Thursday, May 6th - Santa Fe NM to Albuquerque NM
Yet another beautiful day in the great state of New Mexico! So far as we can tell, the weather is always beautiful in New Mexico. Today we go to Albuquerque.
I see that I neglected to show you the room at the El Rey Inn. Here are those images:
As I said yesterday, the El Rey Inn is highly recommended. We spoke with the proprietor this morning and she said they'd have highspeed internet by June (and wireless-enabled at that!) This would have made my stay perfect!
We had planned to leave at 9:00a but breakfast with the Colorado Lost Boys got in the way:
(The Colorado Lost Boys and us at breakfast)
(Even the very little girls love this car!)
We finally left at about 10:00a and headed downtown on Route 66. With, of course, the "mural stops":
At the Palace of the Governors they have Native American vendors set up in front of the museum with handmade items. Very nice things:
Near the end of the central square was the St. Francis Cathedral:
We mounted up and headed out of Santa Fe for Albuquerque. It's only 70 miles but...
Lots of beautiful but largely empty real estate but great views.
Gael's Route 66 guidebook (which we've taken to calling the "book of mis-information" because of the out-of-date info we've found) indicated a must-see: the oldest Indian Trading Post in the world. Jackie worked and worked and worked and we made our way to it:
It would have been nice if the guidebook had said "the ruins of the oldest Indian Trading Post in the world"!
Remember the "Stock in Road" sign from yesterday? Coulda used one today:
As we motored on into Algodones we came upon a movie production in process:
The teamsters who were unloading lights and stuff stopped what they were doing (of course) to ogle at the cars. The movie is an independent production apparently going straight to video; working title: "RX".
Across the road was something you don't see all the time (at least in Georgia and Florida) -- a house with grass growing on the roof:
We called our Albuquerque host, Charlie Daniels:
.. and agreed to meet for lunch in a Route 66-featured restaurant, "The Range Cafe" in Bernalillo:
(Quiz: Guess which couple wanted to bring this clock home?)
Our connection to Charlie is that he owns 1953 Commemorative Edition #2; seeing three of these cars in the same place is pretty darned rare. This is his:
For the past two days, Buzz has mentioned that his car seems to have either an alignment or wheel balance problem. When we met with Charlie at the restaurant the conversation revealed that he's a racer and a guiding force behind the local racetrack facility. Buzz asked if he knew a good alignment guy. Thirty minutes later we were on our way to "the" alignment guy in Albuquerque, Danny Romero at Action Alignment, Inc. We dropped off Buzz' car:
.. and off to Charlie's house, Buzz riding along with him. I got the great pleasure of driving Gael and Jackie. Yes, twas a snug fit but the ladies were in good humor -- and the ride to Charlie's was mercifully short:
Here's Charlie's car and mine in (part of) his garage:
Our host Charlie has eclectic interests. He's an attorney, an auto racer, a 53CE enthusiast AND a bass player in a band; here's his band trailer parked behind his home:
At just after 5:00pm the phone rang. B&J's car is all better now and Charlie and Buzz went to pick it up. Turned out to be wheel balance problem but while they had it up they raised the front suspension a bit to avoid bottoming out on some of Route 66's dips.
Charlie led us on a driving tour (all three CEs, tops down (YES!) of old Albuquerque:
(It's great (and rare) to see three of these cars in the same place)
Charlie drove us to Route 66 landmark after Route 66 landmark:
As we were leaving our photo op at the Route 66 Diner (last two photos above) there was a group of folks leaving there who stopped to admire our cars. We chatted for a moment and they asked where we were headed next. We told them we were going to Gallup tomorrow.
They said that they owned a restaurant in Gallup, Earl's, and that we should eat there. We said we'd try to do just that. Check out tomorrow...
Tonight, though, we ended up at Vivace, a nice Italian restaurant where we had dinner and a bit of wine:
Then to CompUSA for more mini-CDs for my camera and home. What a great host and tour guide we have in Charlie; thanks, man!
If you find typos or other errors on these pages, please click to
. I can't always respond to the emails promptly (being on the road all day) but I do receive them.
Another great day -- and much, much more to come...
Watch for more tomorrow, Day #11 on the Mother Road!
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