Tucumcari to Santa Fe approx 166 miles


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North America » United States » New Mexico » Santa Fe
April 11th 2014
Published: April 11th 2014
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We set off from the blue swallow motel about 9am after grabbing some coffee from the office and cinnamon muffins that nancy had made. We hit the road and for the next 100 miles drove through some of the best scenery we've seen on the trip. It was classic Route 66 country or what I imagined when I first started planning the trip. There were desert plains on the left and right dotted with green bushes and cacti. The sky was cloudy when we left but again turned blue with hot sun after an hour or so. We drove through Santa Rosa and followed the signs to the blue hole. It's something I'd read about before we left. It's basically a deep hole in the ground filled with water. When we drew up the facts read that it was 81 feet deep and a constant 61 degrees. It was pretty but I'd imagined it a bit more in the countryside when really it was on the outskirts of town. People can swim in here and scuba dive. When we arrived there was no one there so we wandered round and took some photos.

We then headed on up to Las Vegas. Not 'the' Las Vegas but its name sake in New Mexico. We had wanted to take a photo next to a sign but to be honest it was pretty rubbish and there was no sign. We stopped off at a Dairy Queen for lunch and I had a $5 burger meal complete with sundae - bargain!! Kerry had tried to fine wifi which has become a habit at lunchtimes, but none was to be found despite her trying KFC so we cracked on the road again driving through some beautiful scenery. I think today has been my most favourite part of the road so far although I think I've said that every day since we left the boots court motel. We tried to book a snowmobile tour yesterday. For when we are in Lake Tahoe next Thursday but they've said it's end of season and we'll need to call closer to the time as the weather is ever changing and it depends on whether the trails have enough snow. We're due to arrive in Santa Fe about 2pm but we're not sure what time we can check in. We are quite excited as its pretty hot and they have hot tubs outside so it will be our first chance to swim or be in water outside anyway as none of us were going to brave the blue hole.

We met some neighbours last night at the motel a couple if Scottish guys who had flown into Dallas and were travelling some of Route 66 then going to Austin Texas for some car racing. The one guy told us a funny story about how they'd managed to get an upgrade to a convertible and add another driving after being advised by the clerk that as they were from Scotland if they were civil partners they could get a huge discount and upgrade plus adding the additional driver for about £40 so they agreed. They aren't civil partners at all but weren't fussed however they were slightly worried if they were pulled overbuy the cops as they had it highlighted on their driver details :-) there were also a German father and son who got the motel owner to book them some mule trips for the Grand Canyon on Saturday. Rather them than me I remember two hours on a camel in Marrakech! Ouch!! We're at the Grand Canyon in Saturday as well so maybe we'll see them!

We had to fill up again with petrol or gas as they call it over here. I was driving so it was my turn to do it. You pay before filling up over here so I went in and handed over $50 then tried to pump the gas but nothing happened, thinking I must be doing something wrong I went back in and noticed I had walked past the worlds biggest Alsatian! I'm not a fan of dogs and Alsatians normally scare the crap out of me but he seemed too hit and tired to even move. Turns out there was a lever on the petrol pump to turn on before I could fill up so once the guy had told me I was fine. The gas pump was very old fashioned and steph took a great picture of me filling up.

We carried on along some more beautiful scenery with snow capped mountains in the distance. Part of the road today was on the interstate so we made good time and got into Santa Fe about 2pm. Check in was supposed to be 3pm but we managed to get in early. Me and steph dumped our bags, got changed and headed straight to the hot tub which was right outside our room. The hot tub was in an enclosed outdoor courtyard and we had it all to ourselves. After chilling out we went for a bit of a sun bathe in the gardens where it turns out myself and steph got sunburnt, but we didn't realise til later. We then got a taxi into Santa Fe itself intending to have some margaritas and a walk around. We had a walk around then headed to a rooftop terrace which it turned out only sold beer and ale. These were from micro breweries in the local area. I had a nice smooth one which mellowed me right out (it was a 7% one!) while the other two had some different ones.

Afterwards we got a taxi to a vegan Thai restaurant which we'd seen just be the hotel. Myself and Kerry thought we'd be nice to steph after the Texan steak house. The food was really nice although the starters we ordered were huge so we were very full. We walked back to the hotel and went in the hot tub and sauna again then we're all tucked up in bed by 8.30 again! The taxis are expensive in Santa Fe and it cost us $30 return just for the 3.5 miles each way to the centre. We did a bit of planning tonight and figured out we've got probably the busiest day tomorrow. It's about 4.5 hours to our next motel in Holbrook and we want to do a bit of hiking in the petrified forest. This is supposed to be really beautiful and is where trees over time have actually 'petrified' and turned to stone. We've decided to take the interstate tomorrow as we need to move fast to fit everything in. We're staying in the concrete wigwam tomorrow night so that should be good.


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