Day 14

Day 13 and 14

Wow a ton more driving with very few stops in between.  Left Texas and stopped at the Midpoint Cafe.  Good food.  Several places claim to be the midpoint of  the Route and I guess since it's been
realigned so many times all of them could be telling the truth.  But this place has a sign.

 

So enter New Mexico.  Beautiful mountains and completely unique landscape from every other place I've been to so far.  Not many stops to see.  There are a lot of trading posts with the same souvenirs and stuff.  Went to another car museum.  Pretty decent collection but for five bucks the DX in Afton definitely beats this one.

 Then Tucumcari.  This place has the most tourist places in one town.  Cool neon signs everywhere and murals and all sorts of crazy stuff.  I only took a few pictures cause how many signs can you really take pictures of, but you get the point.

Somewhere in between all these places I met and Italian tour group, a Spanish family, an elderly French couple and a German couple.  I also met a young Australian couple.  Australians are crazy about the Route.

Here's more of the awesomeness http://tinyurl.com/ofe98td

And more and more and more driving.  Hundreds of miles with nothing to see... well not nothing, the nature is gorgeous.  Pictures don't do it justice but here are a few anyway.

The bad thing about New Mexico is that 66 is very poorly marked.  If  you happen to run across two consecutive 66 markers it is coincidental.  The worst part is that most of the road is gone now.  I kept trying to get on where I knew 66 ran but there were Road Closed signs everywhere.  

But just like every sign that tells me not to do something, I ignored it.  Don't feed the bears?  But they look so hungry.  

I ended up in many dead ends.  Alas I had to jump on the highway for many many miles the past few days.  At the end of yesterday I was pulling into Santa Fe.  Santa Fe was part of the original 66 route but was bypassed pretty soon after.  I can see why.  Santa Fe is way way way out of the direction 66 goes and is a pain in the ass to get to.  The mountains are nice though.

Today.  More driving and on the Interstate too.  Pretty lame.  Passed through Albuquerque.  Neat town.  These places are now in full Latin swing.  Very colorful everything.  Back to the highway and into Gallup.  On the way there I passed the Continental Divide.  Of course there's a gift shop there too.  

More cool signs in Gallup including the famous El Rancho.  Tons and tons of movie stars stayed at El Rancho.  And this cool overpriced trading post.

Just today was something like 400 miles of driving.  I'm almost out of New Mexico.  Here's some more landscapes cause that's all I got left.