Fri. Aug. 31

We returned to Old Town in Albuquerque again this morning before leaving the city behind for good.  Saw two interesting cars in the Old Town Plaza.

Eat your heart out Ray Laprairie when you see photos of these two cars.  They were both in mint condition.

We had not gone far west of Albuquerque when we found Route 66 heaven and had to stop.

Can you believe it--a Route 66 Casino totally dedicated to the Mother Road.  The carpets inside were all about Route 66 and all the decor was also dedicated to the Mother Road.  We had lunch here as well as lost some money in the Casino.  It was a fairly new casino and very clean and well run.  We really enjoyed the time we spent here.

You can tell from the letter of the alphabet I'm making that I did not win any money.

We spent a lot of our drive today on the old Route 66 as it wound its way through the beautiful rock scenery of west NM.

Heike and Dirk--we did go to Acoma and Sky City.  Unfortunately the visitor center was having water problems and was closed and they were not taking tours to Sky City.  For those who are wondering, Sky City is an Indian town on the top of a mesa.  They do not allow outsiders to go there on their own but do take tours.  Beautiful country with lots of unusal rock formations.  We were very disappointed that we couldn't take the tour.

The rest of the afternoon was spent making our way to Gallup NM where we are staying tonight.  We saw a casino as we entered the town so decided to go there to try to win our money back.   Stupid idea--right!!!  This casino was very busy.  The maximum capacity for the casino was 7,750 and 7,748 of the people there were either Navajo or Zuni Indians.  It was easy to find Vicky in the casino???

Tomorrow will see us heading into Arizona.  Hope everyone has a great Labour Day weekend and go Stamps go against the Eskimos on Monday.



Thurs. Aug. 30

We woke up in Albuquerque and we are getting ready to go to bed in Albuquerque.  We found so much to look at here that we decided to stay for the whole day.

The first thing that caught our attention was a giant lumberjack.  Nothing says New Mexico more than a giant lumberjack???????




Our first stop was along Route 66 in downtown Albuquerque.  Again the unusal caught our atttenion.

You've got to admit that you don't see a Volkswagen with a mohawk haircut often ---right Heike and Dirk??

Downtown Albuquerquen has many old buildings that have been renovated with murals on them.  We spent about 2 hours wandering through the downtown area and had a nice visit with a lady in an art gallery who was an artist herself and was originally from the Boston area.  It's always fun to strike up conversations with strangers and find out their background.

The Kimo Theater is a lovely renovated old theater.

As usual Vicky always manages to make a new friend wherever we go.

Our next stop for the afternoon was Old Town and we spent about 5 hours wandering through the many shops and having a nice lunch in a Mexican restaurant.



As is the case for most places in the American West where the Spanish were the first to settle the area,  towns grew up around a church and a central plaza that has lots of large trees and where people gather for visiting and impromptu music.  I actually like the concept of the plaza and having everything grow up around it.  The local people really seem to like to gather and socialize in these El Centro areas.  You also see them in Mexico of course.  The Spanish influence throughout the west is very prevalent.

Vicky found me enjoying the shade of a tree in the central plaza.  At 97 degrees F any shade is good shade---not that I'm complaining about the heat!!!!!

We ended our day with another adventure---at a laundromat.   After a week of travelling you need to clean some clothes.  Our adventure on this one was more amusing than usual.  If you are interested in hearing about it, ask us when you seem us. 

Tomorrow we plan on making our way to Gallup NM and into Arizona.  Luckily heading into Arizona Route 66 heads towards Flagstaff which is always cooler because of the altitude.  We see that the temperatures in the desert are quite high so we may have to alter when we travel when we get there.



Wed Aug. 29

Another beautiful day on Route 66 today.  We stayed overnight in Santa Rosa NM last night and noticed a great Route 66 museum the night before.  We went there first this morning and met Bozo--yes, Bozo,  a large Hispanic man that had done very well running garages and customizing cars--his passion.  For a small town with not a lot in it he has managed  to operate a great museum and has about 30 cars he has customized or worked on.  He said he gets on average  100 people a day coming through his museum.  At $5.00 a person you can figure he is doing ok in a town that is struggling to keep going.

