Welcome back avid readers. So, you left us having reached our stop over at Amarillo. Nothing to report there, but when we left in the morning we visited the Cadillac Ranch. This was installed in the 1970s, on route 66. It is a series of Cadillacs buried nose first in the ground that people can spray paint. No we don’t know why, but it is famous! We then stopped at the exact mid point on route 66 (which runs Chicago to LA) and for the first time had homemade pie and coffee in a roadside diner 🥧 (as Americans apparently do all the time).

As we drove on into New Mexico we climbed in altitude, up onto the high desert/plateau. The temperature dropped to something far more reasonable. and we also saw a couple of huge thunderstorms, either side of us. Despite this we still managed to stop off at another state park to stretch our legs. As we drove to said state park the roads became somewhat quiet. Clearly not a tourist area! Gem’s comment can be summarised as “we are going to be murdered and nobody will know” 😄. This was somewhat backed up by a permanent road sign we had seen earlier which said “Hitchhikers might be escaping inmates” 🤔.

Having not picked up any hitchhikers and remained alive we arrived at Albuquerque. A city with a significant Spanish colonial influence. We went out for the evening and semi-accidentally found a brewing company bar that had a very arty and chilled out vibe. They clearly all knew each other, and yet again not a tourist place 🙂👍. They had live music on so we stayed and enjoyed with them.

The next morning we had a truly fab breakfast of Avocado on toast, Alburqueue style, at a local coffee place, and then headed up to Scandia Peak. This is accessed via a cable car that takes you up to 10,000ft and into beautiful Alpine style forests. Having survived the ascent we set off on what should have been a 6.5-7km trek but, due to poor signage, closed trails and complete incompetence, we trekked 11.5km! Whoops. It was truly beautiful though.

After we descended we visited the old town, which was a tourist trap (even the 18th century Spanish church was entered via the gift shop!!!!!!). So, we abandoned that and moved on. Another lovely evening was had. On our final morning we visited another state park which has Petroglyphs from between 700-3000 years old, and then headed on towards Colorado. On the way we stopped at four corners monument. This is little more than a plaque in the ground, but it is a single point where, due to historic state planning, four states meet. You can stand in them all at the same time, so we did 🙂. Gem also continued to live her best life by breaking her “big train” record 🚂. This time it was 230 cars including 6 engines….choo choo!

After Gem recovered we continued to our Airbnb, which is a 5th wheel (large American Caravan) pitched in a small town on the Colorado grass lands. There is very little noise or light pollution so we watched a beautiful sunset and the stars that followed. Big skies! Tomorrow we are off the explore some ancient culture nearby, and then more sunsets and stars.