Day 10: Española to Albuqeuque

We're up at 5 am tomorrow so here goes the quickest blog ever.  GO.

The breakfast area offered some Free Gospel Tracts but I decided on just some toast, coffee and orange juice instead.  We jumped in the car pointing it roughly in the direction of Albuquerque.  Goodbye hotel - we'll not be back.

We pulled over when we saw a sign for 'Camel Rock Road'.  I can't remember exactly why it was called that.

We chalked up our thousandth mile of the trip and pulled over to take a photo to commemorate the occasion.  I'd like to say it was soemthing worthy of the occassion but it was just a road.

Seeing that we were close (by American distances) to Cline's Corner we decided to pop over because; (a) that's where I bought last year's "Stupid Holiday Hat" (and I was still without one a week into the trip, (b) we could pick up good old Route 66 from there and take some of it on to Albuquerque.  They didn't have a hat.  The bastards.

Whilst on Route 66 we passed through Moriarty and the Ria RV Park.  We half remembered seeing it last time, but today it was in total disrepair.  Of course we had a poke around.  It really makes you wonder how a business to turn into an overgrown mess so quickly.

Onwards, ever onwards.  The memorial of perpetual tears.  Cheery, right?

“NM National DWI Victims Memorial is a mock federal cemetery where hundreds of white tombstones represent the most recent 5 years of state DWI fatalities. Travelers can stop at the Visitors’ Center and walk around the Memorial.”

— www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/31388

Look - a sign telling you about petroglyphs,  You're thinking we saw some petroglyphs, right?  Sure, I'd think that too.  We didn't.  They weren't anywhere near the sign.  If it was me I think I'd move the sign.

The only actual task for the day (bar finding a hotel) was to check out the location for a photo we're taking on Thursday.  It's at a location used in the show Breaking Bad.  We needed some lat/long coordinates to locate it, but we did.  We are champions.

Job done we found a hotel about forty minutes away and we'll go back and take another look in better light at 7:15am tomorrow.

Day 6: Monticello & Rocks

A long lie in and since we have a washing machine and dryer we put some clothes through.  The Mormon Temple looked quite pleasing in the early (ish) morning light.

Lunch was at the Peace Tree Juice Cafe.  Jane bought a bracelet.  I didn't.  I do still need to find a stupid holiday hat though and time is ticking.

Back home for more loafing about and then out to see some rocks with names.  First, just off  U.S. Route 191 is Church Rock.  If you remember the Home of Truth cult and the items we saw belonging to its founder Marie Ogden.  Well, Marie Ogden thought the Church Rock was the centre of the spiritual universe. 

From the Church Rock we drove to the Newspaper Rock (another day - another rock).  On the way we drove past some of the remains of the Home of Truth.  You can't roam around as it's on private property but you can see some from the road.

Newspaper Rock is 200-square-foot and contains many petroglyphs showing human, animal, material and abstract forms.   The petroglyphs were made around 2,000 years ago, left by people from the Archaic, Anasazi, Fremont, Navajo, Anglo, and Pueblo cultures.  In Navajo the rock is called "Tse' Hone'" which translates to a rock that tells a story.

Day 3: Moab, Yellowcat, Cisco, Sego Canyon

Asleep by 10 pm last night and not awake until 8:30 am.  Lovely.  A breakfast of way too many sausages and then into the car towards a ghost town.  Often when driving we see a promising road and decide to 'hang right' so after only twenty minutes we came off the main road and drove down a dusty path to a campsite with some nice views of the mountains.  Jane then realised that (a) the battery light on her camera was flashing, (b) her spare battery was back at the hotel so we popped back to grab it.

Battery installed we were back on the road again heading to a ghost town in CIsco.  Again, we saw a sign for Yellowcat.  Sounded like it was worth a visit so we hung a right and drove and drove and drove down another dusty road.  We saw what was probably a meercat but really it was just a very long empty, gravelly road which lead ever closer to mountains that you figured you'd never reach.  We turned back.

Cisco was all you want from a ghost town.  Empty, Interesting buildings.  Nice and out of the way.  The town has been seen in films; Thelma and Louise,  Vanishing Point (1971) and  Don't Come Knocking.  Johnny Cash wrote the song; "Cisco Clifton's Fillin Station." (the photo below)

From the Ghost Town we were just about thirty minutes from Sego Canyon which we knew had some petroglyphs, but we'd heard can be hard to find.  Pffff.  We found them easily.

"Native Americans painted and chipped their religious visions, clan symbols, and records of events onto the cliffs. There are three distinct styles present which represent three separate cultures and time periods. These cultures are known to have been in the area during the past several thousand years."