Amboy and Needles, CA
I stopped at Needles in mid-afternoon – it is just too hot to keep going during the day, so I’m switching to night driving for a while. Of course, that means I’ll probably get rained on in the dark…
I left I-40 at Ludlow and headed onto Route 66:
About 10 miles down the road from Ludlow, I came upon a classic MG sitting on the side of the road with its hood up. My family had one of these in the 60’s, and it is a tradition to stop and swap war stories (and parts!) when you see one. I offered the driver some water and we chatted for a bit. His name was Jason and he was driving all of the still-existing parts of Route 66, starting in Chicago. You can’t make it out in the picture, but that’s a Chicago British Car Union badge on the car’s grille. He was just letting the car cool down, as cars of that era tend to run a bit hot (particularly when exported from the cooler British climate to the US):
After chatting a while, we both motored on down the road in our separate directions, and I arrived at Roy’s in Amboy. I was amazed to see that it was actually open and selling gas, soda, souvenirs and so on – all at very reasonable prices:
The last time I came through (in 2004) the whole town had a “For Sale” sign on it:
I chatted with the folks running the store for a bit – apparently they’re planning on re-opening the motel / cabins in the future. The biggest issue seems to be that they don’t have any sort of septic / sewer system at the moment. While I was in there, nearly a dozen separate batches of visitors came in and went out – it is becoming quite a popular spot (well, for the middle of nowhere) again.
One parting picture and I was on the road again, heading East:
