Time to high-tail it for Albuquerque since the ONLY reservation I made in advance - was for the Balloon Fest in Albuquerque - so we need to be there by tonite. Pack up and get onto the road early (7-ish) and leave Sedona going *south* - to then get on the interstate and go north - and struggle a bit: Arizona has the good sense to set the speed limit at **75** MPH which is usually all well-and-good - but not when you're gaining **2500 feet** in elevation while trying to accelerate with a van packed with everything you need for 6 weeks. We played "bumper tag" with the other cars and over-the-road rigs as we got up to join I40 and head *East* to Albuquerque.
We put in a new "book on CD" and cruised along - planning to not stop until we got to the Painted Desert.
But.
A sign on I40 told us to tune our radio to a station - which told us that famous "Meteor Crater" was just ahead - and that we could also stop in Winslow. Uhhh... Crater sounds cool, but who cares about getting their picture with a woman in Winslow?
Anyway, we're being flexible here, so we get to the exit and drive about 5 miles down a road to the Meteor Crater.
But we get to the ticket booth. And see that it is $15 *EACH* - to look into a hole. Yeah. A very-impressive hole used by the astronauts to train for the Space mission. But $30 to look into a *hole*? Uhh... no. Thanks. Maybe we'll be sorry forever that we didn't take advantage of the opportunity - and if any of you can tell us that it is definitely worth the $30 - then it wouldn't be impossible for us to add it to our trip home in November. But we got back into "Monroe" and headed back to the I40 WITHOUT seeing the crater.
And it finally hit me. Winslow. Winslow *Arizona*. Getting your picture taken with a *girl* on a corner! Oh! OH! The Eagles hit song: "I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona - such a fine sight to see: There's a GIRL, my lord, in a flat-bed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me". OH!
Well, call me shallow (you probably already have), but I just had to stop and do that. So we got to the requisite exit and exited - and immediately found ourselves in what looked like "the bad part of town". But. No. ALL of Winslow, Arizona, looks that way. No, really. *Except* that they have put together a really-cute tribute to the song - on a corner in the middle of town. REALLY cool. Including a flat-bed Ford truck sitting there. So we hopped out and took pictures. Yeah. Really dumb, but it made me smile. We *did* take pictures of both of us, and it makes more sense to have *me* having a girl slowing down to take a look - but Kathy is cuter than I am, and her picture came out better, so that's the one you get to see:
Notice the reflection of the girl (my lord) in the flat-bed Ford - in the windows. They actually had painted the whole building behind to make the pictures come out, but they also have a real flat-bed Ford truck parked there. Nice effort on their part.
We followed the signs on thru Winslow - to I40 East again - and headed for the Painted Desert. Now, I'd seen "The Painted Desert" in Disney stuff since before I could remember and I had a beautiful, amazing mental picture. We got there. And. Well. We were really glad that our National Park Pass covered the $10 admission. It was really disappointing after all that we'd seen. Drab and lifeless. One other tourist told us that he had entered from the North entrance and had driven all the way thru the park, then got to the entrance and asked where the park was - and the ranger told him: that was it. That's pretty much how we felt. It was. OK. But not really worth bothering with. I *will* include one photo - because - with the polarizing filter, the photo came out better than real life:
Also, at this point, I40 pretty-much parallels the old "Route 66" and they had an old car set up there in the middle of the desert - to let you take photos and look at the still-existing phone lines which *used* to be beside Route 66 - but which now just runs off thru the Painted Desert. That was pretty cool. Sorry. This picture doesn't show the telephone lines:
So. Back onto I40 and put the "book on CD" back on - and power toward Albuquerque. Except that we needed gas, so we stopped about an hour short of Albuquerque and got gas - and noticed a little Chile place across the way - so we went there for dinner - instead of McDonald's as we had planned. It was a delightful little mom-and-pop restaurant that was on Route 66. We were quite happy with our chimichanga and burrito. WAY more memorable than McDonald's and we do recommend it:
Annnd on toward Albuquerque. We gained an hour again going from Arizona to New Mexico (going back onto Daylight Savings Time) - so after Leila lead us to the hotel - which was quite nice and was doing a good job of dealing with the crush of people for the Balloon Festival - we decided to head for the "Balloon Fiesta Grounds" to see the evening "Glowdeo" - where they tether the balloons, but light them up with the propane burners. We understand that it is quite a sight.
We *understand* that, because we never got to see it. It took us 2 hours of *sitting* on the interstate - to get the 5 miles to the Fiesta Balloon Grounds - and we finally just gave up and went back to the hotel because the show was over. We will never really know WHY traffic was so backed up. We went to the Balloon Fest again - for the next 2 days and never had *that* much trouble with traffic. But something was really messed up that evening, so we didn't get there.
But that's OK. We had a great day and were all prepped to head for Balloon Fiesta park at 5:45AM (ACK!) the next morning - to see the balloons go up.
Great day. And now we're at 3568 miles total. Get to bed so we have some chance of actually getting *up* in - well - can you call 5AM "morning"? :)
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