A ghost town and burros too

Today the four of us decided to go visit Oatman, Arizona. This is an old mining town about 30 miles east of Laughlin. The mines were deserted in the 1930's and the town was pretty well abandoned. Today the place is pretty lively for a "ghost town". It is a major tourist attraction with many stores and shops to spend your dollars. Here is a picture of the Oatman Hotel with many tourist out in front.

One of the major highlights of visiting Oatman is the wild burros. Burros were used by the prospectors as pack animals looking for gold. They were also used in the mines to pull the ore carts out. After the mines closed many of the burros were turned lose into the wild to fend for themselves. Today many of the ancestors of those burros roam the area. The wild burros are protected by the U. S. Government. These burros come right into town and seek out the tourist to feed them. Many of the shops along the street sell bags of carrots to feed to the animals. As a matter of fact, the burros will walk right up to you and if you have nothing to feed them they will just keep going until they find someone with a carrot. Here Joanne poses with a mama burro and her baby. The baby burros have had a sticker placed on their forehead indicating they are not to be fed carrots. Apparently they have not developed enough to handle them and can choke to death on them.

One of the many shops along the street was called Jackass Junction. Here is Don doing his best pose as the local jackass. While we were in town we only saw the one mama burro with her baby. As we were leaving we came upon a fairly large herd of them coming up the road.

Oatman is out in the desert but is surrounded by some really neat rock formations. Here are some pictures of these rocks.