Thursday 28 June 2012

Cadillac Ranch but no cowboys

Amarillo, Tx to Santa Fe, NM - 287 miles
Amarillo is a busy transient place and never seems to sleep - started hearing the cattle trucks roaring past very early in the morning before it got light. Another hour and I was up and ready to go by 6. Even at that time it was sunny, fresh but already almost hitting the 70's! Time to leave!
Texas is and I'll say it again - enormous! The only place I could relate it to is the Masai Mara - Texas literally goes on as far as the eye can see and for the most part looks dry and barren - missed diverting by 70 miles to visit Hereford as the locals said it would be sparse and barren and have lots of cattle mmmm I'll pretend I've been.
One of the highlights of the day was finding the famous Cadillac Ranch just outside Amarillo - a farmer has basically stood 10 vintage Cadillacs next to each other in a line in the middle of a field; the world and his mother then comes and paints them with whatever designs etc. this morning I arrived around 7 so no one there which made the place even more surreal. I actually passed them initially on the other side of the road and thought it too good to miss so turned the bike back to stop and gawp ...

Again the massive trucks were coming down on me and have now got overtaking them down to a fine art - make sure they've got nothing to overtake as they love doing that, accelerate to about 80 mph and just get past them as quick as possible avoiding being shuddered too much - phew I'm exhausted just thinking about it!
Amazing but soon entering into New Mexico the atmosphere seemed to change for the better - I even managed to get back onto the old Route 66 for a short while. The drive up to Santa Fe was a slow climb up to 7000ft and already bright blue skies with those famous white clouds.
I'm certainly not a nun but am staying at the lovely St Francis an old Monastry in the old part of town.
Santa Fe is beautiful and an extremely important place for beautiful art and artists - art galleries everywhere and definitely a lotta money floating around here.
Great food here too - tried the famous La Boca - delicious www.labocasf.com

The light is so intense that everything looks a million dollars!

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