the placement of a certain footstool and has even been accused of moving a mattress. And the third - my ghost - is W.D. McWright, who died of natural causes at the age of 73. One morning he didn't come downstairs at his usual time, and when someone went to check on him, he was found lying dead by the bathroom sink, with a towel in his hand. Mr. McWright is known to come out at 2AM for occasional visits, but thankfully, I was fast asleep having vivid nightmares. Yes, I was a little freaked out. When you combine all this folklore with the creepy look of the room (in a miscommunication between staff, I ended up being upgraded to a suite with a living area that looked like something out of the movie Psycho), I couldn't help but be a little creeped out. Sweet dreams was something I didn't get that night...