The night was still a bit young and after writing last night’s blog we stopped by the campfire where we met up with Tom, one of the owners of the campsite, and a couple from England and had our first moonshine from Georgia. We talked about local politics, car racing and rich people in Bermuda who have to cut their cars in half in order to be allowed to buy a new one. There was some discussion of the benefits of having a BMW or Mercedes on an island that has a speed limit of 20 miles per hour.
The next morning we visited Tee Pee Curios and bought some interesting Mexican items.
The owner, Mike Callens, is an accomplished photographer and sells some of his prints in the store.
We drove on, mostly on I-40 since Route 66 is fragmented or dirt road in many parts of New Mexico. Just outside of Newkirk we came across remains of an old gas station and restaurant.
In Santa Rosa we visited the Route 66 Auto Museum.
Lunch was at a Mexican and American cuisine restaurant called the Silver Moon which was established in 1959. The food was great and the souvenir shop wasn’t bad either.
Santa Rosa is a very special city in that it has a collection of artesian springs in the area. The most famous is the Blue Hole which is more than 80 ft deep and 60 ft wide.
Back on our route, we were very happy we had decided not to go to Santa Fe when we saw the smoke from the forest fires. In the picture below, the you can see the smoke cloud caused by the fire.
We made it to Albuquerque and stopped at Absolutely Neon, only because it was one of the waypoints that we had on Route 66.
This was a good thing because we met Robert Randazzo, the owner of the store/gallery.
After talking for four hours about neon signs, politics and everything else under the sun, we decided to buy a small neon sign and then the three of us headed out for dinner at around 9PM. The Vietnamese restaurants we had intended to go to were closed by now so we ended up in an Italian restaurant in a very trendy area.
After pizza and beer we headed off to a nearby Walmart parking lot for a good night sleep. Those of you who watch Breaking Bad on TV (which is filmed in Albuquerque) might recognize our RV neighbour.
