Fully recuperated by a much needed day of rest at the Needles Inn, I set off again following the historical Route 66 north-east from Needles into Arizona, crossing the Black Mountains over the Sitgraves Pass.
Entering the wild west - home of the wild burro.
The saddest donkey I've ever seen. Eyore to a 'T.'
Route 66 clearly occupies a significant place in the US collective cultural imagination. Groups of stone-faced men, sometimes with an equally stone-faced female passenger behind them, pass on Harley Davidsons living out their odd dream of freedom. The road is lined with informal memorials – markers dedicated to the memory of these pseudo-rebels who feel their eternal resting place is somehow best represented by this strip of iconic tarmac.
Route 66 is lined with memorial markers - a testament to the iconic place this road holds in the US cultural imagination.
The scenes that unfold along the highway allude to all the bravado and folly of the settlement of the US west. The fundamental unsustainability of American life tangibly evident in the crumbling cultural icons lining the road.
The ruins of who knows what... a mine, perhaps?
Classic cars.
How do cars and roads get to play such a huge role in a people's imagination?
The almost empty streets of Highway 66 towns.
ABC dining...
The railway played an important part in the settlement of the wild west.
Unsustainable agriculture - irrigated pastures in the desert.
The landscape is phenomenally beautiful and, somehow, filled with melancholy.
Evening light in the Arizonian praries.
Under the thin crust of supposed cilivilization the mountains remain untouched.
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