Day 11 - New Mexico to a New State
- Paul Mullan
- Sep 30, 2017
- 2 min read
We crammed a lot into the eleventh day of our adventure across America. Leaving Sante Fe, we descended to the flat lands of Albuquerque and the racing museum of the Unsers.
Always a favourite with someone, the well organised display is a perfect record of the history of USA's most successful racing family be it on the track with Indy car or at Pike's Peak in the days when it was a gravel track.
There was even a old photo of 3yr old Al Unser with his dad Jerry!
We slipped on through the outskirts of New Mexico's most populous city and along the road that eventually straddles the i40. At times we were forced onto the main highway where the new road cut off the old. The 270 degree Deadman's Curve was definitely a useful bi-pass.
Grant Ford's favourite today could have been the town named after him!..
...so a celebratory photo to mark the occasion and we moved on to Gallup and the El Rancho Hotel, home to the stars of the halcyon movie days when Westerns were like TV Cooking shows are today.
The Swap Meet at Prewitt continues in decline, a living example of what this historical road is all about.
No more hubcaps on the ground, no more number plates adorning the walls of the old buildings.
That's part of what this journey is about... history changing right before our eyes.
The rains came again today in thunderous rapture, threatening at times to stop our convoy as we made our way to Arizona.
We popped out of the clouds at the Painted Desert where the new sun brought colours to the surrounding cliffs.
A highlight today was running into Bob Shaw at the old wreck marking the place where the road once ran.
On something of a pilgrimage, Bob ran this road in 1960 leaving Chicago to go to College on the West Coast. It's changed plenty since those days and the few brief moments we spent together gave an insight into what it must have been like.
The Petrified Forest was in an even older time when this whole area was running with plenty of water through the forest of trees no longer standing... a real look back in time.
We gained an hour today but we still didn't hit Holbrook till 6pm. Our destination was the Wigwam Motels... a must for an experience on this journey that today has seen plethora of experiences.
