What The Burros Know isn’t written in any book — it’s in the way they move through Oatman like they own the place. She said she came for the donkeys, but I think they came for her.
They blocked traffic without a care, one even standing in front of her rental car for a full five minutes, blinking at her like a shaggy little monk. She laughed and rolled down the window. “Okay, I get it,” she said. “I’m not in charge.”
Later, she told me she’d driven from Phoenix. She had no real plan, just a deep itch to be somewhere else. Her job had ended. The marriage had cracked. Her father had stopped remembering her name. Because of all that, she packed a weekend bag and followed a road she’d never taken.
“It’s funny,” she said, watching a young burro nudge at her pocket for treats. “They don’t care what you’ve done. No rush. They don’t pretend.”
Everything that day felt like a kind of grace. The sunlight touched the edges of things in just the right way. Nobody was in a hurry. Even her breathing began to slow, like her body finally understood: be still.
We talked for a while on the boardwalk outside the old hotel. We talked about letting go, about trusting the road, and about not needing to know what’s next.
Before she left, one of the older burros brushed against her leg and paused — eyes closed, as if it were offering a blessing.
She smiled and whispered, “I think I needed to be reminded. Even the wild things rest.” That moment didn’t fix everything, but it mattered.
✨ Roadside Reflection: What The Burros Know
Sometimes, wisdom doesn’t come with wings or a voice from above.
Sometimes it’s got hooves and dust and breath that smells like hay —
and it simply stands still until you remember how to stop running.
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More about Route 66: History of U.S. Route 66.