theboondork's RV blog

downtown Oatman Arizona

11/11/2018

Oatman is a fairly scruffy looking little town, which is perfectly normal for a mining town.

Another day in parking lot paradise, mid 70s in the daytime, mid 50s at night, and the sun's so bright you gotta wear shades.

Although last night wasn't the greatest night I've ever had. It seems that one of the casinos next door had an outdoor concert, to celebrate what I don't know, maybe Veterans day, but whatever it was it was nothing if not loud.

I reckon there were several groups because the genre of music changed every now and then and went from rap, to rock 'n' roll, to a woman screeching for an hour. Now I'm a 60s generation kinda guy so I love rock 'n' roll, but the rap and the screeching woman were hard to take. And it appears that the philosophy of, "if you can't sing well sing loud" now dominates the music business. Oh well that's probably just the geezer in me talking, I couldn't be considered a genuwine geezer if I didn't complain about today's music.

Tomorrow will be two weeks since I got to the Riverside casino parking lot and I can't believe it's been that long, like I always say, if time flies when you're having fun I've got to stop enjoying my life so much or I'm going to die of old age in six months.

This move coming up will be one of those self-imposed moves that I'm forcing myself to make just so I don't get so lazy that I don't want to leave. I'm very comfortable here, I'm surrounded by people living the same life that I'm living, security drives around the parking lot giving everyone a sense of safety, groceries, hardware stores and restaurants are only a few minutes away, and I get free trash pickup, what's not to like?

So I keep telling myself that there's other sights to see and a new view out my window is always appreciated. And after all if I don't like where I am I can always hitch up and leave. So this winter I'm going to try to move a little more often even if it's just down the road to another casino at least I'll be moving and that's why RV's have wheels .

theboondork

The town was named after Olive Oatman a young girl who was enslaved by Indians after they killed her family. she's kind of famous in the West and her life makes interesting reading.

The donkeys are hanging around all over the place and if they smell food on you they will follow you around until you give it to them. You also have to be very careful where you step

if you have some food on you and go into a store the donkey will patiently wait outside.

the town's main themes are, route 66 went through here, and we have Donkeys.

I took a picture of this woman not because she was petting a donkey, everybody except me was doing that, but because she was walking like she was going to fall over all the time. It wasn't until I got home and looked at the picture that I realized she had clear plastic heels on her boots that made her look like she was going to fall on her face with every step. She probably never realized how weird she looked.

4 Comments

Barney Ward

11/11/2018 03:45:39 pm

"So this winter I'm going to try to move a little more often even if it's just down the road "
Yep me too. Starting Dec.1 I hope to put this into action. It likely will not make it to every two weeks until it warms up in February. BBNP is planned for a saturation visit to catch up on what I have missed while I can still walk. I might even make it to the Ajo area for a change.

Tom

11/11/2018 04:43:32 pm

I would like to spend some time at Big Bend national Park also, but the crowds and the limited camping opportunities makes it hard for me to get excited about the trip.

I liked Ajo, but just like the BBNP it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. But I'll probably go back this year because I had fun riding my little motorcycle in one of the many dry washes while I was there.

I could be wrong, but I think moving around and staying in different places is good for us senior citizens, or Geezer as the case may be. For me it keeps my mind active and keeps me challenged. When I sit in one spot too long I become lazy and complacent with a diminishing desire to go to the effort of going somewhere just because the view is different.

One of the reasons I became a boondocker is so I could move whenever I felt like it without concern for reservations or for often outrageous daily camping rates. Feeling that in my desire to save money I would be compelled to take advantage of the weekly and monthly discounted rates which might incentivize me to stay someplace longer that I wanted to just to save a few bucks. Because I always figured that as a boondocker I would be moving more than the average RVer.

But who knows, maybe all the moving won't be fun and next winter I'll make a point of staying in just a few places for longer periods of time. After all the whole point of the way we live is to have toooo much fun.

Tom

Tim

11/12/2018 12:22:18 pm

"The town was named after Olive Oatman a young girl who was enslaved by Indians after they killed her family." I did a head slap (figuratively, not literally) when I read this caption. I had read about Olive Oatman and had seen the town of Oatman in several blogs, but had not put two and two together (guess I didn't read quite enough about her).

11/12/2018 01:14:04 pm

Technically one of the early miners in the area in the 1860s named one of his mining claims the Olive Oatman, and later on the town adopted that name, but it's not clear if they named the town after the girl, or they named the town after the mining claim that was named after the girl.

Oh well, nobody knows and nobody cares, but it did give that poor girl a bit of fame that enables her to live on in history which is more than most people ever get.

Tom

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downtown Oatman Arizona

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