Route 66 – part 4: Texas and New Mexico

Tuesday, 24.Oktober

Do not mess with Texas!

Amarillo, Texas – Bernalillo, New Mexico (1500 Miles/ 2400 km)

• We start early as we have quite a drive ahead of us today.
• The first stop is the Cadillac Ranch, which was built in 1978 by a rich guy and consists of a row of Cadillacs buried nose first in concrete – funnily enough, I check the 1947 guide to see if they existed back then (of course they didn’t); later I find out that the Cadillacs that are buried date from 1948-1956.
• It’s good manners to “immortalize” yourself at the Cadillac Ranch on one of the Cadillacs with a spray can and some graffiti (“Of course I won’t buy a can if someone comes and sprays over it again anyway”, says Matthäus) – it turns out, as the old couple, who are also travelling Route 66, show us, that you don’t have to buy one at all, but that there are bins full of half-full cans everywhere anyway, which you can help yourself to.

• We therefore also immortalize ourselves and take some photos before we have our breakfast in the car and continue our journey through the town of Vega to Adrian, where Route 66 is centered and where we take lots of photos.

• We see – also typical, especially for Texas – lots of pick-up trucks transporting all sorts of things, including cattle, an excavator, an airplane, a truck, there’s almost nothing we haven’t seen on a pick-up truck, I say to Matthäus: “They’re like the American bakfiets – although I’ve never seen a cow on a bakfiets.”

• Other states have “Do not litter” signs on the side of the road, but Texas writes “Do not mess with Texas” in big, bold letters.
• We continue past some old, abandoned silos and some newer ones that are still in use, past vast expanses of prairie grass and small shrubs, until the first mesas (rock formations) of New Mexico appear in the distance.

• Glenrio – a real ghost town, there’s really nothing here except a house where cannabis is sold (it’s legal in New Mexico) – lies on the border with New Mexico.

• We continue on a dirt road which, as so often before, simply ends (i.e. is closed) because the old bridge is closed (typical).

• New Mexico is different: here you can still find some Indian reservations and the population is a wild mix of Americans, Indians and Mexican immigrants and most people speak Spanish as main language rather than English.
• This cultural diversity is also represented in the architecture – the towns here are dotted with houses that you would expect to find in Mexico rather than the USA, alternating with trailer parks and very flat, smaller low houses that you see a lot on Indian reservations – and in the cuisine, which has a very Mexican flavor.

• Many of the sections of Route 66 take us along dirt roads, alternating with totally scenic and picture-perfect highways that stretch straight out to the horizon – it really is beautiful.

• We reach the equally beautiful and very special city of Santa Fe, which is not at all American and where we make a stop.

• It’s totally worth it: the town has character and wins me over straight away – at the latest when we reach the small main square, around the arcades which is dotted with cafés.

• We take a break in one such café and have a snack for lunch, choosing between different salsa sauces – either red or green and opting for “Christmas” (red and green).
• We continue to the most exciting part of the route today: “La Bajada Hill”, which was notorious for its very steep ascent – so steep that cars used to have to drive up it in reverse gear, otherwise the fuel could no longer be sucked out of the tank.

• Driving down the hill was just as adventurous – and all on an unpaved road – which is why there are warnings everywhere not to drive the route in the rain.
• Unfortunately, you cannot drive the steep downhill route anymore, as the route down belongs to an Indian reservation and the road is therefore closed to the public.

• Nevertheless, it is possible to approach the road from both sides and since we do not miss any opportunity to drive a dirt road, we decide to drive as far as we can get on the adventurous road.
• We also drive as far as we can to the hill from the other side – but we don’t get all the way to the foot, as the Indian reserve starts beforehand.

• The detour pays off once again, as we see a coyote crossing the road shortly before the turnaround point.

• After all the action, we are ready to make a stop, so we take a motel room in the town of Bernalillo, just outside Albuquerque.

Wednesday, 25.Oktober

Petroglyphs, Indian museum and Tepees

Bernalillo, New Mexico – Holbrook, Arizona (1800 Miles/ 2880 km)

• Our first stop today are the petroglyphs – a collection of stones with aboriginal paintings on them, which you can hike/walk through – which of course we do.

• We also make a stop in Albuquerque at an Indian museum, where we learn a bit about the Indian tribes, their pueblos (residential areas/places) and their culture.

• Just as we are about to cross a road, a pick-up truck with a very long trailer stops directly on the crosswalk, so we have to walk all the way around it. “Oida, Dude”, I grumble loudly, whereupon the Dude in question looks at us out of his open window with a worried and apologetic expression and says meekly “I am very sorry, Ma’m” – oops.
• After a short walk through downtown Albuquerque, we realize that the city doesn’t have much to offer.

• So we continue through a landscape that slowly becomes more hilly.
• Some of the sections of Route 66 on today’s program lead us back over dirt roads and some of them also through pueblos, where we repeatedly come across “Road Closed” signs that make progress difficult and force us to take the interstate again and again.

• At one point a lot of cows block the road – and finally they reluctantly move out of the way as we approach.

• The road runs for most parts alongside the railroad line, which is now one of the main routes for freight traffic through the USA and is therefore very busy, which is why we see one mile-long train after another pass.

• We pass (at the third point on this journey after the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone) the Continental Divide, which indicates the point at which water flows towards the Atlantic/Pacific Ocean.
• This section of Route 66 is probably one of the most picturesque and scenic, thanks to the mesas towering in the distance and the beautiful red rock formations.

• For lunch we discover a real Route 66 diner, just as you would imagine it – nice!

• We reach Gallup, a town famous for its murals, where we also make a short stop to stretch our legs a little.

• Finally, we cross the border into the state of Arizona, where we manage to organize an overnight stay at the famous Wigwam Motel in Holbrook.
• I’m very excited about this, as the motel is famous for its tepee accommodation and has been an integral part of Route 66 since the 1940s, when the road was traveled by many families as a sort of excursion – parents could then tell their children, “We’re spending the night in a tepee tonight”, which was of course a highlight for the kids.

• Once there, I register us and give the address as any street without a house number because it doesn’t matter anyway – then the lady at reception asks me: “Oh, you don’t have house numbers in Austria? Or is your street that short?!” Well, you can imagine the look on her face when I assured her that we have house numbers anyway and then added a “1” to the street…
• A guy behind me in the queue hears it and says enthusiastically “Wow, you came all the way from Austria?!” whereupon a long conversation about Austria, Vienna and the mountains starts =)