Along the Way with J & J

Day 9 – The Santa Fe Trail

By jayjazz · Comments (0)

Saturday, May 10th, 2014

It was a nice change last night to stay in an RV park instead of a Walmart parking lot or a truck stop! We were able to settle in a little early and get laundry done, clean the “house” and take a little walk to snap some pictures. Stepping into the park office was like stepping back in time. There were a bunch of magazines from the mid-1960s that you could browse through while listening to the wobbly ceiling fan keeping its own rhythm.

We got going just after 10AM, stopping at the Santa Rosa travel center for a bit then returning to 66 on a pre-1937 route up to Las Vegas, NM. There was supposed to be an older hotel but when we got there the building had been changed and converted into an inter-modal station on the rail line with a little visitor’s center.

Leaving Las Vegas, we jumped on the Santa Fe Trail/Old 66 and skipped a couple small towns on our way to Santa Fe. We were aiming for the Miraculous Staircase, which was supposedly built by a “mysterious carpenter” back in 1870 inside the Loretto Chapel. He showed up with tools and a donkey built the staircase and then disappeared without pay or thanks.

Our adventure in Santa Fe was unique. After maneuvering the narrow one-way streets to find some place to park we ended up taking up two metered spots from where we wanted to be. Downtown Santa Fe had lots of great shops and vendors. The vendors set up on the common were all America Indians selling their crafts. All of the items were handmade and beautiful. One of the vendors we spoke to said that in order to get a permit to sell at that spot you had to be both the artist, Native American and your products had to be 110% hand made. Awesome!

Returning to Lady T, we had a classic J&J moment. Getting into our parking spot was tricky, as there was a tree with low hanging branches and Jasmine guided me in so we didn’t catch anything on the roof. Upon leaving, Jazz was paying attention to the branches and didn’t notice we were a little too close to a parking meter. Ouch!! We didn’t like the bumper cover anyway.

Luckily, the cover is still on and was already previously damaged. We pulled into a parking lot across from a Whole Foods so Jazz could get some food and we could tape up the bumper. While doing so, we ran into a nice older couple from California who travel in their RV to teach acupuncture all over the country. Dan, the gentlemen, spent a few moments looking at our atlas and recommended several nice spots along the Cali coast to visit.

On our way to Albuquerque, we stopped at a couple of small towns for photos and just enjoyed the scenic sunset over the New Mexico buttes, mesas and plateaus. Very beautiful lands out here… everything is either red dirt or brown with some green. There was also a pretty purple plant that we couldn’t identify and it was the only other color out there.

We finally crossed the Rio Grande and arrived in Albuquerque where we saw some cool neon signs on a part of the 18 mile Route 66 strip. Found ourselves a Flying J truck/RV stop just on the outskirts of the city and will be spending the night here overlooking the city lights below.

Tomorrow we should finish up New Mexico and get into Arizona. We have driven 2790 miles since we left home a week ago and Lady T is being worked hard so it’s almost time for an oil change. We plan to visit a Camping World in the next couple of days to have her looked at.

~J&J

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Categories : #RoadTrip2014, Route 66

Tags : New Mexico, Road Trip, Route 66, RV Travel, RVing

Day 8 – TUCUMCARI TONIGHT!

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Friday, May 9th, 2014

This morning, we were too low on gas to run the generator so we headed out to find the nearest gas station. We had to backtrack about 12 miles and luckily found the Alanreed Travel Center. This is a popular spot on 66 that offers many amenities to the road traveler, including a mini post office as well as humorous homemade postcards. We selected a few of these while listening to some Western Swing and dropped them in the mailbox.

Groom Texas is home to the Leaning Water Tower, which appears to be leaning due to a short leg but is actually supported by a water pipe that is longer than the other four proportionate appendages. Groom is also the home to a few cool old abandoned properties and the largest cross in the western hemisphere, standing at 190 feet tall.

