Sunday, August 5, 2007

Here again I am playing catch up on Blogging. We are driving through Texas where the terrain is so flat. (I took three pictures and they all look the same. Now don't get me wrong, Texans, granted we are only traveling a very short distance through your state, but this part is flat. I have to say there is more vegetation here than in some of the other areas that we have traveled). We can see for miles and miles. But since we changed from New Mexico, the land has also changed. We see lots of agricultural land. FARMERS (?) Ranchers? We have seen cattle, and We also see irrigation again. The Corn has tassels on it. And the John Deere (yes, we see John Deere equipment again) is Large. Not the little tractors that we have in New England, but the big stuff like we saw in Illinois and Iowa.

We drove through Amorilla, TX. The biggest city that we have seen in a long time. We thought Albuquerque was big. We stayed just outside of Albuquerque the night before last. (right next to a Camping World that sold campers). Of course they had a camper that was almost like the one that we want, but, no we won’t come home with a new camper unless we stop here in Texas and buy a Power Ball ticket (the payout is up about $89 million.) So far we haven’t stopped near a place that sells tickets.

(He he, isn't this cute? We fell in love with this when we saw it, but no, this is not the one that we have picked out.)







Murtle and Taco want to take this car and camper on their own. I told them they wouldn't get very far, but they are determined that they can travel Route 66 all by themselves. (Murtle couldn't open the door, so I guess we are safe.)



Albuquerque was interesting. We drove right through the middle of downtown. Very interesting. Route 66 went right through the heart of downtown. Lots of places are all closed up, but some of them were still in operation.

We do have to make sure that when we pick a campground that we check out the street lights. We have had way too many places that have lights that shine in our camper all night long. It’s like trying to sleep during the day when the sun is out. Guess some people like to feel “safe” when they are camping.

Yesterday we had made reservations at a campground (no card number or money down, thank goodness) we drove to the address, took one look at the campground and both of us got the crebie jeebees. We turned right around and left, and went to a KOA. (We have had great luck with them.) We’ll stay at KOA’s for a few more times before we attempt another place.

For those of you following our progress (or route) we are on Route 40 (now in Texas) getting ready to go into Oklahoma. We’ll stay in Canute tonight and tomorrow night. We want to visit the Route 66 museum tomorrow in Elk City, OK. Then I think we will have our fill of Route 66. It really must have been something in its day. Not much left of it now. Oh, there are a few places that are doing ok, but economically, I don’t think any of Route 66 is thriving like it used to.

Much of the route is so depressed now. Makes one wonder how it was a thriving place at all.
(I can't remember what town this was in, we just happened to turn off Route 40 and take the old Route 66. A whole section of town was blocked off to traffic, and not one of these places were in business anymore. Maybe it is considered historical and can't be fixed up. We will probably learn more at the Route 66 museum on Monday.)


This is also an old motel. Each one looks like a wigwam. How fun it must have been to be 10 or 11, packed in the family car, pull up to a wigwam and be told that you were going to spend the night in one! There are many interesting old places like this.


We have seen lots of different things on our travels. Some places have the wind mill (the ones that produce electricity) They seem to tower the horizon for miles. Wonder why we in New England, don’t do more with wind power? The other question that I have is, why haven’t we seen more solar power in the southwest? Some of the places boast that they have sun for 256 days of the year. One would think that they would utilize that to the max.




Saturday, August 4, 2007

(Happy Birthday, Abby!)

Haven’t typed for a while, and will have to catch you up on the things that we have done. We have been on Route 40 for q while. We stayed at a KOA Kampground for a few nights. The Petrified Forest National Park was there and we wanted to spend some time there. (Murtle was petrified that she would petrify at the Forest. Guess she didn’t understand at first what the forest was like. She also saw lots of these creatures around. Bigger than her, scattered along the road, she rattled in her shell.)

It was very interesting. There were actual trees that got washed downstream that sediments and volcanic ash settled on them, these made their way through the porous material in the trees and through compression forced through the trees and became crystals. (Well, something like that anyway.)


They looked like trees that were just lying on the side of the fields. They also looked like someone had taken a chain saw and cut them into blocks. (They looked that way because they had broken into blocks, not actually been cut.) Up close, they looked beautiful, reds, oranges, purple, and such. The rings weren’t exactly formed the way we would see a cut tree, but your could tell that they were trees at one time.

We couldn’t believe how many of them there were. We actually had our own theory of how they got there. It was a tad different but, of course we aren’t the experts. One place was called the Blue Mesa. It was a walking trail (about 1 mile long) that we took. It went down into the Mesa. The colors there were spectacular. The sign said that at times the rocks look blue or purple depending on the time of day or the cloud cover. It looked sort of purple the day we were there. (lots of cloud cover).









Not only at the Petrified forest were there petrified trees, but at the north end of the forest, there was a painted desert. It was beautiful. Not as LARGE as the Grand Canyon, but the colors were just as beautiful.

Again, the pictures that we took just do not do it justice.

We also saw some of the petroglyphs. These are drawings on the rocks from long ago (long, long ago!) If you look real close on this one, you might be able to see some animals that look like deer. On another one there looked like a bird carrying a baby. I wonder if that is where the story of the stork bringing the babies came from. Or worse, maybe there was a big bird that swooped down and captured the baby. Murtle didn't like that explanation. She was afraid that she might be captured and taken away.


Part of Route 66 went right through the Petrified forest. We stopped at a viewing spot, and there was an old car, probably an old Ford Coupe, aprox. 1920ish. Well rusted, no tires, just sitting there for photo ops. We met two women there and they asked if we would take their picture. Come to find out, the older woman was a high school teacher in Boston, and the girl was her niece from Tamworth. We had a nice chat. When the Aunt was a little girl, her family had packed her up in a car, and they had traveled Route 66 from one end to the other. (These cars are dotted all over the place out there. It is like they just quit working and were abandoned right where they were.)