Today was a combination of natural wonders and lots of driving. But I want to start by raving about the hotel in Santa Fe that housed us for two nights. The name of the place is the El Rey and it is on Cerrillos south of downtown/Plaza area. The room was not huge, but it was spotlessly clean and ultra-charming. The building is the old-fashioned stucco/adobe style whitewashed to a glistening shine. The kind people who run it provide a lovely level of hospitality and a wonderful complimentary breakfast each morning complete with warm tortillas and homemade chili sauce. My favorite service is that one of the staff knocked on the door of our room after we returned from touring yesterday. He pointed out that our front tire looked very low – we had observed this and thought we’d find a station in the morning to fill it up. Instead, this nice person got a compressor and came back and filled the tire for us! Okay all of our readers – let us know when you received a service like this while you were staying in a hotel.
We bid a cheerful farewell and headed for the highway. I had told Dennis that I HAD to walk today. I have not worked out for a few days and it is driving me crazy. So we looked over our route and agreed that we would visit the Petroglyphs National Monument, a part of the National Park Service, in Albuquerque. It was my turn to drive and I loved the openness of I-25 south and I-40 west and the 75 mph speed limit. We stopped at the visitors center for the park and had a nice chat with the ranger who gave us a map to the whole park and discussed with us the various trails. The one I had targeted had a one dollar parking fee which I didn’t think was too outrageous. He told us about the lifetime pass for seniors – yes Dennis and I are both seniors. It cost us ten dollars and gets us into all national parks, national forests and a bunch of other places. Since we went to Petroglyphs and to the Painted Desert, we have already “paid” for the card.
While we were talking to that nice ranger, his name is Patrick, he said that he had visited Michigan and visited several of our parks. He agreed that Michigan is beautiful but said that one thing about our fair state bothered him. No, it was not the cold or the lack of sunny days, it was the claustrophobic feeling he got from being surrounded by trees! I had just been thinking about that yesterday, meditating on the differences between my green and beautiful Michigan and the open-sky beauty of the southwest. I had wondered if someone who grew up in the southwest would be troubled by the limited sight-lines of densely forested areas. He confirmed that musing. It was an interesting exchange.
We drove on to the entrance of the hiking area we had chosen, Boca Negra, and got out with our camera. The canyon area had three short trails. The first was not really a hike, but a short steep, rocky climb. Dennis recognized the danger that it posed to his knee and went back down to the picnic shelter area after about one-third of the climb. I took the camera and did the whole loop. It was a good climb and I was able to snap some pictures of Petroglyphs that had not been damaged or defaced. It seems like that trickster god, Kokopelli, has been at work out by the Petroglyphs and new glyphs have been added. The other two loops were flatter and Dennis and I walked them together. I felt so much better after this activity.
We got back in the car and I headed for I-40 west to Gallup. I was thinking we would stop there. As we left the Albuquerque area, I noticed a large smudge of black smoke on the horizon directly west. We both wondered what it was. In a few miles traffic came to a complete standstill. We were moving at stop and go rates for 45 minutes. We finally saw what the hold-up was – a huge accident on eastbound I-40 that completely closed down the highway. The blackened remains of a semi were all we saw. This was definitely the source of the large black smudge on the horizon. It backed eastbound traffic up for at least 3.5 miles. We felt sad for all involved and sent up a prayer for the victims of this accident.
When traffic started to move again, we talked a bit about our destination. I wanted to stop in Grants for water, so we got off there and bought some water and talked to the insurance company (still working on the Tulsa incident). I switched with Dennis to let him drive for awhile. Gallup was about one hour down the road. Dennis didn’t want to stop yet, he thought we could get more miles in. I looked up the various Arizona destinations that might have hotels and picked Holbrook which was 70 miles over the Arizona state line. Then we had a discussion about the difference in our ideas about the journey.
I need to see lots of different areas and feel the differences and see the natural beauty of each area. It is not about accumulating miles each day. So we learned something today. When we plan our next trip, I need to do lots of research (even more than I did for this trip) and specify which places are a “must see” for me.
The Painted Desert is one stop I had to make and Dennis agreed that he wanted to see it, too. It is just outside of Holbrook. We have to give a big shout out to Kathy Runstadtler for this visit. Kathy said that we did not have to drive the whole 28 miles through the park and that the first few miles were are we needed. What a great call! We went to the Kachina Point area stopping at all of the turnouts to take pictures. When we were near the Painted Desert Inn, we took pictures and I noticed that the path was only about a half mile from that turnout to the Inn, so Dennis took the car and I took the camera and walked the half mile. I stopped 3 or 4 times to take pictures. It is so amazing. When you live in Michigan, it is hard to imagine such a dry landscape that is so colorful – not green, but colorful. I know my pictures do not do it justice, but I had to take pictures. Maybe I will be like Grandma Moses and discover my artistic abilities late in life and be able to paint some of the beauty I saw.
Tonight we are going to plan our next few stops. I must see the Grand Canyon from the ground, so we will plan what, when and how. I know that some of the things that we “must” do have nothing to do with the traditional Rte 66 tour. We talk about it often. The introduction of freeways killed many of the small towns along Rte 66. The casinos killed many of the small tourist shops along Rte 66. It seems to me that Rte 66 introduced Americans to touring new areas, meeting new people, and seeing sights that are outside of the everyday purview – and that is what we are doing. Traditional or not – this is our Rte 66 tour!
Postscript: We have met so many nice people and have had so many “small town experiences” – here is an example from this evening. After we ate dinner, we went into the town of Holbrook to buy a bottle of wine at the Safeway. When we went through the checkout line, the cashier asked if we had our “card” and we explained that we were from out of town. So, he turned to the woman in line behind us, a person he seemed to know well, and asked her if she had her card. She said no, but she had the number and told him. He entered her number, we got a $10.00 discount, and she got points toward a gasoline discount. They both wished us well on our journey and we thanked them for their kindness! The random acts of kindness have more than made up for the one random act of mean-ness we have experienced.
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