Two From Chicago and an Empty Tank on Gold Road
There is a stretch of the old road west of Kingman that most people drive once, take a photograph of, and never come back to. It runs out past Cool Springs and then starts climbing into the Black Mountains toward Sitgreaves Pass, and by the time you are up in the switchbacks there is no shoulder worth the name and a drop off the right side that puts rental cars down to fifteen miles an hour and keeps them there. I ride it a couple times a month, always late in the day, once the heat has let go and the light starts coming in sideways across the rock.Thursday I went out around six with no plan past Oatman and back. Stopped at Cool Springs the way I always do, that rebuilt station with the stone pillars where the tour vans line up at noon and nobody at all stops at supper time. Sat there a wh...