...and into the fire.

Today started rather chilly, with temperatures around only 33°C. A few of us were thinking of putting on an extra set of clothes, but we decided it might get warmer soon and that it's better to freeze for the first few miles. And thank god! When we drove through the Mojave Desert, the warmer temperatures of 44°C in Ludlow and 49°C in Laughlin made all our worries go away. ;-)
It's now 9 pm and it's still unbelievably hot outside (42°C). But not only that, there's also a storm raging due to thunderstorms in the Arizona mountains, which makes breathing incredibly hard. But well... A few days ago we all complained about the cold, now it's too hot - you can't please everybody, right?

Concerning this day's motto: I always – and I mean it – dreamt of driving along the Route 66 one day. And "one day" now became reality. I know I keep repeating myself, but it's really just dream after dream come true and every day is a new adventure.

And so it was today: Our first stop was at the famous Bagdad Café. What an extraordinary place! The owner was so super-friendly and let us take pictures of everything. In the end, she even took a picture of us standing behind the counter, which was superfun.

The next stop was at Roy's Motel and Café, where we met another very easygoing guy who let us take picture inside and outside of the building and talked to us about this special location.
The huge "Route 66" markers painted on the road outside of the café were the perfect spot to take some great pictures with Roy's neon sign in the background. And so we did take tons and tons of them. I wanted a photo of me on my bike as well, so I asked if there was some time left for me to drive over to the markers. And hell yeah, there was! So without hesitation I jumped on my Harley (See? "MY" Harley... I'm in love!), rode it over to the markers, let Axel take a few

pictures and drove back to the group within a minute. That was fun and I think the photos turned out great!

Unfortunately, the Route 66 was closed 20 miles ahead, so we had to take a detour via the nearby Interstate 40 that took us to Najah's Desert Oasis a lot faster than expected. After a short lunch break we drove along the Route 66 again to our meeting point with Georg (the owner of US Bike Travel), where the "Silver and Golden State Tour" part of our group left us to go straight back to Vegas. In exchange, a new group of the "Natural Wonder, Route 66 & Indian Spirit Tour" joined us there. Let's just say I'm once more so glad I'm surrounded by the nicest, funniest people I could've ever imagined being with in my group.

Tomorrow we'll continue our trip on Route 66. Herbert, a coworker of mine, told me about wild burros living in Oatman, so that's something I'm really, really looking forward to see! According to Birgit there might be the possibility of the burros not being there, but I don't even wanna imagine that. I'd be the saddest person on earth if I couldn't pet a cute little burro tomorrow... ;-)