Tuesday, 31 March – Zig Zag across New Mexico.

We do try to get a little exercise every day so we woke up and thought we should take a walk.  Linda (remember the chocolate bomb?) had given us some pecan rolls to take along.  Ellen heated them up in the microwave but things got out of hand.

Two fisted caramel pecan rolls.  (Thanks again to Linda and Rich!)

We did end up walking into town for a couple of miles and found some ancient hieroglyphs  carved into the bed rock.

We did discover that Santa Rosa is the home of the “Blue Hole”.   Even thought it’s in the middle of the desert, it’s an artesian spring that’s over 80 feet deep.  It’s bell mouthed which means that its wider at the bottom than at the top.  It expels 3,000 gallons of crystal clear water per minute and is a constant 61 degrees year round.  SCUBA divers come here all year long.

Looking down into the Blue Hole

Ye old swimming hole.  The buoys hold up platforms underwater for the divers to hold while they decompress coming back up.

We could have headed straight west toward Albuquerque, but we wanted to take the ‘old’ route up through Santa Fe, which was a lot longer, but seemed to be more interesting.  We did like the Santa Fe area when we were there last year.  We kind of hurried our way through both Santa Fe and also Albuquerque since we had explored that area just last year.  (Check out this blog for entries back in March last year….).

We had enough time to make it to Grants, NM and found a nice campsite to bed down.  Last night in Santa Rosa, we ended up enrolling as new members of the "Good Sam" club.  It's an organization for RV'ers and encourages good behavior and support for both campgrounds and campers.  My Uncle Jim and Aunt Shirley (not my cousins) were avid members when they had their camper.  Hope we can be good Samaritans too!

Good Night!

Tomorrow will be Arizona and then only California after that!

Monday, 30 March - In to New Mexico

Palo Dura was a GREAT park and campground.  We’re still waking up early because we’re on the ‘far’ side of the Central Time Zone.  We wanted to ‘stretch’ our legs, since we’ve been in the car, all day, every day for some time.  There were several hiking trails, but we selected the one that was both the favorite, but also had incurred the most deaths…..  It was called the ‘Light House’ trail and was 2.75 miles each way.  However, at the end of the trail, you had to do a 500-foot ‘scramble’ up a very steep slope just to get to the base of the Light House.  Other than the ‘scramble’ it was nice 6 mile hike.

The canyon is 800 feet deep

This is a distant view of the "Lighthouse"

Getting closer....

On the flat at the top

We decided not to stay another night at the park, so we loaded up and headed back to Amarillo where we picked up the old Route 66 highway and picked up our trail to Santa Monica.

Just west of Amarillo, is the “Cadillac Ranch” which is located in a huge field on the opposite side of I-40 from the old highway.   We did a 18 mile detour to back-track our trail on the other side, and take a look…

West Texas is rather barren but the old road is still there.  We found a restored Marigold gas station from the 1920’s that was interesting.

We stopped in Adrian, Texas which claims to be the ‘mid-point’ between both ends of Route 66.  However, it’s the mid points for birds that fly in straight lines.  We’ve travelled well over the 1,139-mile from Chicago to get to this point.

We left Texas and picked up some tourist info at the New Mexico Welcome Center.  We picked up another hour coming from Central to Mountain Time, so we drove through Tucumcari to Santa Rosa where we’re camped for the night.

Had time to set up camp, relax a little and cook a couple of steaks before we enjoyed a well earned rest.

Sunday, 29 March

We got up and had breakfast with Rich and Linda but ended up talking for longer than we’d planned.  It was Palm Sunday, but at 8:45, they were headed for Bible study and worship and we hit the road headed west (maybe we should have stayed….).

The western half of OK was a little more difficult to navigate.  On the eastern half, the Old 66 followed the railroad and the new I-40 Interstate followed it.  After OK City, the railroad wasn’t so close and the Interstate seemed to cut across the old road a LOT so it cost us a bunch of time (and miles) going around interchanges or cutting across overpasses to get from frontage roads on one side of the interstate to the other.

You can see the old route in the distance and and I-40 cuts across it two places in between.....

