Land of Enchantment

Well, I wrote a post this morning before we checked out of the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari.  It was titled "Tucumcari Tonight" which was the siren's call beckoning for 300 miles, kind of like South of the Border to us east coasters.  But... it took forever to load and one of the things I mentioned is how we'd been getting in late, blah, blah, blah, so I shoved my phone in my pocket while it uploaded, and we took off.  I fought with it the rest of the day, and I can still see it on my mobile app, but it's apparently lost in the ether of the dry plains.

Suffice it to say that we've had an adventurous two days here, having spent some quality time on Route 66, as well as the high altitudes of Santa Fe -- which was on the original 66 for a handful of years in the beginning, but not since 1932.  But technicalities aside, how can you not visit Santa Fe?

So we did, along with Pecos National Monument on the way up the hill, and passing through the San Felipe reservation on the way back down to Albuquerque, from where today's report is submitted.  Most people don't realize that Santa Fe is way higher in elevation than Denver, and it was 10,000 feet over Glorieta Pass on the way in.  I had a sweatshirt on until noon.

Now, here it is 10:00 again and it's my turn for the shower.  And the laundry is dry and needs to be rolled.  We wear fresh everything else every day, but jeans are expected to last a couple days.  We know we won't be able to do laundry for the next 3 nights, and since the we're 5 days in and we both got carnita juice on our jeans from the cart at Governor's Palace today, that left us on our last pair.  What if we want to go out one night in Vegas?  So we did wash tonight, and enjoyed our evening cocktails on the stoop of the laundry room right next door, and now we're good for another 8-9 days easy.

We've been booking rooms same day or one day in advance so far - tomorrow is our first real reservation in Mexican Hat, Utah, in the middle of Monument Valley.  It will be our first real deviation from Route 66 since we picked it up in Springfield MO, but like MacArthur, we shall return.