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Published: January 5th 2018
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We've spent most of our day in New Mexico, though the single location with the most time was probably the Petrified Forest. I’m not going to have a lot of words for this entry—the fatigue has begun to set in after ten days of seemingly non-stop driving. Today was over 8 hours, tomorrow will be about 11, and then Saturday will take us the final 10 hours to Tifton.
We finished To Kill a Mockingbird tonight, and it was fantastic. I’m glad I chose that one for the trip, though I hesitated. We got through the first disc of Catch-22, and we have twenty more hours to go on this trip; I believe the audiobook will last the entire time.
The morning consisted of visiting the Petrified Forest National Park. We got to see some of the Painted Desert (my favorite) up close, as well as some petroglyphs (also a top priority in the Southwest) and, for dad, some petrified wood. We got to the Agate Bridge, which is a petrified tree fallen across a small chasm to form a natural bridge. Dad was thrilled. We also got to see a rusty old Studebaker at the intersection of Route
66 and I-40 (which is in the park and only visitable by people who pay to get in the park).
Speaking of paying to get in the park, we didn’t. Despite having bought that senior annual pass yesterday at the Grand Canyon, we didn’t have to show it at the gate. We should’ve had to, but just before we pulled up to the gate, the ranger exited the station and drove off in the opposite direction. And there’s no rail to prevent entry otherwise. So we stopped, dad got out to look for a ranger, and then we drove on.
Besides that, it was a lot of driving. We got gas in Gallup, New Mexico, where I found the “Devil’s Highway,” a sign for former Route 666 (the 6
th spur off of the old Route 66). Then we drove on to Albuquerque, where we visited the UNM bookstore (small pennant acquired, but they were all marked up more than normal) and then their football stadium.
And then we drove on. I had hoped to stop for food and/or gas at either Santa Rosa (where we exited the interstate) or Fort Sumner (where we had to turn onto
the US Hwy), but there wasn’t much to see. I had to pee more than anything else. Luckily, the gas didn’t run out, but we weren’t really in danger of that. But no food options made me a crankier and crankier as we went on. Plus all the roads were devoid of features. I had trouble figuring out distances of headlights and town features because of the flat land and the interminable straight roads. But we made it to our hotel in Clovis, NM.
We’re probably a stone’s throw from the Texas border, so as soon as we leave tomorrow, we’ll be back on Central Time. We’ve got visits at Texas Tech and then TCU on the agenda for tomorrow, before ending up in Monroe, LA. The end is in sight.
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