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After a couple of days of lake living, it was off to Laughlin, NV.  It’s a town tucked into the lower corner of Nevada right on the Colorado River.  On the other side of the river is Bullhead City, Arizona.  One option I had to get there was to take a bit of a side detour and go to Oatman, AZ.  It’s known as a “ghost town”, which I guess it was at one point, but now this little place is inhabited buy some resident shopkeepers and donkeys that roam the streets.  So for a ghost town, it’s a fairly busy place. I read somewhere that about 500,000 pass through here each year.  It’s one of those places where you again drive through a lot of desert and scrub areas and can’t help but wonder how someone decided to settle here. 

The single street in town has about 20 donkeys just wondering around looking for handouts of food and curious tourists mingling with them.  The town is very old and has the look and feel of the old west.  Most shops are selling tourist trinkets and a good deal of them sell donkey snacks for a $1.00 each.  They seem to be compressed grass or hay in cubes that are about 1” big.  Needless to say the donkeys seem well fed.  I was here once before with my family about 12 years ago it wasn’t much changed, but that can probably be said by someone that visited Oatman 100 years ago too.  One of the shopkeepers I was speaking with mentioned that he was closing up for the summer as he did each year.  He told me that when it hit 117 degrees here last week that was his signal that it was time to go to New England for a while. 

Maybe it’s just the time of year, but some of the male donkeys were mighty frisky and a few were kicking each other if they were closing in on the female donkeys.  A few of those girl donkeys were doing some kicking of their own when apparently unwanted amorous advances were being made on them.  So in general, a good place “not” to stand was behind these donkeys.  Ah, dating and mating, it’s difficult in all the species I guess.  There were probably 30 or so motorcycles in town today and there was even a bit of a western show on Main Street with lots of noisy gun shots as the bad guys were dispatched.  It was a lite and interesting few hours and I had the urge to adopt one of these critters, but as you can see my ass was tired so I just got back on the road to Laughlin. 

The ride is not to far today and I arrived in Laughlin a couple of hours before check in.  No doubt that this town was established for gambling.  There are ten fairly good size casinos grouped on the river and not much else.  It appears that the town itself and Bull Head city across the river are probably here so employees have someplace to live and the businesses and other residents are here to support those folks and of course there is a good representation of retirees.  My impression and opinion is that if these casinos weren’t here, most everyone would be gone too. 

However, the place has a lot going on.  I know there was the Laughlin Run motorcycle rally about a month ago that attracts a lot of bikers, there’s all kinds of events and give aways and lots of restaurants and happy hours seem to be well attended.  There are also a lot of big name entertainers that come here to play in an arena, like Willy Nelson, Pit Bull and Rod Stewart, but it’s all casino driven. 

As far as rooms go, at least during the week there are a lot of deals when there’s no major events happening.  I got a room at the Colorado Bell Casino mid week, for about $60.00 with tax and hotel fees included.  That was for two nights with danish and coffee for breakfast each day, two pints of beer in the brewery and a free pizza that easily can free two or three people.  If you figure out what those items would cost to buy on their own, you’re paying about $15.00 per night for a room there.  The place was a bit worn, but clean, there was a pool, a good size outdoor hot tub and had free parking. On the side of the hotel facing Bull Head City there is a Riverwalk that connects four of five of the other casinos.  To connect to the other casinos that were were a little far to get to on foot there were water taxis on the river.

Even though it was mid week, the place was moderately active and at this particular time anyway, lots of senior citizens.  I’m sure the weekends are a different scene and when big events are happening the crowd is probably much different too.  I believe that Laughlin is about 4 hours from both LA and Phoenix, so there some major metro areas to draw from. 

