Nowhere does a long neck Bud taste better than in a dark old bar in a hot dusty Arizona town. This bar has to be one of the oldest. And this town is definitely one of the dustiest.
The Sultana Bar in Williams, AZ claims to have the longest operating liquor license in the state of Arizona. And they didn’t mind us bringing in Jerry so we just had to stop and whet our whistles.
From the stamped tin roof to the rough hewn log table where we sat by the window with Jerry this place simply exudes the Old West. The cowboy boots and hats warn by half the patrons are definitely authentic. As are the tattoos and long hair worn by the other half. While the Tommy Hilfiger clad tourists tend to pop their heads in and quickly leave, the locals we met were certainly friendly enough.
The well-stocked full bar is adorned with quite a collection of antique novelty liquor bottles and taxidermy. A large Moose watches over the door while a bear and mountain lion keep an eye on the crowd. The beer is cold and online reviews of the Sultana indicate they mix a good stiff drink. The juke box blares a raucous eclectic mix, inside and out. Bar munchies are available and live music can be heard on weekends. More good news: Arizona Bars are now smoke free. In our book, this is an A+ joint.
From Kingman to Williams Arizona we followed one of the last remaining stretches of Historic Route 66. Stopped in the tourist trap town of Seligman only to discover the authentic looking 50’s style diner was closed. What the!?!? Oh well, no root beer float. And we didn’t feel like Chinese food so we snacked in the trailer.
Going on our way, we came across this dirt devil blowing along the hot and dusty Arizona countryside…
Just as we are in search of the ideal community to live and work, where mom and pop stores still outnumber big box strip malls, this husband and wife team of professional journalists made a vow to only frequent independent businesses – no Wal Mart, no Best Western. And just as we hope to stay off the interstate freeways as much as possible, they too were determined to stick to secondary routes.
This 80-minute documentary follows the filmmakers as they travel 13,000 miles through 32 states and interview the hardy souls who fight to remain independent in a land smothered with fast food chains and big box stores.
This story hits home as we sold our mom & pop graphics business and are now traveling the U.S. in search of the next big thing in a community that offers superior quality of life.
I’ve always been a crunchy granola type who recycles everything, eats organic, and tries not to consume mass amounts of paper products. But I’m slowly finding out that applying these values on this trip is going to be tricky.
Ever try going inland to someplace like Arizona, and looking for organic produce that doesn’t look like it was held over from last winter? Forget it.
What about paying a reasonable price for Boca chick patties or fake meat products like Morning Star fak’n bacon? Nope. Say goodbye to your wallet.
Yes, California does have one or two perks it seems, when it comes to living and eating healthy. Even mainstream grocery stores like Safeway carry all that I need to maintain a healthy vegetarian lifestyle. But as we go inland, we are surrounded by cheap agribusiness produce, overpriced fake meat products relegated to the back of the freezer section, and no bulk items to be seen anywhere, especially in the Mall Wart supercenters that trash the landscape.
Feeling nostalgic after our trek across Death Valley, we just had to stop at Terrible’s Town which was the only thing in Pahrump 12 years ago. Now the town has sprawled out in a scary way and there is a big Nugget Casino next door.
Hoping to find the clean and quaint Kenny Rogers Café inside, we were overwhelmed with all the additional casino fare which had squeezed the restaurant into a corner of the building, now renamed the Bougainvillea Café & Rotisserie.
I was happy to see the $1.99 breakfast specials included biscuits and gravy but leery to order them, for good reason. I got just what I expected: a pile of beige goop that matched the plate, with a consistency of wallpaper paste. The biscuits appeared to have been made from a box, but I made much better “Bisquick” biscuits myself from Rene’s homemade mix. These were either undercooked or someone sat on them to warm them up.
The two split biscuits were of decent size, but definitely not something to write home about. Yet here I am doing just that, go figure. The gravy was already starting to form a nice film across it by my third bite. There was absolutely no sign of sausage bits, just a lot of tiny black flecks which I certainly hope were pepper flakes.
Since it takes an awful lot for me to actually dislike a meal, I give Terrible’s biscuits a C grade. The staff was friendly and breakfast included a free hot pitcher of decent coffee on the table. And after all, you can’t beat the price of $4.25 for two… as long as you don’t mind a little second hand smoke with your meal.
Here’s another reason to get a fifth wheel instead of a bumper-mounted travel trailer. The last few legs of our roadtrip have confirmed that we made the right choice…
When we researched purchasing a travel trailer or a fifth wheel, we discovered that fifth wheels are much less likely to sway in high winds as the weight is centered over the axle instead of hanging off the bumper.
Over the past few days we have experienced some pretty high winds. Traveling south on CA highway 395 and then up out of Death Valley, we experienced strong winds from all directions. Not once did I feel instability in the trailer. I never noticed the fifth wheel sway or fishtail from side to side. It felt steady even in the strongest winds and was always rock steady in the rear view mirror.
For the past couple nights we’ve been staying hitched to our fifth wheel trailer when spending just one night in RV resorts. We’ve researched this online and only found this one forum discussion about staying hitched that addressed the issue specifically. It confirmed my assumption that it will do no harm to the truck.
I do, however, raise the trailer a bit more than the RV.net Open Roads Forum member who mentioned he only extends his trailer legs an inch or so after hitting the ground. Personally, I recommend lifting the trailer until I notice the truck bed actually lift. Then I retract the trailer legs until it appears there is no weight on truck bed. All it takes is a couple small adjustments up and down to relieve all weight from the truck’s shock absorbers.
Please note that we do not have air shocks on our Dodge Ram 2500. I do not know how staying hitched will affect air suspension bags. All comments are welcome.
As far as king pin tripods go, we looked into that too after noticing many fifth wheel rigs with them in RV resorts. We’ve read online that larger 5ers benefit more from using tripods – but the smaller 5er the less rocking. We’ve determined using a fifth wheel kingpin tripod is not necessary for our 24′ Arctic Fox. Just something else to carry… I would only consider it if I ever take up permanent residence like I’ve seen in some of the parks where we’ve stayed. But then we would need to go back to Humboldt County and get a carved redwood bear holding a welcome sign.
From our direction we’re traveling in, there’s only one road in, and one road out, to the hottest, most inhabitable place in North America, Death Valley. The music of Pink Floyd is the ultra mellow soundtrack for our crossing at 5:30 am today.
Way back in 1996, the first time we crossed this inferno, the only soundtrack was the wind screaming in my ears as we rode across on bikes getting baked in our leathers. Back then, we gave no thought to what time we crossed. I think we did it at noon. Today, drive across in comfort at dawn in our big ass truck, yet, I’m still terrified. Couldn’t sleep all night thinking about this epic drive. I mean what kind of morons do this in summertime? Us, that’s who. We’re always good for this sort of misadventure.
Gave the ol’ Dodge Ram 2500 a real workout this weekend haulin’ the rig over Carson Pass (8,650) and Monitor Pass (8,314 ft) from Silver Lake near Kit Carson, CA to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, CA. Check out our new LiveWorkDream Roadtrip Maps page to see some of the crazy hairpin turns and to follow the progress of our route.
The truck had no problem accelerating up the mountains, though it sure would be nice to figure out the right combination of using the Tow Haul switch, Overdrive Off option and the lower gears. While the truck seems to handle our load just fine in drive, using the Tow Haul switch comes in handy on steep steady grades. A few times, though it seemed to abruptly drop down a gear and nearly red-line for a moment. Any tips are greatly appreciated.
The weight of the trailer didn’t seem to be an issue at all. Either the hitch is getting broken in, or I’m getting much better at handling the vehicle as we didn’t experience any of the bouncing around we had the first few days out.
Of course, we were certain to drain our freshwater tank before we broke camp so we weren’t carrying that extra weight. And we had very little waste water in the holding tanks since we are good at conserving and primarily used the campground toilets. After all, we’re used to back country camping where we did all the dishes with a pint of water.
By the time we finished setting up the trailer at Crags Campground on Robinson Creek near Twin Lakes our site neighbor already knew us by name. I couldn’t help but notice the MotoSat dish atop his Sea Breeze RV Coach when we pulled in, and I noticed him watching ours as it locked onto 91 West. I did not, however, expect what happened next…
When I came out of our rig with a Mike’s Hard Lime, ready to do some serious relaxing, this gentleman walked by and said, “If I’m not mistaken, you’re Jim.” Stunned, I paused a moment. “And your wife is René,” he continued, “and I’ve already forgotten your dog’s name.”
Being a marketing guy, you’d think I’d immediately realize the vinyl lettering I put on our rig was doing the trick. But it took me a moment. Long enough for this fellow Datastorm user to tell me what channel I was broadcasting on, how he couldn’t access my Admin page because my network was secured, and how far he bent over when purchasing his $14,000 Datastorm XF2. Perfectly happy with our F2, I really wonder what the added cost gets you besides the nifty blue glow at night… but I digress.
Crags campground was quite, with beautiful views and Mike – who spreads his “Mike Free From SeaBreeze” WiFi signal free and unsecured – made a great neighbor. I just hope we didn’t annoy him too much having fun with the Shapiro’s boy Conner and the dogs. We sure had a great time. I was surprised to hear his generator running numerous times throughout the day, even though he had at least three panels atop his rig. We had been boondocking for the past week and only ran our new Honda EU2000i Portable Generator once while we were parked in the woods at Silver Lake.
Nowhere does a long neck Bud taste better than in a dark old bar in a hot dusty Arizona town. This bar has to be one of the oldest. And this town is definitely one of the dustiest.
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