In yesterday's post, we forgot to mention the striking Spotted Towhee we saw in Los Alamos on our walking tour. Those we saw didn't cooperate for a photo so we found this from Audubon's website.
Our final breakfast at the hotel was busy right at 7am when they opened. People were ready for the day in their ski pants. Where do they ski? We couldn't see too much snow up in the mountains from our highway views. We googled and Ski Santa Fe Resort is just 16 miles away with 88 runs at elevations over 10k feet. The base is currently 36" with 92% of the mountain open.
At checkout, the man at the desk said
our room #5 was part of the building built in 1897. He thought it was scary before they added more
lights, "too many spirits in there!" Michele said that no spirits bothered us during our stay so all was well.
We departed at 7:45am, taking I-25 north, then US 285 South
towards I-40 East. It was just 30 degrees on our departure with frost on the car.
Rob spotted a coyote trotting across the road with a bit of a gimp in its step. It scampered expertly between the cattle fencing on the other side. Too quick for Michele to catch a picture.
Descending to 6800 feet, the landscape changed from woodland to grassland and arid cow
ranches.
We stopped at about 8:45 am
at Clines Corners for a rest stop, which is at the intersection of US 285 and I-40 to begin our trek
east on I-40. Michele took a break while Rob fueled up the car. After Rob's break inside, he came back to the car and said, "You
didn’t tell me about the Zoltar machines! They had Zoltar, Alien, Medicine Man, and
a green Alien Zoltar with the goatee and hat." He joked about not bringing his phone to take photos or coins to make his wish to be BIG like Tom Hanks.
We left New Mexico's mesas and buttes behind and crossed into the Texas panhandle at
11:05am MST changing to 12:05 Central Time.
A convoy of three large windmill blades were being transported with multiple support trucks for each. Depending on the size the blades can weigh 16 tons and can be 165-350 feet in length!
Around Adrian, Texas there were windmills as
far as eye could see.
We googled and it's the
Spinning Spur Wind Ranch, a 516-megawatt wind farm in the northwest panhandle of
Texas. It went operational between 2012 and 2015.
At 12:30 we attempted to lunch in Vega, TX but
the place was closed despite all signs saying otherwise. We should have known, as the
exit into Vega was “an afterthought” according to Rob. They put a diagonal road that
made a Y onto a frontage road. There was no yield area and the road surface was gravelly. Rob also had to evade a tumbleweed. We gave up on the small town and decided to try our luck in Amarillo about 30 miles further east.
For future information, there are smelly feed lots (the only kind) from Vega to
Amarillo. Michele put on her COVID mask to block the smell that permeated the car despite being on the recycle setting (PEEW!).
In Amarillo,
where it smelled better, we arrived at The Bagel Place at 1:20pm local time for lunch. We didn't need our coats since it was already 50 degrees and sunny. After a yummy lunch, we were back on I-40 East at 2pm. The landscape became very flat and agricultural.
To entertain ourselves, we talked about how much we saw
on this trip. The pleasantly unexpected: Oklahoma City Cowboy Museum, Petrified Forest, Palm Springs Air Museum, White Sands Missile Range Museum, and Bandelier. And, the more-than-we-expected places: Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Los Alamos. Plus, our fun evening with Rob's Uncle Ron and Aunt Shirl.
Since the wind was on our tail, Rob got excellent gas mileage and we arrived 3:20pm at our hotel in
Shamrock, TX. The mileage today was 375 miles. We started at 7,000 feet in elevation and dropped to 2,333. Santa Fe's elevation is dramatically higher than Denver at 5,280, but nobody complains about altitude effects the way they do in Denver.
We went to dinner at Grif's Steakhouse just a few blocks away and shared a chicken dinner, vegetables and mashed potatoes. After, we stopped by the historic Conoco Tower Station & U-Drop Inn Cafe on Historic Route 66. It is a circa 1936 former gas station that is now a gift shop and museum that was depicted in the animated movie Cars.
Tomorrow we cross east through Oklahoma and halfway into Arkansas to visit with Michele's former piano teacher for dinner. Michele is hoping for a bit more humidity in the weather starting tomorrow, as her hands feel like 200-grit sandpaper from weeks of desert climate.
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