The view from Hoover Dam on the Nevada/Arizona border is an unnerving one.

Because of the severe drought conditions throughout the West, the dam’s Lake Mead reservoir has dropped to its lowest level in nearly 90 years.

A “bathtub ring” on the canyon walls is stark evidence of the drop in the lake’s water levels. It promises that a road trip through northern Arizona will be a dry one. But winding through the state’s highways and sections of Route 66 reveals pine forests and a transplanted British bridge spanning a lake largely unaffected by the drought.

Traveling south on Route 11, travelers like myself can turn off onto Route 66. This section is known as the “Arizona Sidewinder” because, as a sign states at the end, the traveler will negotiate 191 curves in its 8-mile stretch.

Upon retiring from the Eagle this spring, I took a road trip with my wife that I’ll detail. While at the Eagle, I had written many “Readers on the Road” pieces about trips Butler County residents made across the country and abroad, but with some newly found time on my hands, I had an opportunity to put myself into readers’ shoes.

My own iteration of “Readers on the Road,” let’s call it “Eric on the Road,” is below.

The town of Oatman is along Route 66. A largely abandoned mining town with a population of 102, according to the 2020 Census. Oatman is semifamous for three things: The hotel’s dining room and bar, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard’s honeymoon and feral donkeys.

The Oatman Hotel at 181 Main St. was built in 1902 and claims Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their honeymoon there after their marriage in 1939, although this is disputed.

What cannot be disputed are the walls and ceilings of the dining room and bar are festooned with thousands of dollar bills signed and stapled into place by travelers. There are so many hanging in the bar they give the whole area the appearance of a cave.

Oatman is also known for its feral donkeys that wander the streets of the town and its outskirts cadging handouts from the tourists. The donkeys were turned loose to fend for themselves when the last of the mines were closed by the federal government in 1942.

The donkeys survived and bred to such an extent that signs on the businesses along Oatman’s Main Street ask tourists not to feed the donkeys from the sidewalk.

Visitors are warned the animals aren’t tame. They may take an apple from your hand, but they will use their teeth and hooves on anyone who tries to get too familiar with them. It’s best to take pictures from a distance.

It’s claimed the song, “Donkey Town,” by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame and Emmylou Harris released in 2006 was inspired by the donkeys and Oatman.

Leaving Oatman and going south on Route 95, travelers will reach Lake Havasu City.

Starting out as an Army Air Corps rest camp during World War II, business owner Robert McCulloch, who got rich from the McCulloch chain saw, purchased 3,353 acres on the east side of the lake followed by another 13,000 acres later.

McCulloch dredged the lake, turning an existing peninsula into an island. To reach the new island and to bring publicity and visitors to the newly christened Lake Havasu City, McCulloch purchased the London Bridge from the city of London in 1968. It took three years to disassemble and reassemble the bridge in Arizona. The 930-foot span, complete with shrapnel holes made by German bombing during World War II, has become a popular tourist destination as well as a favored spot for wedding and prom photos.

A sunset tour of the lake will reveal there are 28 replica lighthouses, each a scale model replica of a famous lighthouse from around the United States, placed along Lake Havasu’s shores. The lighthouses were made by the Lake Havasu City Lighthouse Club, whose volunteers designed and built the structures.

The next stop was Jerome, a former hub for copper, gold and silver mining carved into the side of a mountain and reached by a vertigo-inducing series of switchbacks along Route 89. Jerome has embraced its ghost town past wholeheartedly with many businesses offering ghost tours and trips to Gold King Mine and ghost town. The Jerome Grand Hotel’s Asylum restaurant offers delicious lunches and well as spectacular views of the landscape below.

Traveling north on Route 89 will bring you to Sedona, where a visitor can spend days sampling any number of attractions the town has to offer, including spectacular red rock formations like Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock, as well as its many artist galleries, restaurants and hiking trails.

One can also take the opportunity to risk being affected by the four energy vortexes said to exist within Sedona.

The vortexes are said to be swirling eddies of subtle energy emanating from the surface of the earth. For someone inside a vortex, the energy is said to strengthen the inner being and leave the person feeling uplifted. It’s not unusual to see people in lotus positions on the ledges of rock formations such as Bell Rock, availing themselves of the vortex energy.

