The Fisher's, Author at Our View From The Road

Day 37: We get our kicks on Route 66

Up and at ‘em. The sun’s up and so are we, ready for a day of driving eastward out of New Mexico and into Texas.

Today Barb has decided to drive our campervan leaving me to be passenger and photographer. The other rigs that stayed at the brewery we us left at about 8:30am and we headed out by 9:00am as is our habit.

We start by joining I-40E and heading toward Santa Rosa. The highway seems extra busy with truck traffic as the scenery slowly changes from that of the high desert towards the central plains.

We take a small detour into the town of Tucumcari, NM. This detours takes us onto historic US-66. Although the town is surviving it is clear that it has seen more affluent times when Route 66 was the primary east-west route that ran directly through town.

After a couple of hours we leave New Mexico and enter Texas. The sky seems larger as the land flattens to become the grasslands of the plains. Again, we leave the interstate and head into Adrian, TX. We stop at the Midway Cafe that sits at the mathematical midpoint of the historic US-66. Halfway between Los Angeles and Chicago. We take a few photos outside at a sign that marks this point and then we head into the cafe for lunch.

The Midpoint Cafe has operated in this location for decades under various names and owners. It is decorated as a 1950’s diner and the menu reflects this era containing hamburgers, fried bologna sandwiches, hot dogs, milkshakes and homemade pies for desert.

We settle on each having a cheeseburger and Coke Zero. The owner is working in the kitchen and is delayed on a complicated order ahead of ours and so instructs the waitress to offer us a complimentary piece of pie! Barb chooses Chocolate & Peanut Butter which tastes amazing. When the burgers are delivered we they are large and look delicious, we are not disappointed, in fact we both agree that the burgers are the best that we have tasted in a very long time.

Returning to the interstate we notice that the West Texas winds have returned and Barb is working hard to keep the van in our lane. Nearing Amarillo we pull off to top off the gas tank before driving a short distance to what has to be the weirdest stop along Route 66, the Cadillac ranch. Ten 1950s-era Cadillacs have been partially buried hood-first in a field and visitors are encouraged to use spray paint to decorate the cars. We do not bring paint, only our cameras to capture the absurd art installation.

Our last driving segment takes us around the western edge of Amarillo towards Canyon, TX where we drive to the Bar-Z winery where we are staying the night. We enjoy a flight of wine and purchase a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to enjoy on another day. The evening is enjoyed relaxing in the van.

Day 36: Onward to Moriarty, NM

So, no wind at bedtime (or in the forecast). Strong winds overnight, van shaking winds. No wind at daybreak. The winds were so strong that our tenting neighbors bailed in the middle of the night as they were gone before 6:00am when I awoke.

The view is still as stunning as the evening before and we continued to enjoy it while enjoying breakfast.

We departed our parkup by 9:00am and headed toward Albuquerque, NM. The drive took us across the continental divide at 7,380ft before descending into the city.

We stopped at a Chili’s for lunch before going to a Krispy Kreme to pick up a few donuts for later. Taking advantage of having stopped in a shopping district, we took some time to browse around a Barnes & Noble bookstore where Tony picked up another book to read.

Leaving the city we drove East on I-40E towards our destination, Moriarty, NM. Tonight we have booked a Harvest Hosts stay at the Sierra Blanca Brewery and upon arrival we checked in and then rested in our van for a couple of hours. Later in the afternoon we went into the brewery and joined some other folks who were also staying at the brewery in their campers. We met folks from Rochester, NY, Wisconsin and California. We swapped stories and enjoyed a beverage or two before returning to our campers for the evening.

Day 35: Angels Peak

Driving day today as we awake from another quiet night of slumber. The wind has picked up a bit and is from the West so that should help with our travels today.

A normal pre-travel morning routine sees us enjoy a small breakfast and then it’s time to disconnect from the campground services and prepare to depart. All is good to go.

Our first stop will be very familiar to anyone who has watched the movie “Forrest Gump” for we stop and take some pictures at the place where Forrest ends his running and decides to go home.

From here we drove just a short distance to Mexican Hat to view Mexican Hat Rock. Let me save you the time, it’s a rock that happens to look like a sombrero balancing on a much smaller rock. The picture says it all.

