Blogs from Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States, North America

Yet another amazing day with great roads. We slept in a bit this morning after such a long ride yesterday, and hit the road around 9:00am. We made up time as we passed into New Mexico and Mountain time, so we gained the hour we slept in. There really wasn't too much to see throughout Texas. There were more wind farms than oil pumps which was surprising, but otherwiser Route 66 is mostly a frontage road to I40. It passes through a few small towns along the way, but none of them have too much to see. The one spot we stopped for a while was Adrian, TX at the Midpoint Cafe. This is the mathematical midpoint of Route 66, where it's 1,139 miles east to Chicago, and 1,139 miles west to LA. We snapped a ... read more

Rode a mile or two this morning into downtown Gallup. The town has a very mexican feel with lots of craft shops and museums. Took some pics at El Rancho Hotel, built for the stars of the cowboy films. They all stayed here; John Wayne, Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, as this is where most of the old westerns were shot. Headed east on 66 until around 10 miles from Grants. Stopped to take a picture of the awesome New Mexico landscape. Got back on the bike only to realise I had a puncture in the back tire! Had to get towed into Grants and get a new tire put on. (The guy said I'd run over a samurai!! Back on the road we headed to Albuquerque where we baked in the heat, but saw a roadrunner ... read more

New Mexico Carlsbad: After a long, long journey out of Texas, we made it to Carlsbad, New Mexico. To rewind a step, the most exciting part of the trip was almost running out of gas during our drive. And by exciting I mean terrifying. Talk about anxiety! We were driving through the absolute middle of nowhere, passing one deserted town after another when we looked down and realized we only had a quarter of a tank of gas left. No biggie, right? Think again! We decided we should stop and get gas at the next station we come across. Who knew there wouldn't be another gas station for 100 miles? We started to sweat as we watched the needle drift closer and closer to "E". I checked the GPS to see how far away the next ... read more

Santa Fe, New Mexico We had to stop a few times to take ‘Route 66’ pics and toilet breaks of course! Sometimes it’s cutting it a bit close, and as soon as we see a gas station we have to pull over and use the facilities New Mexico It’s the Mexico on this side of the border, and as you would imagine it’s full of Mexicans (Indians as well)… The little flat clay houses seem to blend in with the landscape and gives this place a very ‘natural’ feel. The town centre had some very interesting buildings and sculptures but in sharp contrast to that we found an intersection where the guys love showing off their ‘bouncy’ gangster cars! It’s so funny to see the car come bouncing past, first the front, up and down, up ... read more

I LOVED the adobe structures I saw in Taos and SFe. The rounded, earthy forms and colors call to me, calming my mind, softening my heart and inspiring my spirit. From a distance, a city of adobe buildings blended easily w/ the landscape instead of looking like an imposition on it. Santa Fe bills itself, probably accurately, as one of the top art cities/markets in the US. Art is everywhere - the State Capital building is full of it and Canyon Rd. near downtown is crammed w/ zillions of galleries. I decided to start at the historic downtown plaza area, where I assumed I'd find half a zillion more galleries. I was wrong, but did run across some great places: Frank Howell's place - those amazing sculptures by Bill Worrell are in front, the Andrea Fisher ... read more