Because of the vortex stories, Sedona is also filled with New Age merchants of all kinds: hypnotherapists, psychics, yoga masters and aura readers.

More traditional spiritual seekers can visit Sedona’s Chapel of the Holy Cross, which was built 250 feet up a solid rock wall in 1956. The chapel is used for daily Masses and confessions but is open to visitors every day of the year except Christmas and Easter. Because of its location, parking is limited and the chapel can get crowded at times.

Those with a more materialistic bent should visit the Tlaquepaque Mexican village shopping area along Oak Creek in Sedona. Created in the style of a traditional Mexican village, its stucco walls, arched entryways and cobblestone walks hold a variety of shops, galleries and restaurants.

South of Sedona is Prescott, which served as the first capital of the Arizona Territory in 1864. Prescott has preserved a lot of its Old West heritage, including Whiskey Row along Montezuma Street, a historic section of one-time saloons that are now home to microbreweries, distilleries and restaurants as well as live music venues.

One of the venues, the Palace Bar, opened in 1874 and was rated one of the Top 10 historic bars in the United States by USA Today. Its lively and crowded bar and dining area is often visited by figures dressed as Wyatt Earp and other Old West gunfighters. The Palace Bar was featured in the Steve McQueen movie, “Junior Bonner,” just as a large poster along one wall in the bar points out.

Leaving Prescott, one stop along the way is the Montezuma Castle National Monument to the east of the city. Montezuma never came anywhere near the area, but the settlers named the 20-room structure still preserved in the cliff face after the Aztec ruler.

It wasn’t Aztecs, but the Sinagua people who farmed the fields and fished the nearby Beaver Creek for approximately 325 years starting in 1100 A.D. Located 90 feet up a sheer cliff, the structure was easily defended by its inhabitants, who simply pulled their ladders up behind them.

Archaeologists say the cliff dwelling could hold up to 50 people, but the Sinagua abandoned their longtime home for an unknown reason sometime in the 13th century.

Farther east along U.S. 40, another bit of history, if considerably more recent, is preserved in the town of Winslow. Made famous by the Eagles/Jackson Browne song, “Take It Easy,” with the line “I was standin’ on the corner in Winslow Arizona,” the town created the Standin’ on the Corner Park located on historic Route 66 in Winslow’s downtown.

The park comes complete with a flatbed Ford truck on display, a life-size bronze statue of a balladeer, murals and angel wings perfect for posing for selfies.

Gift shops on opposite sides of the street sell all things Eagles: T-shirts, posters, keychains, CDs and videos. Winslow even has an annual Standin’ on the Corner street festival every September. Legend has it that Browne was on his way to Sedona when his car broke down in Winslow inspiring him to write, or cowrite, the Eagles hit.

An infinitely more ancient event is obvious farther along U.S. 40 at the Meteor Crater and Space Museum. The crater was created 50,000 years ago when an iron and nickel meteor, estimated to have been 150 feet across and weighing several hundred thousand tons, hit the Arizona desert at 26,000 miles per hour.

The collision created a crater 700 feet deep and 4,000 feet across. Even with centuries of erosion filling the crater, it is still 550 feet deep, or the equivalent of a 60-story building. The crater’s floor has been used as a training area for astronauts and is large enough for 20 football games to be played simultaneously.

Visitors can take guided walks along the crater’s rim or visit the attached discovery center and museum. The museum features a film on the meteor’s impact and has a 1,400-pound fragment of the meteor on display. The crater is something that truly has to be seen to be appreciated.

Astronomy figures into this road trip at its end in Flagstaff, the home of the Lowell Observatory. The observatory was founded in 1894 by astronomer Percival Lowell who found the clear air of Flagstaff perfect for mapping the stars. It was here in 1930 that Clyde Tombaugh discovered the dwarf planet Pluto.

Lowell Observatory, although open to visitors, is still a working observatory operating several telescopes at various locations in the Flagstaff area.

Those looking to view a totally different landscape while enjoying many and varied sites, activities, foods and beverages might consider Sedona, Ariz., for their next vacation.