The most popular and probably the largest attraction in Amarillo is the Cadillac Ranch. Cadillac Ranch is a spot off in a field that has about 8 or so Cadillac’s buried in the ground front end first. When visiting the ranch, it’s a tradition to spray paint something on the cars. We spent almost an hours making our mark and taking pics. We are sure that everything we put on them today will be gone in a couple days but it was tons of fun!

We were attempting to take the old Route 66 from Amarillo but as we moved down the road, we noticed that it changed from pavement to dirt. This dirt on the map appeared to go on for some miles so we decided to use the highway and skip a few small towns between Amarillo and Adrian.

The MidPoint Café in Adrian, TX is officially half way between Chicago and Santa Monica so we definitely had to stop in. Took some pictures and I had a nice piece of Peanut Butter Chocolate cream “dirty pie”, for which the café is famous. I am not sure why they call them dirty pies but it tasted yummy and I even let Jasmine smell it (in case you don’t know, she’s vegan). The Midpoint Café is yet another real-life inspiration for the Cars movie.

Crossing into the Mountain Time zone and the state of New Mexico simultaneously, we decided to pop into the Glenrio Welcome Center in San Jon, NM. We picked up some cool maps and even saw an alien!!

Our first and last stop in New Mexico for the day was Tucumcari. There was a ton of good looking old time motel signs and photo opportunities. We visited the famous Blue Swallow Motel and the Tee Pee Curios shop to have a look around and pick up a couple gifts.

Our decision to stay the night in Tucumcari was an easy one to make but deciding on which RV Park was a tougher choice. There seems to be a serious rivalry between two of the RV parks we were looking at and we definitely got a chuckle out of reading their literature. We decided on the Kiva RV Park and we are happy with our choice. It was pretty cheap at only $20 with full hookups. We are currently enjoying a little downtime after cleaning house a bit and doing some laundry.

Tomorrow we plan to get through as much of New Mexico as possible to hit Arizona so don’t forget to like us on Facebook and subscribe to the Blog for email updates.

~J&J

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Categories : #RoadTrip2014, Route 66

Tags : New Mexico, Road Trip, Route 66, RV Travel, Texas

Day 7 – Amarillo by Morning

By jayjazz · Comments (0)

Friday, May 9th, 2014

Leaving the Super Walmart in OKC, we set out to see the historic Milk Bottle building, which sits on a triangle shaped island in downtown OKC. The building and the bottle have been there for a long time and it’s a must-see Route 66 attraction.

After some deliberation, we decided to backtrack towards Arcadia to visit the famous Round Barn, which we passed on the way into the city the day before. At the barn, we visited with Butch “The Gift Shop Guy”, who has been working in the gift shop for over 20 years. He was very proud to mention that he has been in three movies, two books and has his picture on a tour map. Butch had a lot of his own drawings available for purchase and mentioned that all the profits help preserve the Round Barn. We ended up with a couple of postcards featuring Butch that he was kind enough to sign for us!

Getting back on track, we stopped in Clinton, OK for a tour of the Route 66 Museum. There was a ton of historical information and memorabilia about 66 on display and they had an awesome gift shop. Took some good photos and mailed a few postcards so some of you should keep an eye on your mailbox. :o)

Speaking of museums, we also stopped at the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City, OK. It was closed but we could not pass up the photo-op. Got a nice picture of Lady T under a giant Route 66 sign.

Next stop Texas!! Driving through Elk City, OK was just an amazing. The area was very desolate and we pretty much had it all to ourselves. So picturesque we could not help but slow down and soak it all in. Besides the major attractions, what draw’s people to Route 66 is driving on these old roads and seeing this wide open space the way it was and still continues to be.

We’ll see you in The Lone Star State! Don’t forget to follow us on FB and subscribe to the Blog.

~J&J

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Categories : #RoadTrip2014, Route 66

Tags : Oklahoma, Road Trip, Route 66, RV Travel, Texas

Day 6 – Along the Way to OKC

By jayjazz · Comments (0)

Wednesday, May 7th, 2014

Since Oklahoma is the largest section of Route 66 we decided that Oklahoma City would be our halfway point. Along the way to OKC, we found several popular spots and many cool signs and towns.

