Day 4 - New Mexico

 Today we awoke early at the Blue Swallow motel and departed around 730a. Despite the bright sun it was a frigid morning.  My car thermometer recorded as low as 41 degrees at one point today.  This was a long day of driving, roughly 600miles.  But New Mexico and Arizona are beautiful – and that’s an understatement.

New Mexico

My description of NM was premature yesterday.  There are these hills, or whatever they are called, that look like someone had a handful of dirt and rocks that they just dropped and scattered randomly.  And every once in a while a tree or bush was jammed into the side of the pile.  There are reds and greens and grays all striated in one butte.  
Also the road kill in NM is coyotes. 
 

We had so many stops and pictures today, I can’t even remember what all we did.  The first stop we made roughly 100 miles into the drive. I was real antsy and restless, probably from so much driving the day before.  So we stopped at Cline’s Corner (another old Route 66 town..) and got gas and coffee.  My mom took over driving and I was grateful.

So far we’ve had a problem free trip.. can you guess what I’m going to say next?

We had problems. 2 big ones that happened in rapid succession.  My mom was driving and I was reading pamphlets from some of the places we’ve stopped when we heard an awful sound – like a big rock hitting a windshield and cracking it.. turned out that sound was exactly what happened.  Luckily the crack is only about the size of a penny, but I had to call my insurance company and schedule a repair for tomorrow. 
While I was on the phone, PW noticed a police car with flashing lights coming quickly down the highway.  She got out of the way for him to pass, but he continued right behind us.. because he was after us.
Turns out the speed limit had changed from 75mph to 65mph, but the cruise control had not changed.. speeding ticket. 

snowing (you can't really see it) in New Mexico

Both of us just needed to get out of the car for a few minutes, so we pulled into Thoreau, NM, thinking it was a great stop on 66.  It was actually a kind of creepy town and we left almost immediately after we got there.  It had been raining every so lightly during this part of the trip, but slowly the rain seemed to change in density, and we realized it was snowing!

We kept going west , took a quick stop at the Continental Divide, took some pics, and kept on a-driving.

Next stop was at a famous hotel and restaurant – El Ranchero. 

This hotel has been in many films and has had many stars stay there.  It is decorated in the style of an old western.

After that, as we have been all week; we continued westward.