Along Arizona Route 93
After visiting the Hoover Dam, we continued our journey along Route 93 to Kingman where we then headed East along Interstate 40 to Flagstaff, Arizona. The car rental folks had run out of my requested subcompact size of car when I arrived and provided me with a no-charge upgrade to a 4-wheel drive SUV. I was therefore almost obliged to drive off the road at least once or twice along the highway. Couldn’t go into really nasty roads though. Although the SUV was 4-wheel drive, they had equipped it with highway tires rather than a nice set of off-road lugs so I only went along the mining roads until the bed of loose skree like gravel got two steep for my comfort. Had fun though!
We were likely a week or two ahead of the really energetic blooming season for the desert wildflowers but the cacti were beginning to dot the landscape with their pink blossoms.
Other colorful flowers were beginning to dot the landscape but not yet profusely.
As I was driving along the mining roads, I would sometime catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye (the other eye was always on the road!!!). I would then stop the vehicle and the search would begin for these little lizards (Zebra-Tailed lizard – Callisaurus draconoides).
I found the geological outcroppings along the highway to be very interesting. Most of the time we didn’t have much other traffic on the road but when we arrived at one of the mining side roads shortly after 5PM, I found myself stuck in a traffic jam.