Navigating with 2 GPS's, 2 Route 66 Travel guides and a Route 66 Map for Oklahoma and also the official state map.  They're all different!

There are two nationally renowned Route 66 museums in Oklahoma.   Since it was Sunday we missed both the OK Route 66 Museum in Clinton,  and also the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City.  (Maybe we can catch them on the next trip….)

After we got into Texas, we seemed to be able to make better progress.  We were headed for Amarillo  late in the afternoon and decided to take it easy for a day or two.  A friend from home who grew up in area recommended that we check out the Palo Duro Canyon State Park, south of Amarillo.   It claims to be the best state park in the nation and it’s canyon is 2^nd only to the Grand Canyon.

We’re camped there for the night and will verify it’s claim to fame tomorrow…..

A long day and we deserve a rest.

Saturday, 28 March.

Had our first night actually sleeping in the camper.  We had installed a different queen sized mattress than the one that came with the camper and we had a good nights rest.  After showers and a few bites for breakfast, we were on the road at 8AM.

There were MORE back-roads to explore.  There are many organizations and volunteers who are working hard to restore and maintain the road and the sites from the “Mother Road:  We are now starting to see references to the “Grapes of Wrath” and the migration from the ‘depression era’ problems of Kansas and Oklahoma farmers to what they thought was the promised land in the West.

After Missouri, we got to spend 13 miles touring the great state of Kansas!  It may not be long, but it was obvious that they’re very proud to be a part of the “National Highway”.

In Oklahoma, we were able to drive some of the FIRST concrete roads on the route.  In 1922, the goal had been to pave a road from Miami to Afton (in Oklahoma) because the muddy roads were sometimes impassable.  Legend has it that the budget for the project was only half of the lowest bids, so instead of only building half of the highway, they made it only half as wide for the whole length.  It was known as the ‘Sidewalk Highway” and the parts that remain are on the National Historic Register.

The 'road' is only 9 feet wide

We also passed through the region where Will Rogers was raised.  A lot of people claim he was born in their town, but nevertheless, Rt 66 in Oklahoma is known as the Will Rogers highway.

We ended up in Edmond (a northern suburb of OK City) for the night as guests of Ellen’s in-laws.  It was a welcome respite from 9 hours on the road.  They served us a fantastic home made lasagna dinner and finished it off with a chocolate desert, which we’re still dreaming about.... Thanks Linda and Rich!!!!

"Mickey Mouse" dancing on a triple chocolate extravaganza!!

356 miles for the day and another good one!

Friday, 27 March. On to Missouri

Got up early and Mark (and Robin) had a great breakfast for us this morning.  Ellen went for a walk, and I worked on the camper.  We got back on the road a little after 8AM.

South of Springfield, we were ‘out in country’.  We travelled every thing from an 8 lane expressway (briefly) to roads that were more narrow than our driveway at home.

A brick road in the middle of no-where

Hard to believe this was the 'Nations Highway'

Even THIS used to be Route 66

Felt like an abandoned alleyway through corn fields.

We made pretty good time getting through St. Louis and then back to the ‘country’.  We spent a lot of time following a the railroad across Missouri and Interstate 44 seemed to follow old Route 66. 

St. Louis

We passed Lebanon where my Uncle Gene (who was born in 1900) was the Service Manager at the Chevrolet dealership for many years.   We went just past there to rural Conway which was the ‘homestead’ for the early Enstrom family when my Dad was just a boy.  That property is now part of a dairy farm, but we all travelled down there near the old home site to have a family portrait taken.

"Cousins"  Gloria, Keith, Sandi (& Les), and Beverly.

We all went back to the ‘Rocking Chair Restaurant’ and spent almost 3 hours eating at buffet and re-living memories that should be visited more often……….  We DID enjoy each other’s company.  There are other Enstrom cousins that need to be included in the future.

Ellen and I are at the RV Express campground in Marshfield for the night.  It’s right off the highway and will make for a fast get-away in the morning.    We hope to make Edmond, OK tomorrow night to visit some of Ellen’s family.  We made 301 miles today and had a great day!