(I see that I couldn’t even upload this Albuquerque post before somebody made the Bugs Bunny crack…)   

We got going a little late this morning, but we knew we would be picking up an hour when we crossed into the Mountain time zone, so we were not too concerned.  We are on vacation after all.

We followed Route 66 as best as we could out of Amarillo today, stopping to take a quick photo of “Cadillac Ranch.”  I think “Bug Ranch” was better, but that is just my opinion.  We tried to stay on Route 66 for a little while but portions of the road were closed and we kept ending up on detours that brought us right back onto the I-40.  We decided to just take the I-40 today and exit at some of the key Route 66 towns and see what we could see.

We crossed the border into New Mexico around noon today after battling the Texas winds to start battling the New Mexico winds.  We should be thankful for the wind, because it kept us a little cooler.  The landscape seemed to change again for New Mexico, even if the wind did not.  For all you Monty Python fans out there, the “Knights Who Say Nee!” would love New Mexico – there are shrubberies as far as the eye can see!  And did you know New Mexico had mountains?  We were not expecting to see mountains yet.

We stopped at Tucumcari, New Mexico, for lunch at Denny’s for “mini” hamburgers.  They were not “mini”!  Maybe New Mexico has a big fetish like Texas too.  We drove Route 66 through Tucumcari as well before getting back on the I-40.  It was the first town so far on Route 66 for us that has maintained and/or restored its businesses.  Apparently the government of New Mexico funded the refurbishment of a lot of the old, neon signs along its portions of Route 66.  Too bad we were passing through during the day.  It must be beautiful at night with all the old neon signs glowing.

After Tucumcari, we tried to stop in Cuervo for a rest and a drink of water, but there was nothing there.  We are not sure why it even has a name . . .

We headed a little farther down the I-40 and stopped in Santa Rosa and enjoyed a cold Gatorade at the Phillips 66 gas station.  Rejuvenated, we were able to ride for a little longer to the mega-tourist trap in Clines Corners, that is advertised everywhere as “worth the wait.”  I found some cute pony earrings representing “The Painted Ponies” of New Mexico designed by a local artist and was just about to buy them when I flipped over the card the earrings were on and it said “Made in China.”  I put them back on the rack and found a pair of road runner earrings that said “Handcrafted in New Mexico” on them that were a third of the price.  Did you know “roadrunners” are actually real birds and not just the figment of the imagination of the Looney Tunes’ cartoonist?  You learn something everyday.  Mind you, the real “roadrunner” bird does not look too much like the Looney Tunes version.

After escaping the tourist trap in Clines Corners, we booted it to Albuquerque along the I-40.  We saw some beautiful scenery yet again and drove through a very mountainous area.  At one point today we were at 2000 M above sea level, so we think we were going uphill most of the day until closer to Albuquerque, where we seemed to have a downhill stretch for an extended period of time.  We thought we would be crossing the Rio Grande today before getting to our Holiday Inn Express hotel, but it looks like we will be crossing it tomorrow instead.  We can not see the Rio Grande from our hotel room but we can see those unexpected New Mexico mountains in the distance.