Hola from Santa Fe!

It’s Jill again…I finally got control of the laptop back from Jonny.

We spent this morning driving…for a change! We made a quick stop at the ‘Cadillac Ranch’ just outside Amarillo. (You know the saying about the best thing about a place being the road out of it…well it was true in this case. I don’t know why anyone would want to know the way to Amarillo, it’s rubbish!) The Cadillac Ranch is basically 10 cadillacs buried in a field. It’s a bit mad, but quite cool. So we took a few photos…

what would you do with 10 spare cars?

I had heard plenty of warnings about crossing America – make sure you have plenty of water as you won’t meet a shop/petrol station/service area for miles. Every day…we have had water with us. Today, however, we had about 1/3 of a bottle left over from yesterday, and didn’t get around to buying any more. Today, of course, was the first day we didn’t meet a shop/petrol station/service area for miles! Always the way!!

We arrived in Santa Fe (well off Route 66, avoiding the swarms of bikers!) and even gained an hour by crossing over into mountain time (we’re now 7 hours behind home!). We spent the later part of this afternoon in the town. It’s such a lovely place. And so completely different to anywhere else we have been. I suppose it’s because we’re in New Mexico, but it had a very Spanish feel about it. Lovely shops, although everything was very expensive. We were even in a few Christmas shops!

So that’s about all we have done today. Tomorrow we head to Flagstaff – we’ll go to the Grand Canyon from there. We have a campsite booked for the next 2 nights. Then it’s on to Las Vegas.

One interesting thing we did see today was when we had breakfast/lunch (we’re only eating twice a day!) in Dennys – what we initially thought was a Christmas tree…turns out it was decorated for Halloween, complete with a big smiling pumpkin on top. It’s mad here.

The Halloween Tree

Jonny didn’t mention this in his post, but last night, we ate in a Texas Roadhouse again…we were in Texas after all! At each table, there is a metal bucket full of peanuts (in shells). In the one we had eaten in before - you also got an empty bucket for the shells. Last night, with the absence of an empty bucket, we soon realised the whole point of the thing was to throw your shells on the floor…adding to the spit ‘n’ sawdust atmosphere in the place. It felt a bit strange! Jonny asked for a Mountain Dew (his new drink!) to be told in no uncertain terms…”We don’t stock Pepsi products here”. Well ok then!

So that’s about all the excitement!

Irish bikers, Thunder storms & 72oz steaks!

(This post was written last night but the internet was playing up so we didn’t get putting it on until tonight!)

Last time we ’spoke’ to you was by the campfire in Oklahoma. We left there on this morning and headed west along I40/Route 66, destination Amarillo Texas. Along the way we passed 4 bikers with Irish flags, while Jill was driving I tried to take a photo of them without much success. Not very interesting I know, but these fella’s appear again later in our story.

It took us about 4.5hrs to get to Amarillo. Nothing much to report about the journey lots of flat farmland as far as the eye can see and a short stop off at a Cherokee trading post. Its basically a big native american gift shop.

So we arrive in Amarillo and find a hotel to stay in to find not only our 4 biker friends from earlier but a hotel full of them. It turns out we managed to arrive at the same time as 105 bikers from Ireland who are travelling Route 66 for charity - Temple Street Children’s Hospital in Dublin.

Amarillo is a big a sprawled out town along the interstate, we had a bit of a nosy round and found a historic area along what was route 66, interesting enough but nothing spectacular. For dinner we had planned to check out a place which advertises a free 72oz steak but it turned out the pack of Irish bikers had the same idea so we decided to stay clear. Aparently you can have this huge steak for free on a couple of conditions – you have to finsh it within 1 hour as well soup, salad, bread and vegetables! if you don’t it will cost you $50.

In the evening we also had our first storm since ariving in the USA. A massive electircal storm, bit mad really. Lightning flashes every few seconds and torrential rain, it lasted for about an hour or so.

So to sum up we now know the way to Amarillo! However I’m not sure what all the song and dance is about really, its a nice enough place but nothing much to write home about apart from the post you just read I suppose.

Tomorrow we move on again, another city and another state. We head to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The original plan was to head to Albequrque but our biker friends are headed that way so we thought we would try somewhere different.

Jonny