Chloride AZ – Little Bitty Living

Hoover Dam….almost!

Jeanne and I went to the Hoover Dam today but we didn’t actually get to see it. I usually research places I’m going to go but for some reason, this time I didn’t do it. Wish I had. It was only a little over an hour’s drive from Kingman and we stopped in Chloride along the way to show Jeanne the cool junky yards, boot fences, bottle trees and the neat little general store. When we got to the dam I missed the parking garage closest to the visitor center so had to drive over the dam to the other side. We turned around and went back, and the lady in charge of collecting the money ($10 to park, but free if you have a Handicap Placard) asked us if we had any dogs in the car. We said yes and then she said we could not leave the dogs in the car alone, someone would have to stay with them. We asked if there was anyplace we could park and see the dam and she told us to go to parking lot #9. So we drove back over the dam again. We could NOT, in fact, see the dam from there but I took a photo of the teeny bit of water we could see: DSCN2545

I don’t know what those big columns are for. So we decided to go back over the dam to the parking garage and Jeanne would stay in the car with the dogs while I went into the visitor center, since she’d already been there before. This time when we pulled into the garage, the lady said we could not have the dogs in the parking garage at all, not even if someone stayed with them! So Jeanne offered to drive the car somewhere & wait while I went into the visitor center. I walked down to it (farther than my knee wanted to go) and found out it costs $10 to get in! That’s not for the tour, just to enter the visitor’s center. Hmmmm. Well I can’t pay that, and the Geezer Pass doesn’t work there, so I called Jeanne and asked her to pick me up out front. She came along and I hopped into the car and we went over the dam, turned around and headed back to go back to Kingman. Have you kept track? We went over the dam six times! But never actually SAW the damn dam. Oh well, nice day for a drive. (Pouring rain the whole time, actually!) I guess I can still say I’ve been there. When we got back I read that pets are not allowed on the premises at ALL. I wonder why?

Yesterday I finally bathed poor filthy Princess Roxie. We went to the do-it-yourself dog wash for $10. She did not appreciate my efforts at all but I’m a lot happier! She looks pretty grumpy, eh? She HATES water! DSCN2536

Yesterday we went to check out a sort of tiny quartz quarry (?) that Deb found on one of her walks. LOTS of pretty white rocks there with red and/or golden veins, and Jeanne loaded up some medium-sized ones for her rock garden at home in NC. This is only the first stop and she’s already loaded up at least 20# of rocks in her car….wonder what she’ll have collected by the end of the 6 week trip! DSCN2540

DSCN2537

This is the 3rd straight day of rain…sometimes off & on, sometimes hard rains. I hope this is the last of it. I guess I’ve been pretty lucky so far that there hasn’t been much rain at all.

Chloride

Just got back from a little day trip to Chloride, a little tiny silver mining town incorporated in 1865. It’s now an almost-ghost town. It’s got a lot of character! Lots of metal “yard art” in several places. (Click on a photo to make it bigger)

A boot fence,

DSCN2375

Pretty cool little general store with lots of Rt. 66 goodies (naturally)

DSCN2339

DSCN2346

And I loved these boot birdhouses:

And Deb says she’s changing her Facebook photo to this. Yep, we buried her still wearing her sunglasses and her Breathe-Right nasal strip.

DeadDeb

Outside the store was this fantastic rock! I wanted it BAD but it’s a bit too big.

DSCN2348

This old gas station had a tiny railroad track running around it, and it even had a little roundabout for changing tracks!

DSCN2379

DSCN2382

A nice young lady in the store gave us a map and showed us what to go see. She told us about some Roy Purcell rock murals that were 1.3 miles down a dirt road…hahaha, ROAD! It was a really rocky little path (at best). A couple times Deb had to get out and show me where to drive so I wouldn’t bottom out on the big rocks sticking up. But once we finally got out there, the murals were pretty cool.

On the way out to the murals we saw a couple bright red patches way up the side of the mountain. We looked at them with the binoculars but still couldn’t figure out what they were; they looked like mums! Then later in town we saw this cactus in full bloom, and we are pretty sure that’s what was on the mountainside.

DSCN2381

After that rough road, the next time I stopped the car and rolled down the windows to keep the dogs cool, one of my rear windows would not work! It will not roll up at all, and if I pulled it up by hand, it just slid back down. So Deb had the bright idea to pull it up all the way and jam some little sticks in at the bottom as wedges, to hold it in place. So far it’s working but….my poor car! It’s going to be a total wreck by the time I get done with this trip!

On the way out of town we saw this old station wagon passing by….heaped up with pure junk on the top of the car and all over the hood! ???

DSCN2377

We had lunch at Yesterday’s Restaurant which used to be an old stage stop, and there was a big group of people there who were filming a music video! We weren’t able to find out the name of the group, but the waitress said they were from France. Who’d come from France to make a music video in little bitty Chloride, AZ?! Maybe someday we’ll find out. There was also a very strange stuffed Doberman behind a glass case inside the restaurant. We should have asked for the backstory on that! We could have had Spam sandwiches, or peanut butter & bologna, or peanut butter & bacon sandwiches!! (We didn’t.)