We have crossed the Colorado River into our final state of California and are now in Needles.
It is 6.15 pm and is 104 degrees outside, too hot to even contemplate a walk around the town.


Just out of Kingman we joined a 30 mile section of Route 66 through the desert and over the Black Mountains. The only real green that we could see were these cacti on either side of the road.


The narrow road wound its way between hills with a crumbling edge and steep drops on one side.


We passed many dry gullies and here we also have a distant view of the Rockies.

This is a view of the winding road ahead.

We pulled off onto an old mining road to find this stunning view below.

On one of the very steep hairpin sections we saw the remains of this old wreck that had fallen from the road just out of the photo.

A few miles later we pulled into Oatman, once the centre of goldmining then a virtual ghost town. It has recently taken advantage of tourism and the original old buildings are now back in use.

http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/az/oatman.html

At high noon a gunfight is reenacted outside the original Oatman Hotel.

These "wild" burros that wander around the town are the descendents of the miners' pack animals.

Just outside Oatman Glenys braved the desert heat to photograph the landscape through which we were passing.

We had to rejoin Interstate 40 in order to cross the Colorado River and enter California.

This is the maximum outside temperature today as shown by the car's temperature reading.

It felt even hotter.

As you can see, we continue to follow Route 66 in California.

In such temperatures people took to the only water around, the Colorado River.

We have only travelled 50 miles today but have seen beautiful desert scenery and the unbelievable blues of the sky and the river.