Sunday, July 30, 2006

Rainy days and Sundays

We went to the Spanish market in the Santa Fe plaza area. This was just a short visit. We partook of the famous Carnitas (grilled meat, peppers, onions in a flour tortilla) that are served there. Hopped in the car to head west and got gas at a truck stop just out of town. Quite a mess with all the pickup trucks hauling various trailers. Waited in line to get gas. Ugh.

Got a little down the road and we both decided a combat nap was needed, so we found the next rest stop and got some much needed shut eye for about an hour. Hit the road and stopped in Gallop for a brief visit to the El Rancho Motel, a historic landmark.It's located on a strip of the old Route 66 along with other smaller motels and lodges advertising "steam heat" in neon.

Exterior view of the landmark


Lobby views


The interior looks something like an old ski lodge. There are many photos on the wall of movie stars that have stayed at the hotel: John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Henry and Jane Fonda, among many others. Quite an impressive list of celebrities this place has hosted during its heyday. Then we decided that a stop at the Meteor Crater outside Winslow was something to do.

Unfortunately, it was raining quite heavily and getting late, so a trip to the Crater was taken off the schedule. We decided to stop in Winslow for the night instead of Flagstaff due the weather, driving conditions and fatigue.

The terrain and weather has been quite a break from the Texas summer. East of Albuquerque, the desert was actually greener than the yards in the suburbs around Dallas.
I’ve never seen the desert so green in all my visits here. Looks like Texas has donated its share of rain to its neighbors New Mexico and Arizona.
This is the desert?!?

Blog, what blog??

Ok, sorry, been a bit hectic here, trying to find Internet access and such.
The brief version is we left Dallas about 5 pm, hit rush hour traffic getting out of town. We stopped in Wichita Falls to have an excellent Rib Eye steak dinner at a local diner.It’s the kind of place where you learn the life story of the waitress between the iced tea and dessert. Our young waitress was aided in her telling of her tale with tattoos of the names of the father of her child and the name of her deceased baby on the top of her right and left wrists, respectively. There’s got to be the makings of a county song there.

Made Amarillo by midnight. Stopped at a bar that we've been to before to listen to "Two tons of steel" a good rockabilly band.
We decided that we were awake enough to drive a bit more instead of staying the night in Amarillo. Drove into Tucumcari about 4 am. Crashed till about 10am. Got up and drove into Albuquerque. We stopped at the Frontier so I could satisfy my craving for their cheeseburger I've had for about 364 days.

We decided to play golf at Cochiti http://roadtripnm.blogspot.com/as we did last year.
Beautiful course, beautiful skies, beautiful weather. It's in the middle of nowhere. It was so quiet that on a par 3 I hit my ball 175 yards and I could hear my ball land on the green.


After golf, we moved on to Santa Fe. Well, Mexican Market is going on here, a big event. We were very lucky to get a hotel room. We tried about 6 places, all full, before we landed at the luxurious Sleep Inn. Going to the plaza now in Santa Fe to look at the Spanish Market and get a bite to eat there.

Then after the plaza, on to the road, possibly Gallup, NM. There's a really neat hotel there that a lot of movie stars have stayed at through the years while making movies in that area.