Day 12 - Tucumcari to Santa Fe

Today was more of a driving day than anything else, with only a few stops scheduled into the drive.

Leaving the Blue Swallow, our first stop was an old disused store. From the photo I'd seen it looked quite interesting. Sadly, today, it bears little resemblance to that photo, the roof having now caved in, so it is little more than a shell. Surprisingly though, the glass in the doors is fully intact.

A little way down the road, there's Newkirk, once a thriving town, now, just a few inhabited buildings remain. Another old store sits rotting away, with stuff still sitting on the shelves! It's almost as if the owners were snatched, rather than just closed their doors. Bizarre!

Abandoned

In Santa Rosa, we stopped for brunch at McDonalds and I kid you not, we had a Falling Down moment (the Michael Douglas film). Apologies if you haven't seen it. As we got in the queue, we were both going to have egg McMuffin, the guy behind the counter changed the food board, to show the burger selection. As we got to the counter, bearing in mind we were only second in line and asked for the McMuffins, the guy told us they had stopped serving and were on lunch menu now. When Catherine asked what time they stopped serving breakfast, they said 10:30. We both looked at our watches, 10:30. But we were already in the queue, Catherine argued, pointing out that she doesn't eat meat, so only wanted the egg. This was just ridiculous. The manager appeared and after a brief exchange, we we allowed to order the eggs. In the film, MD is actually 3 minutes late, so I guess they can think themselves lucky we weren't carrying an Uzi or something!

We made a stop at the Route 66 Motor Museum, though we decided not to go round, as I'd done it before and Catherine isn't really a yank car fanatic, despite being keen to photo one outside the motel next to the Blue Swallow, a Ford Galaxie. A short drive away from the museum, is the Blue Hole. This is a sixty foot wide pool of crystal blue water, apparently one of seven in the area, connected by underground caves. This one is very popular with divers and there were a couple in the water as we arrived. Around the edge, live a family of ground squirrels. They are cute, so cute in fact, we spent more time looking and photographing them than we did the pool.

Aah! Cute!

This was our last stop. Next up was Santa Fe.

Besides the usual road kill, a deer today, we also saw a road runner. Far from rushing about though, this one ambled out of our path, to the roadside.

We arrived at the motel a little after 2pm. The room though spacious, with two king sized beds, is very dark, as the overhanging roof is covered in a thick vine, so blocking out a great deal of the daylight. Catherine  was not impressed.

We went out for a walk, down to the train station, as Catherine has become fixated with the blasted trains out here, hoping to see another long goods train, so she can video it. Santa Fe is the end of the line, so no goods trains come here. They do, however, have a commuter service that goes back and forth to Albuquerque. We were lucky enough to see one of these massive diesel locos come and go and video was taken. Catherine even got her photo taken on board, with the ticket collector!

All Aboard!

Along from the station, I spotted a brew pub, so not wishing to be rude, we went inside and had one of their brews. A pint on an empty stomach might not have been the best idea but hey, I am on holiday ;-)

As we walked back to the motel we came across the Cowgirl Steakhouse (recommended by my friend Carol) and checked out the menu. There was probably as much veggie stuff as meaty, so we decided to go back after freshening up. When we got back, we were greeted by some very nice looking cowgirls ;-) and presented with the menu and a list of the beers they offered, 24 in all! I was like a kid in a sweetshop but settled on a pint of Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest, a very nice amber beer at 6% abv. That washed down a massive plate of pulled pork sandwich and fries, which I struggled to finish. Our cowgirl, besides being quite pretty, was very attentive, unlike that bloke from last night. Normal service has been resumed.

Tomorrow we'll be off into town, to search out the Five & Dime store. Catherine is dying to see one, having seen them on TV. We have a town walk to do as well and 3 other brew pubs to search out. Until Tomorrow.