390 Miles!

We woke up this morning and tuned into the weather report for the Albuquerque area and on to Gallup, where we were planning on spending the night. Everything sounded good - clear roads, but cold - so we decided to head out. We left the Wal-Mart parking lot in Santa Fe around 8:30 a.m. and had no issues at all. As we approached Albuquerque, the traffic became quite a bit heavier, and at one point so many people entered I-25 that I completely lost view of Larry & Jumbo. Not to worry! I knew that we had to turn onto I-40 to get to Gallup, and I was perfectly able to follow the signs, so before I knew it I was behind him again, and we were both headed in the right direction!

 

It was pretty overcast, but the roads were clear and dry. I'm surprised that Larry didn't turn off at the exit to Budville so that he could take some photos of the town and send them to our good friend, Bud!With a name like that, it has to be a great place!

And we keep on going....

We stopped at a rest area at Sky City, New Mexico and since it was much to early to spend the night in Gallup, as planned, we decided to go on to Holbrook. I wanted to see the Wigwam Village Motel on Route 66 anyway.

 We did drive through Gallup to check out the old motels and other sights along Route 66...

We could have stayed here for only $26.99!

Larry knew that I really wanted to see the El Rancho Motel. It was built in 1937. This is where the movie stars stayed while shooting westerns in the surrounding red rock canyon country. Larry found a place to park Jumbo across the street and took Duchess for a walk while I walked down the block to take some pictures. It would have been fun to go inside and look around, but we didn't want to leave Duchess in Jumbo by herself.

We got back on I-40 headed west toward Holbrook. We stopped at an Arizona Welcome Center right at the border.

This is my first visit to Arizona, and I went inside and gathered together information on everywhere we'll be visiting!

We had some lunch and then were ready to hit the road again!

It occurred to me as we were moving on down the highway that all of the semis in front of Jumbo looked like a modern-day wagon train...

There was a TA Travel Center in Holbrook that we thought would be OK for the night. But first, I wanted to drive into town and find the Wigwam Motel. I remembered seeing pictures of it when I was a little girl and always thought it would be so much fun to sleep in a concrete Wigwam! We weren't planning on doing that, but I had looked their website up before we left home and found that they sold miniature wigwam lamps, and I really wanted one. Larry parked Jumbo in front of an abandoned muffler shop while I walked over to the motel.

It seemed pretty deserted, and there was a sign on the office door that said they didn't open until 4:00, so I took a few pictures and walked back over to Jumbo. It wasn't worth hanging around an hour and a half for a little wigwam.

We got back on the highway and got off at the TA Travel Center, but didn't like the looks of it, so decided to go on to Winslow!

We're now in a Flying J in Winslow for the night. Tomorrow we'll be Standing on the Corner... What a fine sight to see!