Blogs from New Mexico, United States, North America - page 76

Distance Traveled: 410 miles Arizona: Gila Bend, Buckeye, Phoenix, Mesa, Florence, Tucson, Benson, Tombstone, Bisbee, Douglas New Mexico: Rodeo, Lordsburg We elected not to eat breakfast at the Space Age Restaurant (imagine that) and decided instead to take a couple of pictures in front of the plate metal dinosaur sculpture at the local gas station. Then, we headed off to Phoenix. In keeping with our vow of not eating at a chain restaurant, we ended up at Linda's which was good old fashioned breakfast food in a tiny building. There were about 7 tables and the bathroom had one of those old fashioned towel dispensers where the used towel rolls back up into the dispenser. All in all, though, the food was great, and they had FREE mimosas - can't beat that!! As we rode along, ... read more

Geo: 35.6915, -105.937The Turqouise Trail is a route from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. Mining was a predominant activity. Some of the local jewelry is made from this stone which occurs in veins. We also saw the remnants of a coal mine operation. Santa Fe is an old Spanish town dating back to the 1500's. Many historic buildings and very intersting architecture. Lots of tourist shops selling local art and jewelry. From here we travelled an historic loop which took us through Taos another historic town. Along the way we saw the Rio Grande near its northern end. The way back was again up into the high country where there is still snow in the forests by the side of th road. There seems to be little economic activity other than tourism. Tomorrow we head for Amarillo ... read more

Geo: 35.5278, -108.744Today was a day of weather surprises. In Williams there were still piles of snow from previous snowfalls. We traveled east to Flagstaff and then south to Sedona through another canyon. Sedona was sunny and very pleasant. Sedona began as an artist colony but is now a tourist destination. Magnificent views and interesting architecture. Back up the canyon to Flagstaff and east to New Mexico. Wind is very strong - enough to blow off eyeglasses. Apparently the wind has been like this for about 3 weeks. At one point the freeway speed was down to 20 mph from 75 mph because of a sandstorm. Tomorrow we head for Albuquerque. Seems the temperature may be dropping but the wind will continue.... read more

This is going to be a very short entry. We are food lovers and it is probably one of our biggest joys in life. We live for food. We love finding new places and restaurants and rarely do we go back to the same place twice unless it's amzing...so many other places to eat!) Well, "the books" had an entry called, "SANTE FE's SOUTHWEST CUISINE," and since SANTA FE is only 60 miles away we made the trek to Santa Fe for a night of good food and relaxing in front of a fire (Santa Fe is freezing in February). COYOTE CAFE was on the list. It is a very well known restaurant, with our very own celebrity chef, Eric DiStephano, creating southwestern inspired cuisine. We were definitely in for a treat. We started off with ... read more

Roswell Strangeness On the way to Roswell this morning, while we continued to search the fence posts for the alleged Road Runner, we passed through the most beautiful little place called Artesia. The high school football stadium looked like the Swamp in Gainesville; I have never seen anything like it. There were bronze statues all over the town and the local theatre was advertising “stimulus specials” on Tuesday, $1 coke and $1 popcorn. This is truly a town that oil built, huge refinery right in the middle. Well, in Roswell, the aliens are all over the place; they tried to capture Paul and take him back to his home planet but I protected him. We went through the museum, bought a six foot alien yard ornament for son Paul Patrick (only kidding), and went upon our ... read more