Eastbound And Down–In Slow Motion

After a lengthy hiatus in Geezer Gulch, we are now back on the road heading northeast-ward toward (we hope) cooler weather and a series of RV rallies in the upper Midwest.  Severe weather has already plagued many of the areas through which we’ll be traveling so we have high hopes that Mother Nature will be a bit more relaxed as we wander along.  Our days in Geezer Gulch were consumed with doctor and dentist appointments, trading in one house for another and with our usual array of activities and entertainments.  Howie continued with his lawn bowling, often participating twice a day, while I kept involved with book clubs and Questers.  Together we took up pickleball rather late in our Gulch stay so that we weren’t able to make much progress beyond buying paddles and making use of the magnificent new courts at the northern-most rec center.  We were even able to get in a few games with John and Rose when they sped up from a campsite in Casa Grande.

It took us three days to get the coach loaded and we still managed to forget several important items.  But at least this time we packed all the right meds.  Just in case we forgot something vital, we only went 88 miles the first day to an RV resort in Camp Verde.  If need be, we could run back to The Gulch to retrieve whatever was left behind.  Our dear friend Pat was off visiting kinfolk in tornado territory so we weren’t able to get together with her but John and Rose were at the same resort so we got to hang out with them for a few extra days.  We spent one fine (not so much) afternoon trying to play pickleball in a stiff cross wind.  A volley of two or three hits was considered “fine playing” inasmuch as the whiffle-type ball had no chance against the wind gusts.  Smacked as hard as possible, the ball would often go two feet and drop straight down.  If the point of the game was to see how often we could put the ball through the net rather than over it, we’d have all been big winners.  A large hole in the net helped enormously.  And after the rigorous game, we had Happy Hour and a delicious smothered chicken dinner prepared by Rose.

After Rose and John  headed off to the Rockies, we had a few more days to potter around in Clarkdale and Cottonwood, hitting some thrift and antique shops in search of whatever struck our fancy.  Not much did, although we did find a couple of eggcups.

Our next stop was Holbrook, Arizona located not far from the Petrified Forest.  Like so many towns along Route 66, Holbrook has dried up to some degree with the coming of the Interstate.  They do have a town museum located in the old courthouse building but both the courthouse and the contents of the museum are in need of renovation and restoration.  The best thing about it was that it is open from 8:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m. daily and there is no cover charge.  There were a number of interesting items on display but the history of the area never came alive for us until we had a long chat with the proprietor of an antique shop on Bucket of Blood Street.  The street was named for an infamous saloon that once graced the neighborhood, a place right out of a bad old Western movie with fistfights and gun battles and other sorts of mayhem.

Holbrook was once a stop-over hotspot for those traveling old Route 66 and many of the Mother Road’s icon roadside attractions are still visible.  One of the most famous is The Wigwam Motel, pictured here with it’s collection of vintage cars to “decorate” the parking lot.  The teepees have squinty little windows and it seems anyone with a tendency toward claustrophobia might have some difficulty relaxing here after a hard day’s drive.

Picking our way along I-40 in short hops, we next landed in Gallup so that I could hit one of my favorite bead shops and “stock up” on goodies.  We also did a slow crawl through Richardson’s emporium of fine Native American arts and crafts, mostly silver and turquoise jewelry.  Some bracelets and belts were made of slabs of turquoise, so large that it would take a very muscular person to wear them.  I’d been wanting a pair of turquoise earrings and so selected  plain (and lightweight) small drops.  During our stay in Gallup, we learned that the citizens thereof are known as Gallupians, a word right out of “Gulliver’s Travels”, don’t you think?

Our stop in Albuquerque was made specifically to shop at another of my favorite bead stores.  Only open one and a half days a week, we timed it so I’d have the half-day to shop there.  Maybe shoulda called first.  Instead of shelves of beads, we found a roomful of gaily decorated tables and some sort of Mexican festival underway.  Oops.  However, while in Albuquerque we took a day to drive north to Rio Rancho to visit the J&R Vintage Auto Museum.  This is an impressive collection, many of the restorations having been done by the J&R team on the premises.  Competing in the Great American Road Races seems to have been a family hobby for the owners and so many of the display cars were surrounded by trophies and other signs of Road Race success. 

