Hello from New Mexico

Day 18 – June 27, 2009
It was already warm when we left Winslow around 7:30 AM heading for Albuquerque, New Mexico. A few miles down the road we pulled off route 66 at Holbrook, AZ to find the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest NP. Downtown Holbrook is a typical example of the old route 66 era where you find the Wigwam Motel with several cars from the 1950’s parked in front. Just as we entered the road to the Petrified Forest there were two information/souvenir businesses with several cars parked outside. I pulled into one and when we parked the bikes we noticed the tires were flat on one of the cars; then we noticed the second car didn’t have a tag and the tires on the third car were flat. Wouldn’t you guess – all the cars were ‘junks’ parked there to make it appear as if they were busy when in reality they weren’t even opened yet! We went across the street to the second business and while they were open and did have two or three real customers they too had 2 ro 3 cars setup for show. We proceeded to the park and got a few pictures, walked the trail around the forest and in an hour headed back for route 40 and eastward bound. It is hard to imagine that millions of years ago this dry, desert was lush with vegetation and inhabited by dinosaurs. All along the way were signs for Navajo Indian Trading Posts offering jewelry, food, gas, blankets, you name it. As we entered New Mexico we were greeted by magnificent red and yellow cliffs with Navajo homes built in their native adobe style sheltered at the base of the cliffs just as their ancestors had built their homes years ago. Small homes dot the reservation with broken down cars or trucks in the yards and horses grazing on what they can find green to eat. The red cliffs are always to our left towering high and stately. Suddenly just past the Continental Divide the earth looked as if it had erupted as blacktop does during an intense heat wave. The rocks were black as pitch and appeared as if the earth had been pushed up from underneath by massive pressure trying to escape from deep within the earth’s crust. Bernie told me later that years ago when he traveled this way he was told it was from volcanic activity thousands of years ago. We have settled at the Quality Inn in Albuquerque NM. I picked up one of those advertising magazines at some McDonalds on the way and found a coupon for a very good rate and they have a full hot breakfast buffet with your room rate. I never paid much attention to these little advertisement booklets until Kathy showed me the wisdom in checking them out.