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Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

mga707

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Everything posted by mga707

  1. Five years ago (August '03) I rented an AWD Mitsubishi Outlander from Alamo in Las Vegas specifically to visit the remote but spectacular Toroweap Overlook on the northwestern rim of Grand Canyon National Park in AZ. This trip involved about 60 miles of dirt road from just west of Fredonia AZ down to the overlook and a similar distance back along a different series of dirt roads to Colorado City Az/Hilldale UT (yes, Warren Jeffs' little fiefdom). While this was summer, so snow and ice was not a concern, it was monsoon season so there were muddy spots from the previous day's thunderstorms. I left my motel in Mt. Carmel Jct. UT right at sunrise so as to avoid the increasing chance of monsoon thunderstorms as the afternoon progresses. The trip was well worth it, as the solitude and sheer wildness of the Grand Canyon from the Toroweap Overlook (only a few other people and NO railings!) is beyond belief! Anyway, Alamo didn't ask me where I was going, and I didn't tell them! The little Mitsu performed flawlessly and I brought it back to the lot at McCarran in Vegas absolutely covered in red dust! Mike
  2. I too have been over the old Rockville bridge (to get to the Grafton ghost town on the south bank) and it is indeed a nice old bridge! The original Navajo ('j' not 'h') Bridge opened in January 1929, so you were not far off. When visiting the Lee's Ferry site, now within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and well worth a visit, I learned that said ferry had had a serious accident and sank into the Colorado river during the spring or early summer of 1928 and was not replaced, since the new bridge was nearly finished just downstream. This of course meant that for a period of at least seven or eight months there was NO way to cross the Colorado (in an automobile at least) for hundreds of miles in either direction! Mike
  3. OK, but I'll keep it brief, since we're really getting off topic. The only parts of 66 that we were on during this jaunt were Andy Devine Blvd through Kingman AZ on the way up and about a mile or two through Flagstaff on the way back home to Tucson! Anyway, the trip entailed a drive from Tucson up to St. George UT via I-10, US 93, and I-15. One of these times I'm going to check out the section of old US 93 that breaks off from the current route just before 93 joins I-40 east of Kingman. We spent three nights in St. George and one night at Jacob Lake AZ. One interesting 'roadie' side trip was driving the section of old US 91 that branches off from I-15 at Littlefield/Beaver Dam AZ and winds north into Utah, through the Shivwits Paiute Indian Reservation, and comes into St. George from the northwest rather than the south as 15 does. The road is in decent shape and had virtually no traffic at all until we were approaching the St. George outskirts. But for scenery, the I-15 alignment through the Virgin River Gorge is much more visually appealing. Indeed I would rate it as one of the best stretches of Interstate anywhere. Still, it was good to check out the "old road"! On the return, as I mentioned previously, we of course stopped at the Navajo Bridge, one of my faves! It is SO good that they kept the old bridge open to pedestrians, and that they copied the look of the old bridge for the current span alongside. Had a brief chat with a delivery truck driver there who recounted that he drove his truck over the old span many times prior to 1995, and how narrow it was compared to modern bridges. One other old bridge note: If you're on US 89 north of Flagstaff, check out the old bridge across the Little Colorado River at Cameron, on the Navajo rez. It is just to the west of the current nondescript bridge. Unfortunately, this bridge is not open to walkers, probably because it is still in use as a pipeline bridge. Beautiful old style (1920s, I'm guessing) steel span! And one final bridge note: The construction of the MASSIVE new Hoover Dam bypass bridge on US 93 still has quite a ways to go, so I'd say you will still have a couple more years to drive over the dam. Once this bridge is finished, I hope one will be able to stop on either side and walk out on it. The view of the dam and the river from the middle of the new bridge should be fantastic! Mike
  4. Thanks for the welcome! I just happens that I just got back from a road trip to St. George (UT) and back, including a lot of time in the "Arizona Strip" country--that's the part of the state north and northwest of the G.C. that you mention above. Visited Zion and the North Rim of the Canyon, of course! I love driving the 'old' US 89, which has been Alternate 89 for 50 years now, since Page and the Glen Canyon Dam and Bridge came into existence. Always love to stop at the Navajo Bridge over the Colorado at Marble Canyon and walk on the historic 1929 original bridge, which the current (1995) adjacent bridge emulates, in a more modern (wider!) fashion. Mike
  5. Seems to me that the more logical course of action would be for the eastern portions of both San Berdoo and Riverside counties to jointly break off from their respective jurisdictions and form a new Colorado River County. Although they would probably disagree on whether Needles or Blythe should be the new county seat... There is precedent for this here in AZ. About 30 years ago northern Yuma County broke away and formed a new county, La Paz (county seat Parker), for the same reasons: Too far from Yuma! It seems to be a recurring theme in our big, Northeast state-sized western counties. Look at Nye County, NV: Nearly all of the population is in the far southern town of Pahrump (home of Art Bell!), a long road trip from the tiny county seat of Tonopah. One must even leave and reenter the county to get from one to the other, thanks to "Area 51" being between them!
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