Looking at Texas From New Mexico. Glenrio's Seen Better Days |
Back Before the Interstate, You Might Have Stopped Here Before Crossing into New Mexico |
San Jon Gas Station's been Long Closed Based on the Size of the Tree |
Anyway, in New Mexico as you head west is the little town of
San Jon. As you can see, some of these places have been declining for many
years. The tree at the gas station was growing out of where they used to have a
gas pump mounted. San Jon has held on better than Glenrio, with 300 souls remaining after the freeway bypassed it.
Tucumcari's Got Lots of "Still Open" Route 66 Architecture |
Further west is “Greater Tucumcari.” Tucumcari was and still
is one of the larger towns in eastern New Mexico. It was a rail stop, still is a county seat, and there are
lots of “Route 66” sights. Still, the city has visibly declined in the last
decade. When we moved to Texas, we stayed at the “Payless Inn.” It was not
too wonderful a place, but “Tripadvisor” and “Yelp” and various other sites
were not available on the road in those days before smart phones. As
you can see, the motel never fulfilled its promise to reinvent itself as the
Taaj, and it recently burned to the ground. What’s more, we saw two other buildings in Tucumcari that also burned down.
Motel We Stayed at on the Outskirts of Tucumari - It was Bad Then, but Worse Now |
We also stopped in Las Vegas. Nope, we weren’t hoping to
visit some “History Channel” reality show, but Las Vegas is an underrated place
that has a much nicer central plaza than “Sundance Square” in Fort Worth. It has real history, as a(probably of several) place where Kearney proclaimed that New Mexico would henceforth be part of the USA. There used to be a water tower in the plaza where three outlaws were hanged/shot by vigilantes, but I didn't see it, so it is probably gone. It is
a mostly well preserved and enjoyable piece of the “old west.” Las Vegas is
fairly poor, based on the number of pawn shops and a continuing slow decline in population. For those that aren't really excited about seeing where outlaws got hanged, Las Vegas is also the locale where the motorcyclists met Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider, and it was INVADED in the original Red Dawn movie (I guess New Mexico looks more like Colorado than Colorado)!
Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas - Across the Street from the Plaza |
Well Maintained Las Vegas Main Drag - with Someone Going Through a Trash Can - Probably NOT a Former Dodge City Gang Member |
The “Star” of New Mexico for tourism (at least in summer when there's no skiing at Taos) is
Santa Fe. Santa Fe is the capitol of New Mexico and has about twice the
population of Olympia in Washington State. For those that are not familiar with
its history, it was well established when the Dutch first stepped foot
on Manhattan Island and when the Pilgrims came to New England. I found the St Francis railroad crossings to be VERY interesting and worse than Khal portrayed them on his blog. The first time I encountered the distance between the “place
to stop” and the actual intersection, we were confused and had a discussion
about whether we were properly stopped or if there might be another place to
stop that we hadn’t been informed about. Railroad crossings at shallow angles are rare enough
that I can’t say I’m totally surprised that people on bikes get whacked or
trapped. I imagine motorist collisions are not rare either.
Some Crossings Aren't Good for ANY Road (or Trail Users) - Images from Google Maps |
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe - it is NOT near St Francis Drive! |
We Stayed in a Very Nice Old Motel that Starred in a 1989 Documentary that Still Draws German Tourists |
Motoring along further we went through the “four corners”
area, saw the majesty of Shiprock (and the little town named same, and enjoyed the beauty of southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado.
Shiprock in Northwestern New Mexico |
Out of New Mexico and into Utah |
3 comments:
Great pictures and travelogue, Steve. Sorry you did not stop in Bombtown.
Also, here is my detailed discussion of the St. Francis/Cerrillos intersection. For some reason, I put it on my other blog. Probably because it didn't have to do with Los Alamos.
http://northmesamutts.blogspot.com/2010/11/cerrillos-and-st-francis.html
nice road trip!
groovy, man, groovy.
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