I was tipped off by my sister that there is a really good happy hour in one of the casinos that was well attended by the locals.  With the Travel Well tenet of, “go where the locals go” and cheap dirty martinis in mind, I went.  Apparently the place opens at 5:00PM sharp and a line forms outside to get the seats with the best views from this second floor lounge.  I was delayed getting there by about a half hour but still got a seat at the bar with a view of the river.  During this happy hour you can get name brand mixed drinks for $3.50 each and the bartenders who were well seasoned older gents poured generously.  I ended up sitting next to three retired folks from California that had all been restaurant owners and I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation about “the business” and a nosed my way in and joined for a bit.  Two of them left around 6:30PM but the lady next to me hung in there for another drink and also bought me one.  Among other information she shared about her life, she told me that one of the bartenders was her good friend for many years and knew his wife, his kids and was even over their house for dinner on occasion.   Since the crowd was dying down now that bartender came over to chat.  He pointed across the river at a hill that was well developed with homes and told me that when he arrived here he was the 5th house up there.  When I mentioned to him I was originally from NJ he opened up that he was from Long Island, NY and when he was a very young guy used to commercially fish, I think for clams.  For those that may not know, way back the Fulton Fish Market in NYC was kind of mobbed up, so I asked him if he sold any clams to the wholesalers there.  Wow, all of a sudden he was telling some really wild stories about how business used to be done there, some of the people he met including some wise guy types who you needed to talk to if you wanted to do business there.  Things had happened like being sent to a very Italian neighborhood in the city for a dinner and also to see a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy, and in general just some interesting stories about working in that environment.  After about 15 minutes he went back to cleaning up.  I again turned my attention to talk to the lady next to me, she was sitting there with a look of shock on her face and said something to the effect of, “I can’t believe it, I know this man and his family for 15 years, I’ve been to his house for dinner, I never knew any of this about him”.  Although she was kind of in stunned, to me this was just normal Jersey and NY folk lore kind of bantering that was common, at least in the NYC Metro area.  The bartender would occasionally come back with another short story and they were getting better.  For some reason I had triggered something in him that brought him back 30 or 40 years and the way he told the tales even his NY accent came back a bit, he was really reliving some of this… in a good way.  Great fun, but the woman left the place with her mouth agape and looking a little stunned, but feeling no pain from the generous happy hour.  Great entertainment, but after three martini’s I had to get out of there too. 

Since I don’t gamble much, and not at all for the past couple of years, I did some walking around the casinos and watched some of the folks that were playing the slots.  Most seemed to be hypnotized staring at the colored screens and listening to all the bells and whistles and sound of imaginary money coming out of the slot machines.  A few would be touching the screens or tapping them trying to will a winning result.  When I got back to my hotel around 8:00PM I noticed that one of the poker games off the lobby area still had some of the same people there from around lunchtime today.  Personally I have no idea how you can play cards for that amount of time even if you’re winning, but to each their own. 

I did some riding around the area and saw some of Laughlin and Bull Head City as well Mojave.  Again, most all the businesses seemed to be geared to servicing the community that services the tourists and the life blood of the place, the casinos.  Not knocking this, it surely seems to work well. 

All in all it was a good couple of day stop but it’s not a place where I would be content living at this point of my life.

Campers:  There are three or four camping spots that are free close to Laughlin.  I did see a couple of RV parks that you can pull into into and hook up right in town too.  Since this mid week deal I found was so inexpensive, and I’m sure that happens a lot here, it seems like a good place to just park and go get a room, clean up and enjoy the pool and restaurants. 

Bikers:  I didn’t explore too many of the roads here, but Oatman is not far off from Laughlin and neither is Lake Havasu.  Those are both worth the ride to get to spend some time.  Additionally there is a portion of the old Rt 66 in the area and some riding along the Colorado River.  I missed the Laughlin Run this year which is a good size motorcycle rally, but plan to make the next one. 

Live Well & Travel Well:  Started losing focus keeping up on my daily philosophy this leg of the trip, but have been checking off some of the Travel Well tenets.  Been taking time to wander, keeping my journal, traveling a little slower, going where the locals go and working on being present in my surroundings to soak it all in.