Our Texas excursion left us with with a certain sense of urgency. We had set ourselves a big itinerary for this now somewhat unexpected trip through America.
It was up and off and that day, our 430 mile drive back to Amarillo being the longest day’s drive so far.
Next day as we reengaged with Route 66 a certain calm overtook us. We took stock, and decided that we weren’t actually behind. A more leisurely pace, chasing the dream again?
We had previously mainly stuck to the towns that had been bypassed by the now interstate highway, mainly because after having sent you off on those excusions, the road signs hurried you back on to the new Interstate, but we had noticed that there were still stretches of Route 66 running beside us. At least two of our excursions off the Interstate 40, led to dead ends. We decided that we wouldn’t be railroaded. We were going to do all those bits that they were trying to deny us.
One of those led us to a dead end with at least a 30 mile roundtrip (probably an exaggeration!) back to the exact place we had left the I-40. There where obviously places where they had taken the eraser to the road, but we tried one more time.
This last off-highway adventure led us through two tunnels under the I-40 and about three miles later the road was flooded. The water was clay red making it impossible to tell how deep it was. There was a slippery looking clay track that had been used by others as frightened as us to try the water. We slithered our way along the wet red clay, but just as we passed the other end of the water ‘hazard’ our track ended at the edge of a rather steep gully. The recent rain had turned the bottom of it into a quagmire. We thought of all that rough road driving Guiseppe had taken us on in Costa Rica, he would have just charged in and got us to the other side. In fact he would just have taken the water hazard.
We balked and turned around.
Back at the start of the water hazard I decided that we weren’t giving up. I’d walk into the water and test out with a trusty stick I’d found. I got no more than a few feet in and I was more than ankle deep in brown water, nothing to worry about. Oops! A pothole, now it was shin deep. The I-40 was running parallel to us and only a few meters away. We got what I thought was a congratulatory blast from a big trucker.
Or was it just: “Good luck with that one ya dafty!”
Then again, maybe he thought he had seen some latter day Francis of Assisi, trying to rescue an animal from the flood waters.
Emboldened, I rolled up my trousers a little further, and took another step into a deeper part of the pothole. Would I continue and survey the other thirty feet of the flooded and, what I now knew to be, potholed road?
Nope!
It was back in the car and a squelchy drive back to the I-40.
That was our last excursion on the bare pieces of Route 66 that remained. From now on it would be the tourist towns and their stretches of the old 66 and the signposted exits back onto the Interstate 40.
In spite of all those pointless excursions that morning on defunct parts of Route 66 and the fact that it took us three hours instead of one, we had arrived at the ‘Glenrio Welcome Center’ pretty early in the day.
We had made a habit of visiting these centres on the border of each state. They were always well decked out and a comfortable stop, but more importantly - a mine of information. This wasn’t quite as grand as the one in Texas, but the woman who served us was very friendly and they had just as much information as we needed.
“How long did we plan to spend in New Mexico?”
Rather than embarrass ourselves by admitting that we were just passing through:
“Erm, about two or three days and we we’re mainly following Route 66”
and did she have any suggestions.
She then produced the official tourist map of Route 66 in New Mexico, but pointed out that it didn’t include the section that used to go up to Santa Fe. We asked if that section was worth following and boy did she tell us. We were mesmerised by her descriptions of Santa Fe and decided that we just couldn’t miss it, even deciding that we’d need to stay at least two nights to give us a whole day in Santa Fe.
Where had all that urgency gone? Evaporated in the desert sunshine. Settled then, another diversion.
We arrived in Santa Fe in glorious sunshine and spent the afternoon exploring this beautiful town. We had, however, been warned that there could be snow and had indeed seen it on the distant hills.
We hadn’t really tried to work out where we would be on the day of the election, but here it was - Santa Fe. That morning we woke up wth the shock result that Trump had won. Then too it started to snow, but it really didn’t look like it would lie. We spent another day touring around town, visiting bars and cafes and listening into conversations. We even did what we had promised we’d try at all cost to avoid, we asked someone what they felt this all meant. This is a Travelogue, so no politics. On our way back that night it was looking like the snow might indeed lie.
On our second morning: five inches of snow - in the desert! And it was still snowing, heavily.
Our casual lack of urgency was smothered by the prospect of driving in the snow.
Would we stay another night or carry on to Albuquerque? It was only an hour away. Well, maybe three in these conditions. Did we even know anything about how they kept the roads open in New Mexico? Do we need to? We’ve driven in European winters, even in a two wheel drive, albeit with winter tyres.
Well, it’s off we go.
