We woke up this morning to some unseasonal snow, either side of this day it was like 25°c, so it was real weird. The snow came in patches and their was very little when we headed out to a local shopping centre. While we were in there it started to bucket down snow so we waited in the car for 5 for it to pass as it was hard to see where we were going. We had a good look around flagstaff city once the snow passed by 11 and had lunch at the flagstaff brewery. We headed off to Williams after lunch as it was not far away.

Williams is a cool route 66 town and home to the grand canyon railway, our plan was to stay 2 nights here as we had a 9am train ride to the canyon but this was cancelled due to the government shutdown. We ended up cancelling the second night as we decided to do more route 66 on the way to Vegas.

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Here are some of the sights we saw during the first half hour out of Albuquerque heading west, here are lots of run down signs, diners, and weird things to see.

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This week there in Albuquerque there is a huge hot air balloon fiesta this is a shot from our hotel room

Once we arrived in Albuquerque we had a bit of a spin of the city, one funky neighbourhood on route 66 is Nob Hill.  We stopped for lunch at a cool brewpub that had been transformed out of an art deco Ford Dealer. A great set up with lots of old dealer and Ford memorabilia plus a few old bowsers amongst the umbrellas and chairs.  They had over a dozen different brews that were made on the premises and also offered a brew your own service where you could brew a beer, come back and bottle it before taking it home to enjoy.

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We like visiting supermarkets etc when visiting overseas, it reminds us how crap the two Australian supermarkets are, surprise, surprise, when these is competition their is choice and value…  This place was pretty cool it was a supermarket, but what a difference, a Mexican supermarket and boy did they have some good stuff. The bakery was amazing they even made their own tortillas and corn chips. The fruit and vegies looked spectacular and there were several things I have never seen, and so many chilli’s. Meat section a bit grizzly with plenty of offal and skinned cow heads.  They also had a hot foods section, tasty pig nose stew and pork rinds… delish?

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The city centre of Albuquerque was pretty uninteresting really only a buisness district but a few kms out of town was the historic old yown and that had a fair bit to enjoy.

The precint was all set around a central square with bandstand and nice gardens.  Surrounding the square are lots of touristy shops, gifts, art, and stuff like that. We found a few great Mexican restaurants only prob every beer they brought out more corn chips and chili dip.. and it was pretty good, saved buying a big dinner.

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As the terrain was so harsh it was difficult to move people, stock and freight around the surrounding states until the railway came and revolutionised the townships in New Mexico and Arizona. Still today Santa Fe is one of the USAs major rail hubs with huge freight trains stacked two containers high cutting through the town every 2 – 5 minutes.
The old station area home to the roadrunner passenger train has recently been transformed into a huge squid port with plenty of cafes, galleries and small tourist operators. Today the farmers and craft market was in. The smell of the roasting green chillies was amazing with most of the stalls selling chillies and of couse huge orange pumpkins for halloween.

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Today we take a road trip from Santa Fe to Taos, It is estimated that the township began over 1000 years and is known as the longest continuously inhabited community in the United States. Like Santa Fe the majority of the buildings were built in the adobe rendered style.

We took the scenic route up and it went from desert to forest and back to forest with a few interesting shanty towns along the way. On the way back after some beer made from green chilies and a tasty chile burger we went a few km out of town to the Rio Grande Canyon, very impressive hole in the ground and great steel bridge.

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We dropped the Hyundai off at the airport in Dallas and waiting for us at the Alburquque airport was this, not quite the luggage space of the Elantra.. but I suppose it will have to do..

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Amazing to see the queues at the airport donut and BBBQ shops before 7 am in the morning…starting the day off well before they hit the coral carrel buffet for lunch and BBQ smokehouse for dinner. Sure im a few kg over my playing weight but to see these people waddling like fat ducks down the concourse gobbling donuts or breakfast brisket rolls is a sight. Many with a pumpkin latte or diet coke… its not going to help.

We flew into Alburquque and arrived about 10 and picked up the car for the drive to LA. As per usual the Hertz guy did the up-sell but when he checked the rate for a Ford discount Focus and Mustang there was bugger all difference. so we got a convertible strong for our Route 66 trip. how cool.

We take the back road to Santa Fe so we could stop off at the Mine Shaft Tavern in Madrid. What a weird little hippy village with a few arty farty shops selling wind chime and other crap. Food and beer pretty were good at the tavern… “but hang on a minute there is something something odd about this place….this bar has no fire exits… enjoy your death trap ladies… ” Homer J Simpson”

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Santa Fe was about another 40 minutes drive through some strange little historic mining towns, lots of brown dirt and desert bush but best of all some good curvy roads to have a bit of fun in the Mustang.  The skies haven’t got a cloud and its about 20-22 degrees so time to put the lid away.

We spent the arvo exploring the historic district of Santa Fe. Lots of Spanish and American Indian influences with its interesting adobe style of architecture.  The precinct was full of people with lots of galleries, arts & crafts and a few museums.  Native Americans lined footpaths with some of the most stunning jewelery, copper, silver, leather, turquoise and other gems.

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