Day 1 – Hammond

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Back in Louisiana for a visit with the oldest person I know at 98, Santa Fe Sally’s mom. We are here for the next week enjoying the humidity and fried seafood. Tomorrow is a visit from Sally’s son and family and there might be a visit to the Big Easy there somewhere.

The rest of the week is jammed full of stuff not nearly as exciting as that. It is crawfish season, so we might eat a mudbug or two. Maybe we’ll test drive a RAV4 while we are here because the Santa Fe Toyota dealer had zero on their lot. I know, we can hardly contain ourselves either.

Wait, I almost forgot today’s big event. I got my haircut. It is a Great Clips-style place. Sally’s Mom has been going to one person at this place for quite a while, so Sally gets her hair cut by her whenever she is in town. Now, me too. This morning, Sally went first (ladies before gentlemen and all) and I went second. Like Great Clips, the senior haircut is a few bucks cheaper than for everyone else. When I checked out, the woman asked, “You’re not 65, are you?” To which I replied, “My next birthday my age will have a 7 as its first digit.” So, I got the discount.

On the way back to the car, Sally said, “She didn’t give me the discount.” I said, “You should take that as a compliment that she thought you were under 65.” She is a couple of years younger than me, but she was more upset about having to spend the extra three or four bucks to see that logic.

2025 Jumbo Road Trip – Day 5

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World’s Largest Bowie Knife


 
On the road again. This is a short 2 day hop to Hammond, LA and the halfway point is Bowie, TX. The town is named after the famous Jim Bowie who actually was never anywhere near here in his lifetime. The town name was a tribute to the that famous Kentuckian whose brother, Rezin, designed the famous knife. As befitting of the town name, it built the World’s Largest Bowie Knife. There is even a plague from the folks at the Guinness World Records. It is 20 feet long, with a blade length of 14 feet 5 inches, and weighs 3,000 pounds.

Santa Fe Sally and I staying in the Best Western one room apart. The lady at the front desk was fantastic, we had picked out a highly rated restaurant on Yelp, but I never checked the open times. Turns out that it is Breakfast/Lunch only, so it was closed. She gave us a great alt, The Armadillo Grill. If you ever get this way it is definitely worth a stop, the food was delicious and plentiful. Even if you are just passing through, a stop for the Armadillo Poppers won’t disappoint, bacon wrapped jalapenos stuffed with cheese and a choice of meat. On our return trip in a week and a half we’ll be staying in Bowie again, so we will probably eat there again.

Day 2 – Santa Fe

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Gates of Santa Fe #2

Drove to Dunkin’ for my 14oz Regular….that and a neighborhood walk with a gate photo are the only things the same as yesterday.

We took the Travelling Tucson to the Hyundai dealer for an oil change and tire rotation. They also changed out both cabin air filters, well, because it is dusty here in the desert. After that we went to La Chosa for lunch. Vegetable Quesadilla for the lady and I wolfed down a Green Chile Bacon Cheese Burger.

Not only do I love the blue skies, the 80% percent of the year sunny day count, the architecture, and the vibe, the food with green chiles on it would be enough to made want to live here. If only I could afford to.

Tomorrow we are off to Bowie, TX with Hammond, LA our destination again. So, no more “Gates of Santa Fe” photos until Star Wars Day.

Day 1 – Santa Fe

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Gates of Santa Fe #1


 
Daybreak – Drove to Dunkin’ for my 14oz Regular and a couple Munchkins to start the day.

Sensible Morning Hour – Walked over to Tune-Up Cafe as seen on Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. I devoured the Smoked Duck Hash-eggs al gusto, cheesy hash browns, bell pepper, your choice of chili, onions, tortilla. Eggs over easy and for the chili, I roll green. Sally had the omelette. Fresh squeezed OJ for me, water for her.

Post Breakfast – Walked around the surrounding neighborhoods while Sally regaled me by pointing out the sub thousand foot homes that start at around $400k for a fixer-upper to the nicely renovated ones that approach the $1mil mark. The above picture is of a gate that probably hid a slightly larger home that that would easily fetch seven figures.

Lunch – Still full from breakfast we opted for a Clementine…

Early Afternoon – Test drove a Nissan Rogue that might be a replacement for her 2023 Hyundai Tucson. We both came away impressed with the car. It is probably ahead of the Mazda CX-5 and Subaru Forrester we test drove back in January. We were going to try a RAV4, but the Toyota dealer didn’t any in stock.

Late Afternoon – We watched a movie, my choice, but she agreed when I told her Stanley Tucci was in it. A movie from 1996, Big Night. Tucci had hair! I’ve seen it a couple times and enjoyed this third viewing as well. Sally enjoyed it not so much, so next movie time, it’ll be her pick.

Dinner – Ham & Cheese Sandos with a broccoli salad and chips and salsa.

Dusk – A drive up to Sky Santa Fe and pretty much straight back down that is a near prefect Miata road and put a big smile on my face. I think she enjoyed too, but I think I saw a few instances of ghost braking over on that side of the car.

2025 Jumbo Road Trip – Day 4

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Started on the final leg to Santa Fe at around 7:30 AM. Because I have been heading mostly southeast, I have been driving into the sun the last few mornings. Today I should have started an hour earlier or later because US-160 is pretty much straight east out of Kayenta. Fortunately for me the sun was just high enough that the sun visor worked if I sat up real straight, it would block it.

The first stop of the day was in Farmington to get the Roadside America picture of the day, Sunny the Big Man (Muffler Man). I knew he was on a Main drag in town, but not which one, so I fired up Google Maps to direct me the last few turns. I didn’t have service, no map. Because I was listening to MP3s off the phone I didn’t realize it, but somewhere after the end of driving day yesterday I had turned off Mobile Data on the phone. Ooops.

Out of Farmington I hooked up with US-550 South and if Miss Google had her way, I would follow that to Bernalillo and then go 40 miles north on I-25 to Santa Fe. I would have none of that, just north of the town of Cuba I hung a left onto NM-96 which is a rural windy road with beautiful southwest scenery and it only cost me an estimated 7 extra minutes.

Not long after NM-96 ends at US-84 there is a town called Abiquiu that id home to the Big Pink Flamingo and Georgia O’Keefe’s home. I also had lunch in Abiquiu at the Inn there. Beef and Potato Soup with a big hint of Green Chili. The 50 miles of NM-96 and that lunch in that setting were enough to make the last 3-1/2 days and 1,500 miles worth it.

2025 Jumbo Road Trip – Day 3

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The Mittens in Monument Valley


 
It has been a long day and I’m beat. I stopped to get three different Roadside America pictures, two of which made the cut. See below or on Instagram. The biggest item of the day was the above picture, the Mittens in Monument Valley. I stopped in and had to wrangle a single seat on a tour. I tried to reserve on line, but there was zero options available for a single, it started at 2 and went up. I can sort of get the reason, it like a cruise ship all there cabins are for two and these tour vehicles seat twelve. But what happens if you get a family of three?

Anyway, I did get on a tour and there was an empty seat beside me. I thought I was getting a 2-hour tour, but as it turned out it was a 2-1/2 hour tour, which in the end, ended up being 3 hours long. At the finish I was bounced, shaken, stirred, slightly sunburned, very wind blown with sand in my shoes and dirt in my nostrils. The guide was great, informative and entertaining. Because it is a guided tour we also got to go places and see things the peasant don’t on their $8 a head self-guided 2-hour loop.

Tomorrow I get to Santa Fe where I can wash some clothes and the dead bugs off the Miata.