Route 66 Chronicles - Part 3, The Trip Continues....

Part 3 – The Trip Continues….....

We left off last time parked in a fairly chic RV "resort" in Santa Fe surrounded by large expensive rock star motorhomes....

We got up the next day for birthday breakfast in Santa Fe's quaint little village. I ordered eggs benedict which usually gives you 2 muffins and 2 eggs....I got 2 muffins and 1 egg.. ..like a missing headlight.... We were told the other egg got "lost in the kitchen"... Go figure! On the way back from the 1 egg breakfast to pick up the van I walked the dog ...who simply will not poop in cold climates!! In any case my coaxing took us to a city office building where we found some rare grass. ahhhh...familiar turf !!

We walked and sniffed and walked and sniffed for about 10 minutes....to no avail.... so we jumped back in the RV where I discovered some other big ass dog had done his duty in the grass and my shoe was literally covered in shit! Of course it was my RIGHT shoe...so I was forced to drive the RV in my socks. As you might all suspect, the shoes give me a bit more height and a longer leg.....so now w/o my right shoe my driving foot was a lot further from the gas pedal on this truck... I was forced into the ballerina position for about 50 miles while Kris' daughter cleaned the god awful mess of poop from my shoe! We dropped her off at ABQ airport where I am sure she was relieved to be out of the RV !!! and....on her way back to Mpls!!

Ok.. so ....on this great American RV adventure we HAVE been introduced to a different form of culture.... and... have actually learned a few new vocabulary words along the way:

DUMP, DUMPING STATION, PARK AND DUMP, BASIC AND "FULL HOOK-UPS"....hmmm....right here in the RV park. Although we paid extra for a full "hookup", neither one of us has gotten one!!

We also learned about BLACK WATER and GRAY WATER... and today we took our first dump at a dumping station in Grants, NM. Just imagine what that means..... getting the crap out of the RV ! eeeeoooowww...

We left Albuquerque yesterday and were headed toward a lesser known canyon just inside the AZ border. After 50 white-knuckle minutes in a westward direction Sunday night with cross winds and wind gusts up to 25mph .... and semi's crowding the roads after the holiday weekend, we were pushed and swayed all the way to Grants, NM. That was a hard and freightening drive...so we got off on Route 66 in Grants and headed toward town to check it out! Nothing, nothing, nothing going on. It was 9pm and we didn't even find a bar. That was my fault, I just did not try hard enough!! I'm sure there WAS one! We knew there were 3 RV parks so we pulled into the first one and had a weird sensation about it; we left for another one and later discovered that someone had been murdered in the first RV Park last year!!!

Today was uneventful in terms of crisis and weidos - but spectacular in terms of vistas and ancient rock formations. We spent the entire day on and off Route 66 going BACK toward Albuquerque. After last night's competition for road with all those semis...the wind gusts and almost losing control of the vehicle....and the prospect of more danger ahead in the mountains....we decided to slow it down a bit. We saw some fabulous things in NM off the main highways... Tomorrow we will be seeing an ancient city in NM call Sky City - purported to have been inhabited continuously for the last 10,000 years. This is on a reservation and has limited access. It looks like a really interesting self-sustaining ancient city in the high desert..... I never heard of it and had no idea the USA was inhabited by anything 10,000 years ago!

We are now camping at a big casino RV park on Route 66. I don't know what town this is...... Tomorrow we will do the ancient city and then go back to Route 66 and take the rig around the official DEAD MAN'S CURVE - on Route 66 back to Albuquerque... Yes, that's the real dead man's curve. We already checked...the vehicle will be able to make the TURN!!

Ok...it is off to the casino !!

ta ta