Pacific Electric & Gas now owns everything painted white south of I-40, and all together it looks like a puzzle of different steel shapes inserted into the hillside at random. Among all of these, the one that I want to stand out to you is the Old Trails Bridge, the arch in the second photo. It carried US 66 from its inception into the 1940s and has outlasted by over 30 years the succeeding bridge (which was killed off by I-40). In fact, the bridge that carried US 66 for just 20 years was a huge steel cantilever, perhaps less aesthetically pleasing but certainly of structural interest. I don't see why they couldn't have all coexisted peacefully. Anyway, while PE&G has painted everything white, you can see a hint of brown at the California pier of the bridge, which I'm sure was the old color when it was still carrying vehicles. I do like the white better.


WB on the northern I-40 frontage road, which is the only connection to Mohave CR 10 EB (or really NB, but old 66 EB at any rate). It's certainly not Historic US 66, but it gets the trailblazer that you can follow all the way across Arizona as a touring route. It does unfortunately leave out a few roadgeek-worthy alignments, though not of interest to the casual enthusiast.


Wait, how was US 66 signed 15 minutes ago and only now begins? I don't know what this sign is doing here, either, because ever since the Santa Fe RR overpass (a recurring US 66 theme) I've been on the old alignment. As in eastern California, US 66 starts out with no bridges at all. Because this is a desert, the road just crosses washes at-grade. This is all well and good until the one rain shower a year, when this becomes at best a ford or at worst an impassable stream for a couple of days. The plus side is that for the other 362 days, you have a lot of fun bouncing down and up at 70+ MPH. I mean, 55 MPH, since that's the speed limit, of course.


East of Oatman, old US 66 climbs a mountain in the heart of an active mining stake. This is one of the many mine entrances (or driveways to mine entrances) along the route in this area. There's also fantastic scenery, but since that's not road-related it goes on my scenery page, linked below. (This isn't really road-related, either, but it's different than the rest of my scenery photos.)

Continue east on old US 66 to Shinarump Drive
Back to US 66 main page
CR 10 scenery photos
I-40 (US 66's successor)

Back to Arizona Roads
Back to Roads