So Concetta and I set up tonight in the little town of Santa Rosa, about 120 miles east of Albuquerque, along the historic path of Route 66. Some of the town is up and coming, especially since Interstate 40 affords the tiny berg a total of three whole exits. Other parts are, well, a little dead looking, as you might expect for a town that Route 66 forgot back in 1985, nearly 30 years ago. So, here and there, long dead filling stations with weedy asphalt and ugly, pastel-colored motels with boarded up windows dot the landscape. In between, where similar 1950s era detritus has long ago disappeared, you find brand new hotels, restaurants, and other tourist-related businesses flourishing. It's rather startling, but nice to see that dead doesn't mean dead forever, zombies not withstanding.
I first traveled Route 66 way back in the glory days of the late 1960s. That's when I joined the U.S. Navy. Soon after joining I was having second thoughts about serving aboard a U.S. Navy war ship way down in the bowels of some hot-as-Hell engine room where, they said, they intended to put me. Instead, I volunteered for the U.S. Naval Air Corp when a chance piece of junk mail caught my attention and I saw that they were looking for volunteers. All I had to do was extend my previous two-year enlistment for another year, wear a different color of shoe (brown instead of black), and agree to fly around in largely obsolete 1940s vintage airplanes at altitudes too low to safely jump out of in case of trouble.
Piece of cake, I told them. Where do I sign? Anyway, when they asked me just where I'd like to spend my time flying in these airplanes I told them places like Jacksonville, Florida or Point Magoo, California. They nodded and smiled and assigned me to Chicago. So it was that in October of 1969 I and my recently-acquired '65 Chevy Chevelle set out driving from Los Angeles on the much storied Route 66. It was my first time away from home, literally. No, really! As a kid I never even indulged in sleepovers at friend's houses. With no time to do my growing up little by little, I headed east along Route 66 to do my growing up all at once.
So, as you might guess, traveling along Route 40 most of the day within sight of many of the old stretches of Route 66, I got to relive a few memories. Not many, mind you, as my 64-year-old brain hasn't actually retained much of that trip. I know it took six days to get there, which meant six motels and maybe as many as two score restaurants, but as fate has decreed, I don't remember a single one of those. I do remember certain parts of the road and a few roadside attractions, but mostly it's just an overall nostalgia for the journey that remains.
The town of Grants where we stayed last night is only about 75 miles west of Albuquerque and so we had hardly gotten started this morning when we stopped again to visit a couple of museums we found in the guide book. For some reason our GPS refused to take us to the Art Museum, our planned first stop, so I just took the Interstate 40 turn-off to old town Albuquerque and then took a convenient side street before we actually reached old town. I pulled over and told Concetta that we'd need to study the problem and try and figure out where we were in relation to the Art Museum. As fate so often has it for us, we accidentally turned onto the exact street that flanked the Art Museum and, seeing that, pulled to the curb in the next block which had plenty of space for the RV and no attendant signs proclaiming that we couldn't, indeed, park there.
Although art museums are seldom my first choice for entertainment, I have to say that the Albuquerque Art Museum is just stunning in it's design and execution. We saw everything from modern paintings and statuary to equestrian-related accoutrements from the time of Mexican Vaqueros and Spanish ranchos (photo 3). We saw paintings from artists as well known as N.C. Wyeth, to the work of several "up and coming" new artists. They have a wonderful, art-related book store, a small cafe in case you get hungry or thirsty, and an overall clean and spacious facility that welcomes visitors both young and old. I would not hesitate to visit the museum again should I be passing through town.
The top two paintings were just two of my favorites today and there was no prohibition against photographing them. I, of course, didn't use any flash which they might have frowned upon. There was only one part of the museum that I would like to have shown you as it was the most magnificent part of our experience. That exhibit held a variety of paintings, handcrafted furniture, and carvings in various themes done by Spaniards in the new world after the arrival of Columbus. We just loved it and spent nearly an hour in that one exhibit alone.
Around noon we left the art museum and walked back to the RV for lunch. That's a part of RVing I just love, love, love. I don't have to pay anything (much) and I can have my personally-made coffee, a sandwich, and a couple of homemade cookies in the privacy of my own "home" without any muss or fuss. And lots of times we can have any vista we want as a backdrop for our lunch table. Today we had the city park, filled with trees and sunshine, and it was wonderful.
After lunch we consulted our watches and decided we could still get to Santa Rosa at a decent hour if we spent 60 to 90 minutes at the
Natural History Museum, which, wouldn't you know it, was just across the street from where we had parked. That's kind of a rushed itinerary. If you've ever tried to hurry through a Natural History Museum you soon find that the quantity of things to see there is nothing short of mind boggling. This museum today was no exception. Still, we concentrated on the pre-history exhibits involving some of our favorite subjects: dinosaurs and rocks. Man, they sure had plenty of each of those.
So, as I said, here we are in Santa Rosa, New Mexico at the aptly named Santa Rosa RV Park. Tonight we broke with our two-week-long tradition of eating dinner in the RV and accepted our host's offer to serve us dinner in the Park's restaurant. I had the brisket, potato salad, and beans dish, which I adored. Concetta had the somewhat less than thrilling catfish dish (I told her to order the brisket) and wasn't quite as complimentary of the fare. Still, it was nice to stay out of the RV kitchen tonight and avoid the attendant chore of doing the dishes. That left me time to work on the blog, recounting the day's events, and Concetta a chance to have a shower and do her hair, then settle in with a good book.
I don't know how many of you listen to books on tape on your long drives, but Concetta and I listen most of the time while we're RVing. We've had several great books so far this trip, including a decent thriller by Lisa Scottoline, and a great shoot-um-up thriller by the tried and true John Sandford. Now we're listening to the extremely well written book, Frankie Machine, by Don Winslow, an author who is new to me. This story about a retired mob hit man and his efforts to stay alive once the mob decides he has to go. I'll tell you, the story is nothing short of riveting. I'm going to have to track down more stories by Winslow, assuming he has more, and queue him up for a future trip.
So, I guess that's it for now. Today turned out to be one of the best days we've had so far. The wind has died down considerably making the driving much easier. And even though we had to travel the interstate for much of the day, tomorrow we get to jump onto one of the less traveled byways as we head south toward Roswell and Carlsbad. Not sure how far we'll get, nor just what we'll encounter along the way, but I sure hope I get to see Fort Sumner where Billy the Kid had his run-in with Pat Garrett.
For now, I wish you Happy Traveling. Ciao!
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