February 13, 2010
At the interstate, I had another direction decision to make. East on Interstate 40 would take me to Needles and then to Blythe where I wanted to end up for the night. Continuing south on Kelbaker Road would take me to Amboy, a wide spot on an old highway which was left to whither when the interstate passed far to the north of it. However, Amboy has a namesake which has stood its ground for many a year: Amboy Crater.
South to the volcano was my decision. Amboy back in its heyday wasn't much, a meal, lodging and gas stop on Route 66. Now it is even less with only a hardly used gas station and cafe, the closed-but-not-yet-forgotten Roy's Motel, and a few homes. A few miles to the west lies Amboy Crater and Lava Field, an extinct but relatively young (6,000 years young) volcanic cinder cone. With daylight burning, the crater was too far from the parking lot for my liking so I nixed the hike to the crater. Instead I headed out onto the basalt lava field to jump from one rock to another. Something I always do when I see lava.
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