By 8.30 the next morning - time to depart I was , thankfully, completely recovered. We skipped an early breakfast that day and also because we knew we'd be stopping for food later in the morning at the midpoint café.
Our first stop of the day was at the famous Cadilac Ranch - just a bunch of old Cadilac cars buried at a slant in a field. I was surprised at quite how far back from the road they were. I think pretty much everyone who does R66 stops here, but really, once you seen them and taken a photo or two, that;s it. I'll tick that one off then.
above: A bunch of cars buried nose down in a field, covered in graffiti , a.k.a. 'The Cadilac Ranch'
Ok, so on, riding more of the old road, through Vega, to Adrian, where the Mid Point Cafe lies. This is the designated mid point in Route 66, half way between the East end in Chicago and the West end in L.A. - 1139 from each end. We stopped at the café and I had my Apple pie and ice cream (that was my late breakfast). I think that the one person serving suddenly became overloaded once we arrived, but we all got fed and browsed the proverbial gift shop. We had the usual photo shoot before moving on.
Out of Texas now, and into New Mexico, which was marked by a huge gantry across the interstate.
We passed through the town of Glenrio before our lunch stop at the old Kix on Route 66 Diner. Mrs. K and I shared a sandwich there, and then we had 40 minutes to explore the surrounding area, lots to see including the Blue Swallow Motel, the Restored Texaco Gas station, and quite a lot of abandoned and near derelict diners and motels.
We had an afternoon stop at the Route 66 Auto Museum in Santa Rosa. $3 entrance to see a collection of mainly hot rods and custom cars from the 1930's 40's 50's 60's and 70's. Interesting for me, Mrs. K sat outside and had an ice cream.
Above: a selection of Classic/Custom American Cars were on display.
Above: My personal favorite, this 1934 Ford 3-Window (on offer at £85,000)
Still a long way to do of our near 300 mile journey today, but now the ride was to Santa Fe NM was getting a different landscape reminiscent of what you might remember form old cowboy western films. Lots of red hills and cliffs and rocks and stuff. We had a mixture of interstate and the old road, with a rest stop at about 6 PM before making the final ride down into Santa Fe. The sun was getting low in the sky now, and we were riding into it. With my sunglasses, and my tinted helmet visor, it was still tricky with the sun shining at you, but we got there, to our hotel for the next two nights, the Chimayo de Santa Fe at about 7.45. We parked the bikes in the hotel's underground car park and went to check-in. Now for the the bad part; Due to a cock up by, I suppose, the hotel's management, the reception staff on duty were totally unprepared for us and hadn't been briefed on what they needed to do (normally the tour guide does a group check-in, picks up all the key cards and just hands them out to us) so each cople/person had to individually check-in, fill out a form, offer a credit card for security and so on - just what we didn't want at the end of a 12 hour day on the road.
Still, the room, was most acceptable, with a huge, very comfortable bed, and a separate lounge area, even two TVs (not that we ever find much worth watching over here - it's more channels but just more rubbish)
By the time we got to our room it was getting on for 8.30, so we just went out to Santa Fe (The hotel is ideally situated about 60s from the town plaza, and it's pedestrian friendly, nothing like the average US town we've seen so far) to get some grub to eat back in the room. To bed, and tomorrow is a rest day. Maybe I can catch up on the blog (so I did).
jump to: Day 9 Day 7
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