Tag: New Mexico

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New Mexico to Arizona

It was still raining lightly when we left Tucumcari.

We stopped in Albuquerque for lunch (charger was in an Applebee's parking lot) and discussed our plan for the day. Originally I'd planned on stopping in Holbrook, which is a small town just across the border to Arizona that has a charger. The problem was it is basically just a truck stop, there were no AirBnbs there and we'd have to stay in a motel. So we decided to push a bit harder and continue an extra 95 miles to Flagstaff, Arizona where we could get a hotel room with a kitchenette.

We crossed the rest of New Mexico without incident. I kept thinking we'd get past the edge of the storm clouds, but we never did, in fact it seemed to get more threatening, although other than a few scattered drops it didn't rain after the morning.

We crossed over the border to Arizona and soon came to one of the places I've been looking forward to the entire trip: the Petrified Forest National Park.

Unfortunately the overcast sky muted the colors

We saw a few other people, but for the most part it was like we had the park to ourselves. Awesome giant desert vistas dotted with mesas.

Blue Mesa
Blue Mesa

Other than the mesas there is a petrified forest, which was really cool. It is from 230 million years ago, the trees fell over and were buried by sand and mud from a river, therefore they didn't rot. Over the millennia silica penetrated the wood and eventually they became solid quartz. Then the river washed away the mud and exposed the rock trees.

After the park, we arrived at Holbrook and charged up before continuing to Flagstaff. Normally we've avoided driving at night because it's more stressful and you can't see any scenery, but this time we did, and we were lucky because we drove right into a great sunset as the clouds finally started to break.

-David

 

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Route 66

At our stay on the farm near Shreveport we got up to a home-cooked southern breakfast with bacon, eggs, sausage and grits. Then we got a tour of the farm by the host's grandson, who is a sophomore in college and is planning on taking over the farm. Very interesting stuff, they try to do everything sustainably. They have cattle, pigs and chickens.

After that we left the farm and headed toward Dallas to meet Yanmei's friend Gao Jie. Gao Jie normally lives in San Jose, so we sometimes do stuff together with her and her husband, but she is when riding on her PhD in Texas. She is in her last two weeks before her thesis is due, so she's in panic mode. However she took a break to have dinner with Yanmei and me. I forgot to take a picture. Anyway we stayed the night at an AirBnb in Denton, Texas.

The next day we got a pretty early start and headed north to Oklahoma City where we could get on historic Route 66 for most of the rest of our trip. Yanmei took a turn driving.

David: “Slow down.”

Yanmei: “No, I'm trying to make up time.”

David: “Okay, you're the driver, it's your responsibility if we get a ticket.”

Sure enough, about 15 minutes later we had flashing lights behind us and we were pulled over. Luckily, he let us off with a warning. I think he might have wanted to check out the Tesla.

We decided to go to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage museum while we were in Oklahoma City. It wasn't that great unfortunately, so we headed west along Route 66.

We passed through Amarillo in the Texas panhandle and finished the day in Tucumcari, New Mexico after going through a big thunderstorm.

-David