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From Tucumcari onwards to Santa Fe today, and it's another relatively short driving day so we had given ourself time to relax this morning and set off at leisure. Check out was 10am anyway so that gave us a time to aim for. We started the morning with a run around the town, through all the residential streets, getting an insight into the locals. It was beautiful, but we woke up pretty much all the neighbourhood dogs as we ran past! Jo started feeling really dizzy and I was like, keep breathing! Made it back to the hotel and the owner, Cameron, asked how we found the elevation... Erm, I was confused as the run was flat... He informed us that some people struggle with running round there as its high up and we were running at 4000ft! Now it all makes sense...
Taking a shower in the motel was kinda exhilarating as I replayed the famous Psycho scene over in my head. Luckily it wasn't during the thunder storm in the middle of the night where the thunder rumbled from the mountains, brought the rain in a down pour and lightning that flickered electric light throughout the room. The lightning at first was lighting the whole of the room, front window and rear, then as the storm moved it was just lighting the rear window. It was fascinating and would have made a good murder scene in a movie. Luckily though, we're not in the movies!! Packed up the car, had our PG tips tea and said a fond farewell to our hosts, Jessica and Cameron and the two dogs and headed on the road again.
Tucumcari has a host of wall murals and you can walk around the town with a map showing you all the locations and view the artwork. We had photographed most of these yesterday evening when we arrived in Tucumcari but there were a few we had missed so we stopped off to capture the rest this morning. It was as if we didn't want to leave! I would definitely recommend this place to any traveller on Route 66.
The guide mainly stated we had to follow the Interstate for a large bulk of the miles, and if not on the Interstate, then the frontage road, which we have found generally follows the interstate, crossing over or under at various intervals to continue on the other side. The speed limit for these roads are generally 55mph, where as the interstate is mostly 65 - 75 depending, so a lot faster. It's lovely to just drive at a slow pace and the frontage road (old Route 66) generally has one or two vehicles every 30 miles or so. A much nicer, relaxed ride to enjoy the scenery. The landscape changed dramatically today. The arid land turned into rocky sculptures as we climbed up and into the mountains. Our highest elevation on Route 66 was today on Glorieta Pass over 7500ft. There were snow capped mountains, the Colorado backdrop and vast canyons and crevices cutting through the rock. Most of New Mexico is either old Indian reserves or Ranches, housing the modern day Cowboys/girls. The rivers run red due to the rich colour of the rock and soil.
We soon found ourselves travelling through what we thought would be an uneventful little town, Santa Rosa. But the Route 66 Auto Museum caught my eye and we had an unscheduled but welcome stop. The museum housed some classic vehicles from 1920s Fords to 1950s Cadillac, Chevrolet, Mercurys and Mustangs. I am actually a fan of a good old American Classic car. Reminds me of my trip to Cuba where all their cars were the last imports before the embargo with the USA. The most noticeable thing about being in New Mexico is the Spanish names. The towns, the streets and even signs starting to all be Spanish. We passed a few ghost towns, Cuervo being the larger of them all, but not stopping on the way through. Heading on down the track we were soon brought to an abrupt stop when a Lorry had jackknifed across the carriageway. We were promptly diverted down an old dirt track. You can imagine Jo's delight!! It was better than yesterday's track, more solid under wheel, and dryer. Was going really well until the arctic truck came up the other way!!!
We chose to come slightly North of the route to a historic little town called Las Vegas - no, not that one, yet! This town is famous for a couple of things, notably being the place where General Stephen Kearney proclaimed New Mexico to be part of the United States in 1846. There's a nice little plaque in the town plaza to commemorate this. The second being the Plaza hotel, built in 1881. This was the site of the saloon where Doc Holliday sent a cowboy to meet his maker. We decided to have a spot of lunch in the hotel, truffled mushroom soup with mozzarella croutons for me and for Jo, the grilled salmon club sandwich that she proclaims to be the best sandwich, perfection. After lunch we took a stroll down the high street, admiring the beautiful architecture and quirky shops. We couldn't resist a book shop, and looked for 'The Grapes of Wrath' but the didn't have it there. Whilst there I took the opportunity to look up some of the birds we had seen. The red birds were indeed called cardinals and the birds that keep running out in front of the car are called road runners - meep meep!! The bird that took the snake and flew away was a red tailed hawk... The other two kestrels are also known as sparrow Hawks. And a rather gruesome looking black vulture looking bird was called a turkey vulture, or buzzard (as known in cowboy films).
Once we left Las Vegas it was back to the frontage road, through Romeroville, bypassing San Jose and onto the Glorieta Pass. We stopped at the Pecos National Historic Park where we walked around the trail, that warned you about rattlesnakes. The trail showed you the remains of the Pecos pueblo, once a thriving community. There are only ruins there today, but a fascinating insight into how this community would have lived and survived, using the handy guide. There was even a rattlesnake, but we missed it, which I think Jo was quite relieved about. I was getting ready to run, but apparently that's not what you do!
Santa Fe was next and after dropping our bags into the hotel we were heading back into downtown to look around the shops and buildings. On arrival in this town you can already feel the external influence on its architecture and people. A mixture of Spanish colony and native Americans creates an interesting imagery. The buildings are all similar style, a deep orange, almost mud hut feel. We parked up on the Plaza and took to our feet, discovering delights at every turn. Open market places, leather goods, alligator skin bags and boots, Bison belts, mink coats, raccoon collars, and a mixture of Native American arts and crafts made this town a complete gem of New Mexico.
Day: 8
Total Miles driven: 1583
States Crossed: 5.5 (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico)
License Plates Checked: 36
(Kentucky, Michigan, Utah)
Road Kill : 1 (none today!!)
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