Route 66

Our destination today was Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We woke up in our Best Western in Grand Canyon Village and got on the road.  This was the most expensive hotel room of the trip and we spend the least amount of time there and had fewer amenities than any other hotel.  Location, location, location I guess.  It did look fancy in the lobby area, though, and it was the biggest room.  Morgan was very impressed, but her hotel experience is pretty limited.

Breakfast was not provided at the hotel so we headed south to Flagstaff.  An hour and a half later we arrived at our first stop on our Route 66 tour for the day - the Galaxy Diner.

When you enter a really cool 50's diner, you should of course run right to the dirty fish tank and look at ordinary goldfish.  Our kids have their priorities right.

It was a really cool diner on Route 66 and the food was good too.  Caleb enjoyed a pancake shaped like a bear.

We continued on Route 66 toward Albuquerque.  Route 66 is no longer an actual road, but many parts of it have been preserved and we tried to follow it as best we could.  At one point, we exited to follow the old 66 for a little ways, but found it to be a dirt road.  We got back on the interstate. 

Our next stop was supposed to the Barringer Meteor Crater but when we discovered it would cost $45 for our family to stop and look at this big hole in the ground, we decided to save our time and money.  When we told the kids how much it cost and that we thought it wasn't worth it, Morgan's response was "That's more than the Grand Canyon!".  Good point. 

The next Route 66 attraction was the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, AZ.  It was pretty cool.  Each room is it's own tipi shaped building and there are lots of classic cars parked outside of them.  We walked around and took a few pictures and got back on the road.

We noticed a few other old Route 66 hotels in town as well.

We had a long way to go today so we mostly stayed on the Interstate the rest of the day.  We stopped at the Arizona welcome center rest stop for lunch.  Not very welcoming if you ask me.

The picnic tables were nice, though, and had a view of the Painted Cliffs.

The Arizona welcome sign was right there so we took a picture.  We have spent more time in Arizona on this trip than any other state.

A note on Arizona road signs.  I like the signs here.  On their city limits signs, instead of listing the population, they show the year the town was founded and its elevation.  I thought that was pretty cool and I guess they save money by not printing new signs every 10 years.  They also have signs discouraging drunk driving that show a picture of a person who died in a drunk driving accident with their name.  I thought this was a good approach. 

Good bye, Arizona!

And hello, New Mexico!

We were driving through New Mexico and started noticing black rock everywhere.  We thought it looked like lava, but that couldn't be right.  Turns out it is.  The last lava flow in this area was 1,000 years ago.  You can see the lava rock just beyond the road.

The sky was gorgeous.  This was probably our most boring day of the trip, but we did have beautiful weather.

We arrived in Albuquerque and went swimming at the hotel.  Then we headed to dinner at Twisters.  This is the site of Gus's restaurant, Los Pollos Hermanos, from Breaking Bad. 

Rodney wondered if it might be crowded because of its Breaking Bad fame and said we could just take a picture and leave if the line was long.  This was not a problem.  We were literally the only people there.

They are no dummies here and have capitalized on their TV stardom.  They are even selling posters.

We ate at Walter White's table.  Gus never showed.