The Amboy Underwear Bush

The Amboy Shoe Tree, which I wrote about here, on my winter 2005 trip(scroll to near the end to find photos), has competion!

Now - if you don't know much about Amboy, or the Amboy Shoe Tree, all you have to do is Google, and you'll soon have a plethora of pages to wile away while you're busy wasting time at work. Sure, I could provide links, but...there are so many to choose from, and half the fun of surfing the net is deciding which wave you want. So - get to it. Or not.

Okay....If you truly need help, here's one to see.

I don't know how long the amboy Shoe Tree's been bearing fruit in the form of Keds, Pumas, Nikes and all manner of flip-flops and boots, but it's been there since I first noticed in in December of 2005, and was obviously not a mere seedling at the time.

But!

The new, Amboy Underwear Bush IS a mere wisp of a bush, with just it's first few skivvies snagged on it's desert prickly limbs. When I drove by on my way back to the Las Vegas airport last week, there were butt only four pair of shorts adorning the little bush. I had thought it was a Creosote, but to be honest, I didn't make a note of it. So - if you happen by and get the details, please do let us know.

What's so special about the Amboy Underwear Bush? Well - if you can't figure that out for yourself, then you should just stay at work, getting away once a year to visit the relatives at holiday time. Amboy in itself is an icon of an era gone by; near as a town can be to being a ghost town and still have a few living members of it's population. Once a stop along the infamous Route 66, the town lapsed into despair when the highway was decommissioned(or something - If you want specifics, Google is your friend)and renamed things like National Trails Road.

Amboy is also one of the very few spots along the back road from Vegas to Jtree where there is sign of human interdiction(if you can forget you're on an asphalt lane and running alongside a railroad track for much of the way, I should say). One can cut at least an hour off the travel time by choosing this route over the boring - but safe! - US Highway System.

I have made the voyage in two and a half hours several times(though this time I took three, since I had plenty of time due to a later flight). There's fun in the sun and something decadent about knowing you can run a road as fast as your (and your car's) heart's desire, with no worry about a speeding ticket(for going 50+ miles over the limit....). Plus, after a few trips, you'll figure out how to manage the bottom-out washes and get through without damage to your undercarriage. I cannot guarantee the avoidance of motion sickness, however. So far, I've not been able to get away without at least a little bit between Kelso and Amboy, where the road sign says "Dips - Next 15 Miles."

Until now, Amboy has been known for a few things:
- The exquisite "Roy's Diner" (.....Google, if you don't know)
- The Amboy Crater (someday I will go out and see it; I actually didn't know about it until this last trip
- The fact that the town was auctioned off on Ebay, in hopes to save it's financial soul(don't know how that went)
- The Amboy Shoe Tree

Depending on what you're into, be it geology, 20th Century Americana, or something flavored by some other factor, one of the above would be what you think of when you hear mention of the town called Amboy.

For me, it was first the restaurant - hard to ignore! What a beauty, with it's glorious sign that has somehow been saved from the degradation one might expect in such a desolate location. There must be some desert charm protecting the thing.....

But, if one takes the time to look around, they notice Amboy's got quite a bit more to offer. If you've never been the route, next time you're headed to the Tree (or elsewhere in the direction needed) from Las Vegas, I hope you'll do the right thing - Get some gas and refreshments and make the trek. It's worth it.

I never hoisted a pair of shoes to the shoe tree, but obviously many, many other people have. The think is covered(though there's room for many a future generation to add). But when I drove past, getting a little bit of joy from the thing, I couldn't help but chide myself for being stingy all these times.

I was still in that mode when a flurry of color hastened by my driver's side window.... "What was that?!" I wondered. Looking in my side mirror, and then out the rear-view, I wasn't sure....But I believed(as was later confirmed) that I saw some pairs of boxers blowing in the breeze of my tailwind.

Screeching to a halt, as there really is no other way, if one wants a dramatic tale to be told, I quickly ascertained the coast was clear and threw a U-ie (is there a correct way to spell the word?)

Heading back to the west, I slowed down on the reapproach (yes, I had been going quite fast, if you are wondering - as I said, it's part of the deal. Don't - I repeat DON'T do this tour if you can't drive more than 55. Well, actually it's fine. The whole stretch is flat as a pancake(except those dastardly washes....) and anyone can sail by without much incident).

And so - since I need to go do some work, I'll leave the rest of the story to be told in the photos. But - I will suggest that you be prepared to help this new icon floursih, and if you head out that way - think about helping the legend continue and losing your shorts at the Amboy Underwear Bush.....


Here's the bush


Closer


Red Boxers


Blue Ones


Champions


Blue Plaid


First pair of women's panties on board. Now....there's something to be proud of....
~~~~~~~
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