Our first stop was Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park just outside of Foyil. There stands the world’s largest totem pole at 90 feet tall. Alongside that were some smaller totem poles and a picnic area. The main totem was made in 1948.

After Totem Pole Park, we visited the famous blue Catoosa whale in Catoosa, OK. The whale was constructed in the early 70’s by Mr. Hugh Davis and took 2,920 hours of labor to complete. It’s a nice place for a picnic and a dip on a hot summer day.

Heading into Tulsa there were plenty of old signs and sights to see. We didn’t have time to visit Tulsa’s many museums so we decided to stay on the road and take in the sights. If we saw something of interest we made sure to stop and take lots of pictures.

Once we made it through Tulsa, we entered Sapulpa, a small town where they have recreated old-time advertisements and painted them on the buildings. They were pretty cool and looked great. There was an older Route 66 alignment that we were going to take leading us over the Rock Creek brick iron truss bridge but as we approached, we could see a lot of debris in front. We did get to see the bridge from the new alignment.

From Sapulpa, we passed through several more small towns and came upon the Rock Café. The Rock Café was built in Stroud, OK from stones that were unearthed during the construction of Route 66. In 2008, the café burned down but with a lot of effort they were reopened a year later and have even added a small gift shop next door. Also, the owner of the café, Dawn Welch, was the inspiration for Sally the Porsche in the movie Cars! We decided to stay for a few and have some sweet tea and root beer to wash down our fried pickles :o)

Heading closer to Oklahoma City is a town called Arcadia. There we passed by the Round Barn and just up the road from that is POPS. POPS is a relatively new 66 attraction built in 2007 and features just about every kind of soda you can imagine (except Ruby Red Squirt L) from Jolt to Peanut Butter As you enjoy your pop, you can admire the 66-foot tall neon lighted bottle in the front. Of course, we stopped in here and picked up a couple bottles for the road.

When we arrived in Oklahoma City, we decided to find a place to stay for the night and came upon a 24 hour Walmart that already had a couple RVs parked in the outer lot. We saw a security officer driving around and I jumped out to make sure we could park. We got the green light so we parked Lady T next to the convoy.

We plan to explore Oklahoma City in the morning and will hopefully be in Texas by the end of today. Lonestar State here we come!

We are very grateful for the sports shot mode on my new Nikon camera that allows us to take a lot of pictures while driving the two lane roads at 65MPH. We took almost 700 pictures but after reviewing and editing we will probably end up with 100 good ones.

Have a look! Don’t forget to follow us on FB and subscribe to the Blog for email updates.

~J&J

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Categories : #RoadTrip2014, Route 66

Tags : Oklahoma, Road Trip, Route 66, RV Travel

Special Post – A Visit to the Past

By jayjazz · Comments (0)

Tuesday, May 6th, 2014

Along Route 66, in a small town called Paris Springs, there is what appears to be just another small old time gas station. A historic Route 66 sign reads “Gay Parita” and it certainly appears worth a stop to take a few pictures.

We did exactly that yesterday afternoon and by the time we left, we came away with much more than pictures. Lena “Mom” Turner came out to greet us and we sat for a while in the shade, Enjoying the beautiful Ozark breeze, Mom and I talked about a whole bunch of things, from Route 66 tours to her children, and I realized that there was nowhere else I would rather be at that moment. This is what America has lost as time keeps moving forward. This is what travelers from all over the world come to find on the Mother Road.

Eventually, Gary Turner came out for a talk and then he and Jay disappeared in the office for a while. He autographed a wonderful photo of the station for us and offered some tips on where to visit next (see his hand drawn map below!). We spent just over an hour with these wonderful people and when it was time to leave, I felt happy. If we were to find nothing else of interest on America’s Main Street, it would be fine by me. Our visit to the Gay Parita will be one of the thousands this year but to us, it was a once in a lifetime experience.

Thank you, Gary & Mom, for the wonderful memory!

~J&J