Burros and more burros....

September 12 – Still no word from Barry so after breakfast I called Katherine’s Landing and the lady said Barry was in a critical car accident and gave me the phone number for one of the Rangers he worked for.  The ranger didn’t know much other that it was a head on collision and the other driver was going the wrong way in a one way street and that he went to the local hospital.  I called the hospital and he was not admitted so they sent me to the ER department.  Luckily I got the nurse who worked on him and she said he was airlifted to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas in critical but staple condition and his daughter from Kansas City came.  Wow!  Our mutual friend Newell, that I had called to let him know what had transpired, later emailed me the news clipping.  It happened at 1:23 in the afternoon but didn’t say if the other driver was impaired.  The nurse said he had a log road to go but would recover after several surgeries.  Well, that explains it.  It happened a week ago today and we could have gone to see him in Vegas had we pursued his not calling back sooner.  When we see Newell next week I think we will try to call him at the hospital and hopefully get to talk to him.

Billy the Burro man

I r\prefer the babies

Once the mystery was solved, we headed to Oatman, AZ.  It’s on Route 66 and is most widely known for being home to a herd of wild burros.  They were left behind in the early 1900’s when the prospectors all gave up prospecting and left them to fend for themselves.  The BLM oversees the herd and thins them out as necessary.  We counted over a dozen in town and they used to walk into some of the shops but now they won’t let them in.  They have several babies, some only 2-3 weeks old.  You can buy a good sized bags of burro feed (cubed compressed hay) for a dollar so we got 2 and Bill sure enjoyed petting and feeding them.  We took some old carrots and one lady said they don’t like people to feed them carrots but another lady said they don’t get them any more so it’s fine.  They warned

This little guy was zonked!

us to watch out for them to kick as the males are determining which is the alpha male.  They got rowdy a couple of times when I was feeding them and it makes me nervous.  I also don’t like the thought of those teeth getting meat with the hay if they bite my fingers.  Bill said I was a sissy!  I’ve never been called that before!

We had lunch in the Oatman Hotel.  Bill chatted with one of the guys who portrays the bad guy in the street fight that is staged twice a day.  He even had his picture taken with him!  For lunch he had a buffalo burger (no surprise) and I

I warned him not to steal
the dollar bills.

had the chicken fried steak sandwich with gray on the side. I took the top bun off and poured the gravy on and put it back on and I had the best, messiest sandwich for lunch!  I went through a stack of napkins.The restaurant is famous for the thousands (literally) of dollar bills lining the  walls.  They're even on the ceilings and the door.

After lunch we finished visiting the rest of the shops and Bill played with the burros more and gave his leftover burro food to a couple from Barcelona, Spain! He felt sad to leave his buddies but we headed on down the road back to Bullhead City.  On the way we stopped at Bed, Bath and Beyond, Dollar Tree and the car wash.  Oh, and Wendy’s for lunch dessert!

It was now or never to cross the Colorado River back to the Nevada side  and check out the string of Casinos.  We drove to the end and turned around and stopped at the Colorado Belle, which is built to look like a river steamboat.  I only had $21 in cash and that didn’t last long.  As we were leaving Bill put $1 in the penny machine and ended up making $3.24!  Winner, winner!

Time to get home out of the heat, and we did!  We hibernated the rest of the afternoon with the shades all closed to keep the heat out and the AC in.  I whipped up a simple dinner and we watched TV and I did some blogging.