Oatman, Route 66: In the Land of Trump
We were driving to the Grand Canyon. After passing Kingman we turned off the motorway to follow what remains of Route 66.
A marketing entity which broadly follows the old road from Chicago to California, it has cult status in America. On this road, about 120 miles south of Las Vegas, lies a town called Oatman.
It’s described in guidebooks as a ghost town. Built for miners in 1908, it became empty in 1942, when the mines closed.
Almost empty, that is, apart from hundreds of donkeys which roam the streets — descendants of mine animals abandoned when Oatman’s residents left the town. According to guidebooks, these donkeys have gone feral and should not be approached because they are unpredictable. One website suggested that for more information we should approach “one of the few plucky shop keepers who etch out a living catering to the very few tourists coming to visit”.
All this is a nice collection of “alternative facts”.
Oatman’s historic buildings still stand. But in each of them, there is now a shop selling assorted tourist tat, — all of it made, of course, in China. The buildings are laboriously kept in a state which I can only describe as intentional disrepair. Pristine toilets and Wi-Fi on the inside; peeling paint and creaky wooden staircases on the outside.
Tourists migrate in large herds from one tat shop to the other. Most are incredibly proud to be “doing the Route 66”, and have T-shirts, or baseball caps, or leather patches on their jackets, to show this emotion.
The absolute majority are pensioners, — and many arrive on Harleys. Their heads are wrapped in Route 66-themed bandanas. No helmets — as one rider explained to me, “a helmet constrains my sense of liberty, and isn’t liberty what a motorcycle is all about?”
The donkeys — burros, as they are called here, — weave in and out of tourist traffic, expertly begging for carrots. Carrots are sold in shops along the town’s only street. They are marketed as “Oatman burros’ favourite snack”.
There are only two places in Oatman which stand out. One is a restaurant in what used to be the town’s hotel.
Its walls are plastered with dollar bills. Allegedly there are a few thousand of them there. Those dollars are stuck onto walls by happy customers, — most of them signing their names on the bills.
And the other place is just a regular gift shop, nothing fancy at all. Except, in addition to all the other tat, it had Trump baseball caps for sale. So I stocked up.
Selling the caps was a 66-year-old called Star. She lives on a ranch in the desert, about 10 miles away. There is a simple house, and a trailer, and some farm animals. More than enough for a good life, she says.
Star moved to the area 26 years ago. Her business in California did not work out, so she decided to give the desert a go.
She says she is happy here because nobody cares about her, and she is left alone most of the time.
The Trump cap business is, she says, booming. She likes her new president: “He does the right things, you know. What we had was despicable. I was paying taxes, but the system was not built to support people like me, — honest working folk. It was skewed towards all these people from abroad who come in and just f-k about, while we Americans feed them”.
But not everything is quite so rosy.
Star paid her taxes the other day. There were “the big one, $1600, and the small one, $900”.
And then, on top of that, “they went and fined me for not having health insurance”. Which is weird, she says, because “hasn’t Trump cancelled this stupid Obamacare?”
At 66, Star smokes like a chimney and looks almost 80.
So, I said to her, maybe that’s right that the government wants you to get insured?
“Do the maths, — she says. — I see my doctor twice a year. That’s $213 a pop. He prescribes me my meds, and I just go and buy them. Simple. Works out at about $600 a year, tops. Health insurance would be a thousand, I think. Probably more, because I have my conditions. I don’t need that”.
“But, — I asked, — what if you require more serious treatment?”
“Oh, but I won’t. God will look out for me”.
On a hill overlooking Oatman I stumbled upon a place from where residents of this area scatter the ashes of their relatives. Little signs show just names and dates, nothing more.
Life expectancy around here is not high. The oldest I saw was 70.
A dusty road leads from the hill into the wilderness. For miles, as long as the eye can see, there is desert, and cacti, and mountains, and more desert. Somewhere in that desert there are ranches. People like Star live there.
Their lives are hard, their environment, — bleak.
And the Trump baseball caps are so bright, so red, they stand out so gloriously in this barren landscape. And the message on them — “Make America great again” — is big, bold, and golden in colour.
You really can’t miss it.
As we drove south, leaving Oatman behind, I stopped for one more photograph. Just as I was walking back to our car, I noticed two things on the ground, almost touching each other: a dead snake and a $20 bill.
I prodded the snake with a stick to make sure that it really was dead, not asleep (do snakes even sleep?), picked up the bill, and, with that, we left this dusty, touristy, and utterly fake ghost town.
Practical Advice: Oatman
Don’t expect to spend more than two or three hours in Oatman. Have a good look around, though, and do try and pop into all the shops. The restaurant with the dollar bills is interesting to look at, but not at all worth eating in.
Do not fall for the trick of paid parking just as you enter Oatman. There are plenty of places where you can park free of charge as long as you’re willing to walk for five minutes.
A Trump baseball cap is $5. If you haggle, you’ll get three for $10.
If you’re heading from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon, like we were, it’s best to enter Oatman from the North and exit in the South. This way, you will drive down a very beautiful mountain road before emerging on the Interstate.
Next stop — the Grand Canyon, where I’ll talk about Humans, Mules, Squirrels and Condors.
Or go back to the preface and the front page
