Route 66 - New Mexico
National RV Day
Peggy read that today was National RV Day. From a bit of research, it appears to be only the second annual, but hey, we’ll take any reason to celebrate RVing!
Route 66 Shield Drive-Thru
We’re too Big!
Before we left Grants we decided to check out the Route 66 Shield Drive-Thru, which with the camper isn’t exactly drive-thru. We regretted not going at night with the truck, as we understand it lights up with neon after dark.
Enchanted in Albuquerque
Approaching Albuquerque, we stopped to visit the Enchanted Trails RV Park & Trading Post. We spent nearly an hour here, chatting with Vickie and touring some of the vintage RVs that they maintain with vintage themes. Also, Vickie reminded us not to miss her 17-foot hubcap tree. Wow! We will be hearing more from Vickie - if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast you’ll miss out!
For the first time since we purchased it, we remembered to take our Route 66 Passport in for a stamp. Just another reason to plan trips back into the area!
Part of the vintage setup at Enchanted Trails
17-foot tree made of hubcaps
Stop and Shop
Next door to Enchanted Trails was a Camping World and we decided to check out the store. We bought a big level for the front of the trailer, and some new bowls. Our old bowls have a wide rim that take up more space than needed. Plus, it’s hard for Peggy to drink the milk after her cereal :-)
Abandoned and Forgotten
We wanted to stay on the “old route” - which is pretty much the frontage road - but lack of signage led to a wrong turn that put us in a predicament that took a while to escape. This is, sadly, the fate of much of old Route 66, it has just been abandoned for the newer, wider, faster interstate. After some fancy foot - er - tire work by Tony, we got ourselves turned around and decided to get back on the highway for a while.
We got to the end of the road.
Moriarty
We didn’t stop, but Tony sure wanted to, in Moriarty, which we deemed is the capital of fireworks. There were so many road-side stands!
Santa Rosa
We were able to find more of the old route to follow, including in Santa Rosa where we found the Route 66 Auto Museum. We didn’t have time to go in, but just looking from the outside we saw some fun cars including an Edsel backhoe and yet another Mater!
Scenic Beauty
On the last leg of today’s journey, into Tucumcari, we watched a thunderstorm ahead of us that included a ew lightening strikes. We got just a couple drops of rain.
Blaze-in-Saddles
Tony just pawn in game of life. Our host, John, was a good sport and we laughed about the quotable lines of the movie with a similar name to the park. John got us settled, including leading us to the site and reminding us that the water pressure here is really high. They even display a couple of popped water lines in the office to remind people to use a regulator, which we always do anyway.
When we arrived at Blaze-in-Saddles RV and Horse Park, the weather was so lovely. After we set up we got a very short burst of rain.
If you travel with horses, this is a great place to stop. While most parks have places to let your dog off-leash, we don’t recall ever seeing a park with an area to let your horses out! It’s a nice park that we wouldn’t hesitate to visit again.
