I have become a morning person! Not on purpose. I just went to bed early the day we crossed into Mountain Time Zone and then daylight savings time ended. So when I woke up at 8 am this morning it was actually 6 am! I haven’t been up that early in a long time. We were on the road shortly after 9 am.
Today we saw the Route 66 sights in Tucumcari, New Mexico: Tepee Curios, the Blue Swallow Motel which was advertising 100% refrigerated air, and LaCita with its sombrero entrance.
It’s clear we are now out west. Even this two lane highway has cattle guards wherever we cross another road. We slow way down for them since they shake us up enough at slow speeds.
One of the old alignments of Route 66 went to Santa Fe. It included a hill with a 28% grade. We decided not to go there. Can you imagine the pioneers doing that with their wagons? This must be one of the ones I’ve seen pictures of where they tied ropes to each wagon and everyone helped pull them up the hill.
Today’s route took us alongside a Union Pacific Railroad mainline. We saw a long mixed freight moving beside a stopped stack train. That surprised me since usually stack trains are carrying higher priority merchandise than mixed freights. Maybe it had to do with the auto racks on the mixed freight. We also saw another stopped train that had two locomotives on each end so we weren’t able to determine which direction it was headed.
In Santa Rosa, New Mexico, we visited the Route 66 Auto Museum. All of these vehicles are sitting outside the museum. Since we are racing weather we didn’t take time to go inside. We’re not either one that much into autos anyway.
Then we ate lunch at Joseph’s where we saw another classic car. It wasn’t on display, though. It’s owner finished lunch and drove away about the same time we did.
We also stopped at a gas station where I saw two teenage boys wearing chaps over their jeans. I wanted to take their picture but they were too close to do so without them noticing and I thought they’d be embarrassed if they caught me or if I asked their permission so I didn’t.
We stopped at a rest area to see what they are like in New Mexico. This one had full facilities for everything except recycling. We may carry our bag of cans all the way to California.
There were a lot of billboards for the Flying C Ranch souvenir shop. They advertised a lot of authentic Indian and Mexican goods. Since they also advertised Black Hills Gold I question their authenticity of anything. Why would anyone want to buy a souvenir of South Dakota while in New Mexico? We didn’t stop there.
As we passed Clines Corners, New Mexico, we started seeing mountains. They don’t appear to have any snow on them yet.
In Moriarity, New Mexico, we stopped to get a picture of the rotosphere at El Comedor de Anayas. That thing moves.
I tried to take a nap there but every time I started to doze off a fly landed on my face. Dave is good at killing flies but having him keep swatting them wouldn’t have let me sleep either. So I gave up and we moved on.
We drove by a movie rental place that gave us a chuckle. Their sign said, “Get your flicks on Route 66.”
We planned to stop at Hidden Valley Resort but it lived up to its name by hiding so well we couldn’t find it so we just kept driving.
Finally we reached Alburquerque, New Mexico. We stopped first at Home Depot to see if we could buy a new water pressure regulator since our previous one is now gracing some park we stopped at earlier. They didn’t have one there but Dave did buy an indoor/outdoor wireless thermometer so he can monitor the temperature in our pump bay when there’s a risk of it freezing.
Then we stopped at Camping World where he did buy a new regulator. I wish I’d remembered to have him buy some collapsible water jugs there.
We are now camped next door to Camping World at Enchanted Trails RV Park. We have full hookups for $14 with our Passport America discount. Unfortunately, the sewer connection is raised so I imagine we’ll wait until we are leaving to stop at their dump rather than try that uphill dumping again. Once was enough for that experience.
We did see some more vintage cars here, though. With vintage trailers attached. Cool, huh?
This campground also has this sign at the entrance.
I like it when people use humor to gently remind people of things they need to think about.
TTYL,
Linda