This beautifully restored 78 corvette can be had for $25,000.  Bozo has done a beautiful job with it.

Our next stop in Santa Rosa before we left town was at the Blue Hole.  Whatever your imagination is thinking at this moment is wrong.  It is a large sink hole that is filled with water from the Pecos River and is used for swimming and scuba diving.  There is a large scuba center here.  The water is crystal clear and it is quite an amazing place.  There were two kids swimming there when we arrived.

Vicky was now ready to head for Santa Fe!!

We headed for Santa Fe but  before Santa Fe we took a side trip to Las Vegas.  You may now be saying----wait a minute,  Las Vegas is a long way from Santa Fe and you would be correct.  We went to Las Vegas  NM.  A really interesting town on the Santa Fe Trail.  Very old buildings and well maintained.  We had lunch in a nice Mexican restaurant.

Santa Fe was our next stop and it is truly a lovely city especially the Old Town part.  The highlight of our afternoon was visiting an old Spanish chapel that had curved stairs that defy logic.  The story goes that the chapel was built  without a lot of thought about stairs to get to the choir area at the upper back of the church.  A carpenter came to town and said he could build the stairs and spent 6 months building them.  He then left town as mysteriously as he appeared without asking for pay and money for materials.  The spiral stairs have no visible means of support and are truly a marvel.

Around 5:00 p.m.  we decided to head to Albuquerque NM to stay for the night.  Tomorrow we will start our day touring the Old Town here.

Hope everything is going well for everyone following our blog.

Tues. Aug. 28

We spent most of the day in Amarillo Tex. today.  We saw that they had a mile of antique shops along Route 66 so we decided to have a look.  Sure enough they had many antique shops and they were not small.  Like everything else in Texas each one was huge.  The first one we went to was called the Nat.  It started out as a swimming pool, then became a dance hall and now a huge antique store.  So much stuff that it becomes overwhelming.

This is the outside of the Nat.  After a considerable time I emerged with one purchase.  A Coca Cola serving tray!  I don't know why---I just had to buy something.



After many antique shops we were hungry and had something to eat at the Cowboy Gelato Restaurant. 

About 1:30 we decided we had enough of antique shops and left Amarillo.  Just outside of town we saw the famous Cadillac Ranch and of course we had to stop for the photos.

We then headed for Adrian Tex.  What is it famous for you may ask?????  It is the half way point on Route 66 between Chicago and Santa Monica.

The town has only this as a claim to fame as the rest of it has become virtually a ghost town.  Vicky had to unravel the American Flag at the next stop to improve the photo.

It was now time to head for New Mexico.  Our first stop was at the New Mexico tourist stop.  A very nice facility with lots of good information about the state.  Our next stop was Tucumcari NM and a visit to the Blue Swallow Motel.  It has existed since 1939 and is one of the nicest motels in the town.  Tucumcari has many motels and at least half of them are closed or in a very sad state.  Another good example of what the interstate highways did to many towns on Route 66.  Many motels and service stations left deserted and decaying.

The photo above shows what they have done inside the garage to make the units interesting.

We ended our journey today in Santa Rosa NM.  Tomorrow we will make our way to Santa Fe via the first alignment of Route 66.  Depending on how much there is to see we will probably stay in Santa Fe or Albuquerque.

If you would like to send us a comment on the blog and can't figure out how to do it, just send us an email at bandurkr@telus.net instead.

Weather has been excellent. 

Mon. Aug. 27

We stayed overnight in Shamrock Texas and NO we didn't see any leprauchauns.  However we did see an Art Decco Conoco Station that has been redone to its original condition.

