Day 9: September 26, 2001
Drive from Santa Fe to western Arizona via Albuquerque

Today we left Santa Fe and drove south through Albuquerque and then west on highway 60 toward Arizona. There are some scenic roads we wanted to check out in mid-Arizona, so that's why we went that way.

Madrid, NM

We had been planning to blitz the 60 miles from Santa Fe to Albuquerque on Interstate 25, but as we approached the freeway, I noticed that we could take a scenic small road, route 14, and read that it had an arts and crafts town along it called Madrid. (It's apparently pronounced with the accent on the first syllable.) So we decided to go that way. The scenery was more of that high desert, Georgia O'Keefe style, though maybe a little more populated with bushes and small trees. Pleasant, but it didn't make me want to stop to take pictures. We rolled up into Madrid and stopped along the main street. The whole town was made of little houses that had been turned into galleries and they were all open. So we got out and strolled up the street, checking things out. Most of it was done by local artists, some of it very good, some of it not to my taste. I saw some gorgeous quilt wall hangings that I wished my mother could have seen. They were just the kind of thing I love. I took some pictures so I could show her. (I just *love* having the digital camera. I take pictures of everything!)

Quilts in gallery Madrid, NM

One of the gallery owners was a strange woman who kind of talked at you as you walked around and I could tell I could easily get trapped talking to her if I wasn't careful, so I just kept looking around and then thanked her as I left. Later, I noticed that Walendo was outside the gallery talking to her for quite a while. He's much nicer (more of a sucker) about these things than I am. Poor guy. I bought a nice silver necklace for $15 at a place advertising itself as hving the cheapest silver prices west of the Pecos. I'm not sure where the Pecos are, but the prices were reasonable. After I'd had my fill, I waited for Walendo, who had finally extracted himself from that woman's conversation. He told me she had moved from the Bay Area and was not enjoying runnign the gallery at all. She said it was hard to get artists to give her their stuff. She told them what was selling and encouraged them to do more, but they often gave her more of the stuff that didn't. That's interesting, you'd think the artists would be eager to sell stuff, but maybe they care more about doing the art they want to do.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. More pleasant but dry scenery. We listened to Angle of Repose most of the way. Then we arrived in Albuquerque. I'd never seen it before, so I was curious. Like most cities, it starts out with a long stretch of hotels and fast food joints, but eventually turns into a bit of a city. We drove through and headed toward the Old Town. It's a small section of town with yet more galleries and native people selling their crafts on the street. It's funny. We'd just spent several days going to galleries and checking out art, and that's where we wound up again once we got to a bigger city. I guess that's because we're not all that interested in city stuff. Or maybe there's not all that much in Albuquerque.

Patriotic chicken Albuquerque, NM

The Old Town area was nice. Again, we perused more galleries. This time I bought a silver bracelet from one of the native artists selling their stuff on a blanket on the plaza. It was $25 -- not dirt cheap but reasonable and I liked the guy. I took more pictures of creative artistic patriotic displays. One gallery had big wooden chickens painted in bright colors, and they had one painted in a stars and stripes motif. I took a picture, of course. Walendo and I had briefly split up as he checked on Libby and I hunted down a crepes restaurant listed on a map. I found it but then I couldn't find him, so I called him. He acted a little strange when I said I'd head toward him, and then I found out it was because he was buying me a gift. He's not that good at lying. :-) Still, he managed to resist the temptation to give it to me immediately, which is better than usual.

La Crepe Michel Albuquerque, NM

We ate at the French place and I had high hopes for it, but it turned out only okay. It was a little silly to eat French in the middle of all that authentic Mexican food, but I figured it would be a taste of what we didn't get to enjoy in France. The French onion soup was delicious, but unfortunately the crepes were only okay. We split two crepes, one with chicken in creme sauce one and anotehr with beef Beef Bourguignonne. The chicken was okay, the beef was so-so. Oh well. It meant that Libby got some beef treats when we got back to the car. We skipped the chocolate crepe dessert. Still, the place was pleasant with an indoor courtyard and a very attentive watier.

I took the long way back to the car while Walendo went to check on Libby directly. (It's hot in the car around here, even in the shade.) I passed by an ice cream store and so had to get some. This one was called the Rio Grande Cow, and it's made in Ogden, Utah. It was better than the Taos Cow, but not exceptional. Then I went back to the plaza where we sat with Libby while I ate my ice cream.

Very Large Array Rte 60, AZ

After that, we headed onto Interstate 25 South for about an hour, and then we picked up route 60 West toward Arizona, which we took for about 150 miles. It's pretty much open range country. Parts of it were quite nice, with interesting bushes in the forground and craggy buttes in the background. It doesn't change much, so we mostly listened to Angle of Repose. About half way, we noticed in the distance some perfectly round trees all lined up neatly. As we got closer, we realized they weren't trees, but satellites. This was the Very Large Array, "one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories," according to the VLA website. It's an interesting sight. We stopped to document it, and then moved on.

Patriotic display Eagar, AZ

Eventually, we arrived in Springerville, Arizona, the first town in AZ on that road. We still had some daylight left, so we decided to take scenic route 260 to our destination of Show Low. We drove through Eagar, which had some especially interesting patriotic displays, including an array of flags sticking up out of flower pots in front of people's yards. The scenery was nice, but again not all that special -- rolling hills of yellow wish small bushes sparsely dotting the landscape. I think when you take a driving trip like this and you go through some of the most spectacular areas of the country, you get spoiled for all the minor scenic roads. We got through a lot of Angle of Repose today. Toward the end of the road, the scenery became heavily wooded with pine trees. We reached the town of Pinetop-Lakeside and it felt like a mountain resort area, much like Tahoe. We stopped for Walendo to get his first McDonalds of the trip (I wasn't hungry for dinner). We pushed on another 10 miles to the town of Show Low. It's an odd name and we didn't know what it meant until we noticed that the main strip was called Deuce of Clubs. So it must be a gambling town.

We went to the Best Western on the theory that they usually take dogs, but there was a long line and Walendo didn't have a good feeling about the place, so we went back to a hotel called the Kiva Inn, which was listed as taking dogs. They did indeed, and it was just $50, plus a $10 dog fee. The place was a perfectly fine motor inn. We unpacked and again I reviewed two more chapters and then Walendo reviewed one of those and one from last night, so we sent those two in and promised we'd send in the one more the next night. This time I did write up the events from a few days before, so I stayed just three days behind. And we uploaded the digital photos and had a slide show, which was lots of fun. It's great to be able to see your pictures right away.

George was on Hubbub while I was working, so we said hello toward the end of the evening. It was going to be just a few minutes, but we probably chatted about 20 minutes. It was great to be able to catch up with him. Even when I haven't had time to chat, it's been nice to see other people on Hubbub in the evenings. Hubbub is great. :-) Finally, after midnight, we went to bed.

Previous   (Santa Fe & Taos, NM)

Next   (AZ mountains to Phoenix)