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Published: November 16th 2006
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Hi Guys
We took a trip around New mexico whilst waiting for our stuff to arrive. We drove 1600 miles in about 5 days and the new car performed perfectly. We drove from Phx to Flagstaff, about 2 hrs north of us in the mountains. We spent the night before heading East the next day towards New Mexico. On the way we made a couple of stops; one at Meteor Crater and one at the Petrified Forest, both of which are in NE Arizona. Meteor Crater 'does exactly what it says on the tin'; it is a massive hole in the ground, created by the impact of a meteor tens of thousands of years ago, it is pretty impressive, almost perfectly round and used by the Moon Astronauts in the 60's/70's to practice navigating the terrain in their space suits. The Petrified Forest is an amazing area that contains thousands of fossilised trees and wood. Trees that were buried in the mud bed of ancient rivers/swamps that have risen to the surface as the ground has been eroded. Beautiful colours and patterns make up these logs that have been turned to stone.
We drove on into New Mexico and
stopped at Santa Fe; the end of the old Santa Fe trail that pioneers followed a couple of hundred years ago when heading out west. A very pretty adobe town with a picturesque plaza in the middle. We then headed up into the mountains to a beautiful town called Taos. We spent the night in an old adobe inn, with an old-fashioned adobe fireplace - very rustic. The countryside around Taos is beautiful; up about 8,000 feet in the mountains we took a scenic drive and on a stop in a small town called Angel Fire, bumped into a woman from Brighton who has lived here for 20 years! Brits get everywhere! On the road we also came across a town called 'Rowe' so obviously we had to stop for some pics. Unfortunately, as my dad would have described it, 'Rowe' was a one horse town with no horse! So we took a couple of shots and headed on. The 'Las Vegas' on the sign is Las Vegas New Mexico not the big one!
We then drove back down to Albuquerque and stopped for another night. Abq is the biggest city in NM, but still has an old town
with a plaza and an interesting history - we took a tour on a tricycle which was a good way of finding out more about the 'old' buildings (some of them were 200 years old - old by US standards!)
We then headed back due south through New Mexico and then west back into Arizona, basically completing a big circle. We stopped in Benson and the next morning visited the old west towns of Bisbee and Tombstone. Tombstone is a must for anyone who comes to visit us; especially if you like the old west! Home of the famous OK Corrall gunfight! Since the last time we visited about 4/5 yrs ago, the town recently restored the main street to dirt roads and prohibited cars which is great and makes it much more authentic!
So we then made our way back to Al & Sheila's for the last couple of days before our stuff arrived. Hope you like the pics, we will post pics of the apartment soon.
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Carlos
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Rowes visiting Rowe
Lovely trip!