This morning we had our most interesting morning of the trip so far.  When we arrived in Shamrock yesterday we saw an interesting building with murals on the outside walls.  We decided to go have a closer look this morning before we left Shamrock.  Sitting outside the building, which turned out to be an old service station turned into a bar, was a gentleman named Tye Thompson.  He runs the bar, is the BBQ and potato salad cook, server and entertainer.   He use to play in a country band throughout the area.  The bar didn't open until 5:00 p.m. but he said we could come in and have a look around.  He was very proud of the bar and showed us the old bar that had been installed.  He then said he would play us a few songs---personalized entertainment at its best.



When we asked who had done the murals on the building, it turns out he is an artist as well and had done them himself.  He had done many other murals in Shamrock and in other towns in the area.  When we went to McLean Tex. farther down the road we saw a number of murals he had done there as well.

Quite an interesting start to our day.  We spent about an hour and a half with Tye and enjoyed his Texas drawl and stories.  This is the fun part of travelling Route 66.

Our next stop (Are you ready Heike and Dirk?)  You guessed it----The Barb Wire Museum in McLean Tex.  The displays are very extensive and we spent a long time looking at the incredible displays.  The ironic part of the museum is that it is housed in a large building that use to be a Bra factory.

We also saw some more of Tye's murals in the museum and in downtown McLean.  Downtown McLean is close to qualifying for ghost town status.

Today was not a lot of travelling as we only went about 120 miles and we are staying in Amarillo Texas today.  At Groom Texas we stopped to see the leaning water tower and the largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere at 190 feet.  There were a lot of neat statues dedicated to Jesus at the cross as well.

Tomorrow we will start our day with a visit to the famous Cadillac Ranch.





Sun. Aug. 26

We stayed in Okalahoma City last night.  Great light show and rain storm during the night.  People here are really happy to have rain.  We left Oklahoma City and headed for Yukon.  Yes, you've read correctly.  Yukon is in Canadian County on the North Canadian River.  We did a tour of Fort Reno this morning but the young man at the museum didn't know why all the "Canadian" names.  I feel a google search coming on!

Museum at Fort Reno

Fort Reno was established after the Civil War.  The U.S. Cavalry trained their horses and pack mules here.  Sounds boring but a lot of famous generals were here at one time or another.  Even the infamous General Custer was here to train his soldiers--not successfully I may add!  The museum was on three floors in the building in this picture and had a plethora of documents and pictures.  We found it extremely interesting and spent an hour and a half touring it and other buildings on the site.  There was never a stockade type fort at this site.

There is a lot of Route 66 running parallel to I40.  After Fort Reno Route 66 is still much of the original cement road in various states of condition--some of it good, some of it a bit rough.  Also, much of this cement road has a kind of lip on it that was suppose to keep cars from leaving the road but that proved not to work so well. 

At Clinton Oklahoma we found the best museum of Route 66 that we have seen so far.  We spent over two hours doing the tour and enjoyed it immensely.

Late in the afternoon we found another Route 66 museum in Elk City Oklahoma but it was closed for the day.

We decided to continue today into Texas.  Just before the Texas border we went through a town called Texola Oklahoma which is an excellent example of what the interstate development did to small towns on Route 66. Most of the buildings in the town looked like this---even the ones being lived in.

We made our way into Texas and decided to stay in Shamrock Tex.  We haven't seen any leprauchans yet but we'll keep a look out for them.

Before we left Oklahoma, Vicky found a new friend.

Sat. Aug. 25 Miami Ok to Oklahoma City

Woke up to lots of rain this morning.  The people in Oklahoma think it is great since they just finished going 48 days straight without rain.

Went to the Coleman Theater in Miami.  Was built in 1929 for $600,000 and is still in use. .  We did a tour of theater with 13 Norwegians that are doing Route 66.

 We met them again later in the day at a museum in a small town that had a bunch of restored Packard Cars.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful.  We had lunch at Cranstons Cafe in Vinita Ok. that has been in the same family since 1927.  There was a rodeo in town--horses and cowboys everywhere.

At Catoosa Ok we saw the blue whale.  If you ever read any book on Route 66 in Oklahoma you have seen a picture of it.  Heike and Dirk -- I'm sure you saw the blue whale???