 

 

 

 

 

Whoever expected that Albuquerque would be considered tornado country?  But, sure enough, as we were returning from Rio Rancho we began to hear NOAA warnings on the radio.  The sky had turned that sickly green-black that you never like to see and thunder rumbled in the distance.  Soon lightening started to sparkle and a big fat downpour hit just as we were approaching I-40 for the last leg of the trip back to the coach.  The rain let up just enough that we were able to get inside without getting too wet.  Plans to grill steaks outside were cancelled immediately and the scramble  began to find something else suitable for an evening meal.

Ordinarily when we visit Albuquerque we stay on the east side in Tijeras but this time, in order to be closer to the bead-store-that-isn’t-anymore, we stayed on the west side at a campground on a hill overlooking the entire city.  In addition to campsites, Enchanted Trails RV Park also offers rental units of vintage campers and vintage Hudson cars.  These are arranged around a little garden filled with lilac bushes which would be very pleasant at blossom time.  Campers range from tiny pull-behinds to a very long one that conjured images of Lucy and Desi cavorting beside it.

It’s such a pretty drive from Albuquerque, past Santa Fe and in to Las Vegas (not the one in Nevada, the one in New Mexico).  The highway runs along the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on their east flank.  Firs and pines dot the hillsides and recent rains have kept everything green and growing.  Little did we expect that the rain would continue.  Storms begin building up steam in the late afternoon and by dinner time we had several spectacular thunder ‘n lightning shows.  Because the views here are so enormous, we could see where the storm was and where it wasn’t.  It made for some interesting cloud and light patterns but nearby lightning kept us from going outside to try for photos.

Las Vegas is a fascinating little city.  Once a hub on the Santa Fe Trail and then again on the AT&SF Railroad, it boasts over 900 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.  Architectural styles run the gamut from Spanish-influenced adobes to Victorian to Gothic.  Many homes are, sadly, in disrepair and the town is not wealthy enough to do much more than stall the decay.  An Arizona entrepreneur has purchased both the Plaza Hotel on the town plaza (where else would you expect the Plaza to be?) and the La Castaneda Hotel near the railroad tracks.  The Plaza is open for business and has been getting rave reviews both for its hotel accommodations and its restaurant.  La Castaneda, on the other hand, is a work barely in progress but we expect in time that it will also be a dazzler.  It was once the gathering place for the first (and for subsequent) reunion of The Rough Riders.  Teddy Roosevelt stayed here when he rejoined his troops in 1899 for the reunion.  As you can see, this restoration is going to be A Very Big Project.

Until 1970 Las Vegas was two cities, separated by the Gallinas River.  The west side, with its Spanish influence, has streets which radiate from the Plaza.  The east side development was influenced by the Easterners who came to town along with the railroad and is laid out in a more traditional grid pattern.  The two different cultures explains the wide variety of architectural styles.  We visited the City Museum, housed in a WPA project building on Grand Avenue and got to see a very nice collection of items belonging to the Rough Riders and to Teddy Roosevelt himself.  The Carnegie Library, vaguely resembling Jefferson’s Monticello, is still in use as the city library.

We were very surprised to learn that Las Vegas has been the location of a number of movies dating back to the silents, through the iconic “Easy Rider”, up to today.  On a second visit to The Plaza we were detoured around to prevent our interfering with filming of an upcoming episode of the television serial “Longmire”.

 

Nobody in Las Vegas seems to be in much of a hurry anyhow, so it didn’t matter much that we all, including the actors, stood around waiting patiently for whatever came next.  Finally things cleared enough that we were able to get into position to nab a picture of this folk art carving of the Madonna.  And when the new season of “Longmire” begins, we’ll have to be sure to watch so we can learn how they manage to morph Las Vegas, New Mexico into Durant, Wyoming.

The tourist brochures we were given all mentioned Montezuma Castle and we wanted to get a good look at it but the GPS didn’t have a clue where it was.  Nor did it appear on any of the town maps we had.  It was originally built as a destination resort by the Santa Fe Railroad to take advantage of nearby hot springs.  Having gone through a number of incarnations since it closed as a hotel in 1903, it has recently been renovated and serves as the hub for the Armand Hammer United World College, the only United World College in the U.S.  Unfortunately it is closed to visitors except by appointment and so we weren’t able to get close enough to check it out thoroughly.  By the time we located it, in Montezuma not Las Vegas, the clouds had begun to gather for the daily afternoon thunderstorm and so we cut short our exploration and headed home to enjoy Mother Nature’s fireworks display out over The Meadows.

And so we wrapped up our visit to New Mexico, heading up the big hill over Raton Pass and into Colorado.  Our next report will be from Pueblo and points beyond.