USA Road Trip - Day 26 (Amarillo, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico)

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Up around 7.45am and downstairs for our final Marriott Hotel supplied buffet breakfast of this trip. A mix of scramble eggs on muffins, as well as a blueberry muffin and OJ will get me going whilst Kerry just had some cereal. Check out was a breeze and thankfully the luggage all fits in the Chrysler 200 as we did not get a chance to check it out last night. The car is a lot different to drive than the Toyota Camry which travelled 2,977 kilometres from where we started this road trip in Houston 14 days ago ! We finally got away on the road around 9.20am and headed straight out on I40 West towards New Mexico. The landscape was so flat it was amazing. You could look either left or right (although I was mostly looking straight ahead of course !) and not see anything at all. No horizon, no buildings, nothing at all and it was so strange. If you want an idea of what I mean just go to google maps on I40 at the half way point between Vega an Adrian in Texas and pop into street view mode and you will see what I mean. Just before we reached the state border the landscape finally started to change as we saw some unusual rock formations in the distance and then we unexpectedly came off the flat plateau down into a valley. We soon crossed the border into New Mexico after about an hour (yippee US State # 32 ticked off and now only 18 more states to go to see them all !). We stopped straight away at the New Mexico Visitors Information Centre. We wanted to know what the best route was to get to our destination tonight in Santa Fe as well as any worthwhile stops we should make on the way. Pretty handy information provided as I had not done much research on this leg. The drive now took on fascinating looks. There were rocky outcrops on both sides of the road and scenery was getting better all the time. Very rugged landscapes. About 40 minutes further on I40 we took the exit at Tucumcari and headed own the old Route 66 road. A mixture of old dilapidated motels and closed shops but some were still open and we stopped at a modern looking but old style diner and had coffee there. It was supposed be $2.00 but when I left the waitress said don’t worry about paying so we got a freebie ! No wonder this town is dying. We were soon back on I40 and another hour later we took the Exit to Santa Rosa. This was the recommendation of the lady in the Visitors Centre and we headed to the Blue Hole. It was a fascinating little billabong where lots of underwater divers were present. It is an artesian well with 3000 gallons per minute flowing into it from underwater caves and stuff. It is only 24 metres wide but also 24 metres deep. It is used as one of the main training sites for divers in USA and the water is so blue. Only 2 weeks ago the first ever diver drowning tragically occurred here as he got stuck in the underwater passageways. Another hour and we reach Clines Corner which is where we exit I40 for good and head onto Highway 285 North. We stopped at the huge roadhouse and I looked for my licence plate souvenir. Found a good one but it had Clines Corner and who has heard of that ! I let it go by and hope I find something better for New Mexico later. We noticed it was a lot cooler here as we had gained quite a lot of altitude and filled up some gas as we are heading into less populated areas and best to have a full load now. I used the App on the iPhone to check our Altitude. Amarillo was 1099 metres above sea level and we are now at 2150 metres. Wow, only another 78 metres and we will reach the same altitude as Mt Kosciuszko, the highest part of Australia ! The scenery now is ever changing as we see very large mountains appearing in the distance. Some even had snow on the peaks. It is hard to describe what we are seeing today but it feels like we are driving along the floor of the Grand Canyon if you can picture that thought. It is just so beautiful to see after driving through such flat areas for the last 2 weeks (except the Ozarks). We arrived in Santa Fe around 3pm, and checked in to our Motel called the Old Sante Fe Inn. It was only a short 3 block walk to the main historic old town square and our host said we should walk there immediately as lots of places close at 5pm on Sunday’s. We get to the square and start seeing these really old ancient Pueblo styled homes everywhere. Find a couple of souvenir shops and looking for my licence plate but no luck here. Next we walk to the Loretto Chapel. It costs $3- to enter to see this small chapel. The main attraction being the famous wooden spiral staircase. It is an engineering marvel. Apparently the church was built in 1872 and the architect died during construction and they realised at some stage there was no staircase included to reach the choir loft and there was not enough space inside to build something traditional. An unknown man apparently came to the church and told the Nuns he could fix it and he locked himself inside for 3 months and built this unique structure which has no supports holding itself up. Suggest you read Wikipedia for more information on the story or myth ! We next found the oldest house ever built in USA and the oldest church right next door. We then walked along the artists Canyon Road precinct, and then back towards the main square area. Shops were starting to close now an although it had been a fine and sunny day (albeit cool around 15 degrees now) a storm cloud looked imminent and we had no brollies with us so we walked back to our room and decided to drive to a traditional Mexican Restaurant recommended to us a few blocks way called the Casa Chemayo on West Water Street. It was OK but nothing special. A bit different than what we normally have for Mexican and I thought lacking in flavor as beans and rice were a bit more like a staple food rather than full of flavor like we might normally have. Back to the car for the short drive back to the Old Santa Fe Inn where we have a traditional Kiva room with our own unique fireplace. It is now quite cold expected to drop to 3 degrees overnight so we leave the fire on whilst we sleep, only to turn it off later as the flickering is not ideal. Only a short stay here, tomorrow we have a long day where we will end up at Albuquerque Airport for our flight departing at 7.55pm. Not sure what we will be doing yet but we will work something out in the morning once we see the weather situation.

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