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Ian Rambles
After a stretch of interstate to make up the miles,
we turned off onto an old section of route 66. We could
see the enormous gouge in the mountains where the new
road had been blasted stright through as we followed
the older route as it felt its way round the contours
of the land. Much more satisfying.
Fiona's Journal
Today was Father's Day over here and the boys duly presented
Ian with a card and a DVD of “Family Guy”
which we had managed to buy a few days ago when he wasn't
looking!
We have driven 280 miles from Las Vegas, New Mexico
to Holbrook, Arizona. We have been crossing classic
Western film-set territory with proper mountains, a
few of them snow-capped still, and high plains and blistering
rocky desert. The painted wooden houses have given way
to a Spanish, or perhaps I mean Mexican, style of architecture
clearly better suited to the desert conditions. They
are thick walled and small windowed, made of the local
sandstone or cement I think, and rendered in a rough
plaster which is the colour of the desert. Well actually
there are two colours, a creamy yellow and a warm orangy
red, which are the two local sandstones.
The buildings tend to be made up of cubic or rectangular
units, stacked rather randomly on top of and beside
one another like kids' building blocks. None of the
angles appear to be quite right angles and none of the
walls appear to be exactly parallel and all the edges
are rounded off so the whole effect is as if they have
been carved out of hard ice-cream which is just beginning
to melt.
We stopped in the charming mountain town of Santa Fe,
7,000 feet above sea level and still almost 100 degrees.
It has steep narrow streets, and small shops all crowded
together, and people walking around and sitting outside
cafes having drinks that aren't milkshakes or Coke.
It felt Mediterranean rather than American. We went
into a little art gallery full of interesting things
and talked to very nice woman called Lucy who had spent
nearly 5 years traveling around Europe by boat, on the
canals and rivers, including the waterways into Paris
that we did last Summer in Astraeus.
We took the Interstate for the rest of our journey
today because the old road just runs alongside it, about
50 yards away and with a 10 miles an hour slower speed
limit. That is how much space they have in this country
– no need to go to all the hassle and inconvenience
of widening and improving the original highway. Just
leave that road running and take another few thousand
acres of Prairie and desert to build a 4 lane motorway
alongside it!
The Interstates are very relaxing to drive because
they are pretty empty. There is a high proportion of
trucks to cars and most people stick pretty much to
the speed limit which is novel! Even the bikers seem
in no hurry to overtake and almost none of them wear
helmets – maybe the laid-back riding position on
a Harley makes for a more laid-back attitude. The only
trouble with this relaxed driving style is that it is
easy to fall into a sort of trance and miss your exit.
In England we are rather mollycoddled. We get loads
of advanced warning signs at decreasing intervals. Here
you get one sign a mile ahead of your exit and then
one right at the exit lane and that is it. The commercial
advertising signs, like the ones for the Meramac Caves
for example, are another matter entirely and some of
them start shouting at you literally two or three hundred
miles ahead.
We reached our pre-booked KOA about 7.00pm and were
rewarded by our first sight of tumbleweed bouncing and
skittering across the dusty road. We had a leisurely
swim to wash away the heat and dust of the day and then
coffee, sitting on the swing seat on the front porch
of our cabin, enjoying the warm night air. How amazing
it seems, when I stop to think about it, that we are
here in the middle of the Arizona desert. Henley and
the Veterinary Centre seem a very long way away, it
is the early hours of Monday morning there, perhaps
they are doing an emergency caesarian!
Arthur's Log:
360 miles to do today and just like when we entered
the wild west zone today we got much closer to the red
cliffs and you could just imagine Indians up there somewhere.
In England signs point to places - 157 miles to London
for instance. Today we passed a sign " 300 miles
to Big Ben's Truck Wash”
Everywhere you order you get a list of questions with
your order for example if there were eggs in your meal
you would be asked “how would you like your eggs”
and you could choose from scrambled, poached, boiled
to sunny side up, over easy or hard over.
We went to a mexican restaurant. I ordered a "Grilled
chicken wrap". I had to choose:
What cheese?
What size and colour of chilli?
What side order?
What type of cheese on that?
Salad or coleslaw or beans?
Tumble weed! Just like in the movies rolling across
the street, were are in a koa on a classic wild west
town.
The Harry Report
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George's Musings
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