Only an hour to drive today. The hotel was book for Gallup, a town on the border.
The first town we found on the drive was Bluewater (population 600 or so). We passed a pottery trading post so popped in. I bought a little Story Teller clay figure. The owner said a woman called Ajo from the local Navajo tribe comes by when she needs firewood, grabs some earth from outside and makes these figures which she then trades for what she needs. Hopefully it's a true story. Ajo collects yellow flows because they help with acid and that, she thinks, causes cancer. She also speaks of a GIANT snake, and a hole in the local mountain which leads to the centre of the Earth.
We listened to a local Native American radio station. You'd think that Indian was a derogatory term, but not so much. Was pleased to hear their church service was "an animal blessing followed by karaoke." Two cultures collide.
We ate some sandwiches in a town called Thoreau by the Navajo Outreach Centre and watched the huge trains roll on past.
Passing through more towns with populations in double figures we saw a sign to 'Red Rock' which looked cool so we drove round for photographs. Jane got chatting to a guy called Ken who owned the horse she was patting. He was going to vote for Trump simply because he couldn't bring himself to vote for Hillary. I don't get it. He warned us that the town we were staying in was the Murder Capital of New Mexico so we decided we'd get pizza delivered to the room. Turns out that though it's not a dry state, the local Native Americans can't bring alcohol home they get crazily drunk in the evenings.
A mile from our turning a lorry jack-knifed and blocked all three lanes. We waited about 45 minutes for it to get cleared.
Finally in the hotel, pizza ordered.