Next stop, the Four Corners. This is the place where Arizona, Utah, Colorado & New Mexico all meet. It is marked with a plaza where you can walk between the four states or stand in two states or if you include your hands, like Barb, you can be in all four states at the same time (almost). You see, Arizona does not use daylight savings time & so you can also be a time traveler and be in multiple states at different times! The plaza is on Navaho land and as such an $8/person tribal fee is required to access the plaza which also contains many Navaho vendors selling all kinds of authentic goods. Enjoy the pictures.

Leaving the Four Corners we drove South and reconnected with the US-64E towards Farmington, NM and then onto Bloomfield, NM where we turn SE towards our stop for the night, Angels Peak, NM. This is a BLM night and so we will have to hope that we can find a nice spot. Oh, were we lucky. We found a quiet corner of one of the picnic areas that overlooks the Angels Peak Badlands & for the first time on this trip we snagged a gazebo under which to eat our meals! Bonus.

The evening is super quiet as the sun sets. There are almost no clouds in the sky & there shouldn’t be any light infiltration to detract from the starry skies.

Day 34: Monument Valley

7:00am and an alarm wakes us. The time has gone ahead an hour now that we’re (just) in Utah and we are being picked up at 9:00am for our guided tour of the Monument Valley and backcountry. We enjoy a light breakfast and get ready to be out and about for a few hours.

Our guide arrives a little early so we climb into the rig and he takes us to the View hotel that sits at the entrance to the valley. Accessing the valley requires us to pay an $8/person tribal fee as the land is owned by the Navaho (Dineh) tribe. We pick up a few more passengers (visiting from France and Spain) and we head down into the valley.

The drive can be made using your own vehicle and although RVs are not allowed our campervan would have been permitted but as we will discover, the road is very rough and uneven. We are both very glad to have chosen to take a tour and we’re only just at the beginning.

The steep gravel and sand road flattens out at the bottom of the valley and you begin to realize the size of the sandstone mesas that are scattered about the valley. Some are over 1000’ in height.

The valley is most famous for being the filming location of early Hollywood westerns many of which were produced by John Ford such as Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956) both of which starred John Wayne. There is now a location within the valley named John Ford point.

All of the mesas in the valley have names, some are easy to understand their source such as ‘The Elephant’ or ‘Three Sisters’. Others require a bit of imagination to see what is evidently seen by others.

The tour takes us in the backcountry beyond the self-drive route to a tribal village where, in a traditional shelter called a ‘Hogan’ we are shown how rugs are woven from sheep’s wool that is sheared, washed, spun and colored by hand before being woven into intricately patterned rugs.

Lastly while in the backcountry we visit a few places to see huge holes or arches through the mesas created by millions of years of erosion. At our last stop, our guide plays his traditional wooden flute while we gaze at the sky through one of these massive holes. Quite magical.

Returning to the entrance to the valley, we notice that there are many more folks now self driving the roads and we see a few vans bumping along and we wonder if they have anything left in their cupboards. The tour was 3hrs long and cost us each $70USD, but we both feel that we got so much from it. We learned much from our guide about the history of the Dineh people and how living in a modern world has affected their way of life. If you visit, we recommend taking a tour.

The remainder of the day we spent at our campsite relaxing and planning the remaining days of our trip. Still more to come so keep checking back.

P.S. Yes, there is now red sand everywhere in the van.

Day 33: Onto Monument Valley

Another chilly night, I thought we came South to get some warmth? Had issues starting furnace during the night so used electric cube heater as we were plugged in at the site. Turns out that the propane was NOT turned on thus no furnace, Doh! Although I suppose it’s nice to know it was user error and not a system error.

Time for a statistic: It turns out that during this past winter, Grand Canyon village had 452cm (178”) of snowfall. No wonder we’re still seeing lots of it lying amongst the trees and on the north facing slopes.

We started the day by visiting some of the lookouts that are East of the visitors center along the road that we will take to leave the park. I’ve added some pictures below.

Upon leaving the Grand Canyon National Park the road begins to steadily fall towards Cameron, AZ where we turn North and then East towards Tuba City and Kayenta.

The scenery really changes between the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. Along the lines of ‘from Yogi bear to the Road Runner’.

Dust devil just south of Monument Valley

We got gas in Kayenta and then headed North towards the Utah state border. Crossing into Utah and just 1 mile into the state we had reached our destination, the Monument Valley KOA. Home for the next two nights. We are now 500m lower at 1600m (5250ft) than the 2100m (7000ft) elevation of last night.

During the afternoon we booked our tour of Monument Valley for tomorrow morning. Read tomorrows post to find out what we think.

Indian Tiki Masala for dinner and then a quiet evening in the van.