Giant Crawfish
World’s Largest Bowie Knife
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.
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.
Gates of Santa Fe #1
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.
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.
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.
Texaco Big Friend – Service Station Man
I got out the door of the hotel at around 6:00 but didn’t hit the Interstate ’til later. Part of the time lost was getting a latte at The Human Bean and then breakfast at a Jack in the Box. When I went back up front to get some napkins the Shift Leader was placing little plastic eggs all around. I looked at her quizzically and she said that none of the people that worked there had never seen this particular Easter tradition. She was the only one I interacted with, so I have no idea why someone had never had an Easter Egg Hunt and I didn’t ask.
Easter Egg Hunt at Jack’s