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!