Day Four - Albuquerque to Gallup, New Mexico

Day Four:

This morning started at a reasonable time; 8:30 AM. Beautiful sunshine and temps in the upper 60s to start with although closer to normal temps along with the chance of scattered showers were promised today.

I rolled out to eat breakfast at a Route 66 landmark restaurant called Lindy’s which is on Central Avenue in Albuquerque. Central is the alignment for Route 66 through Albuquerque. It was a great breakfast and I think my least expensive so far. I decided to start out today by doing a bit of backtracking and I headed over to Sandia Crest; a high point in the Sandia mountain range…it’s a fabulous drive; the approach road called the Turquoise Trail Scenic Byway which climbs to an elevation of over 10,000 feet – temperatures at this elevation was in the upper 50s!

There is an observation platform at the top along with a snack bar and gift shop. After a couple of pictures and a walk though the gift shop I headed back down; into Albuquerque and Central Avenue all the way through town. On the far west side of town, Albuquerque is putting up some nice “Route 66” signs at street corners and in one case, an arch across the street with what looked like neon spelling out “66” (I’m sure it looks great at night). Leaving Albuquerque you cross the Rio Grand River and out into some very sparsely populated country.

Overall, this has been the best “driving” day so far. Along with the perfect weather the scenery only got better as the miles passed heading through towns like Mesita, Laguna, Budville, Cubero (Hemingway wrote part of “the Old Man And The Sea” here), San Fidel, Grants and Prewitt as I made my way toward Gallup. I had planned to eat lunch in Grants which sports a couple of well known Route 66 diners but unfortunately, my backtracking this morning caused me to get to town too late as those places close about 2PM…so, I ended up at the local McDonald’s for lunch!

There are lot’s and lot’s of old motels along today’s route; most of which aren’t in operation any more and in many cases, the buildings are almost gone or heading that way quickly. However, it was obvious where they had been as there were hints of old signage and motel offices.

By and large, there were miles of almost nothing in the way of civilization broken only by the occasional gathering of small adobe homes or trailers…this is Pueblo country and unfortunately, obviously not well-off financially. With or without money, living in this part of the country couldn’t be easy and it makes you think of what it was like for early settlers and those traveling to California before there were roads at all; let alone GPS navigation and A/C! Nor would it have been easy for the dust bowlers in the 30’s and 40’s traveling across country in vehicles that managed each mile likely as much on prayer as on gasoline.

There was an old alignment (pre 1937) available today but with a warning of rough pavement in some places and no pavement at all in others but I bypassed that but did take an alignment that was full of surprises including “Owl Rock” which seems as if it simply lifts up out of the road.

The thunderstorms never materialized for me while I was driving but it was evident that they had deposited some substantial amounts earlier in the day as I passed through areas that still had some standing water (including one very narrow underpass that’s barely wide enough for one vehicle at a time)!

Other highlights of the day included crossing the Continental Divide shortly before getting to Gallup which is my stopping place for the day. I’m staying at a Route 66 icon called the “El Rancho” hotel built in 1936 mostly to cater to movie stars coming to this part of the country to film great western movies...some of the biggest stars Hollywood ever gave us have stayed here and even if you aren’t staying; just looking around the hotel lobby is worth a stop.

Today’s driving time was just over 6 hours and covered 231 miles which included about 50 miles of backtracking to see Sandia Crest!

Links:
El Rancho Hotel

Today’s Pictures