It took me forever to wake up today – in fact, I’m not sure I ever really woke up. Maybe my vanilla milkshake from the Route 66 Diner was spiked. Nah, think all the days of travel are just catching up with me. To be honest, I’m glad the trip is starting to wind down (if you can call another month winding down). I suppose that’s not really a bad thing. Hopefully by the time I get home, I’ll be ready to be there.
Once we were up (not necessarily awake, as stated above) we met Marion’s friend Mike and went to the Owl Café. Very quaint little place that is known for its Owl Burger, the original green chile cheeseburger. While I got eggs instead, since it was breakfast, I did try green chile for the first time. I liked it – it gives a good kick. But even that didn’t really wake me up.
While Mike would have loved to join us were we going to the Atomic Museum, I instead opted to take the Tramway to the top of Sandia Peak. We rode on the world’s longest passenger tramway. It takes 15 minutes to get to the top (no one fainted or threw up in our tram, although we were told it’s a somewhat regular occurrence), where the elevation is 10,378 feet. Pretty Cool. (It was also the first ski area in New Mexico.)
We wandered around, trying not to slip, trip or fall off any cliffs. We also tried to avoid rattlesnakes, but thought it would’ve been pretty cool to see a bear. No sightings of either. We also didn’t see any watermelons, although sandia in Spanish means watermelon. They named it that because at sunset, the rocks turn pink. Marion and I had a blast up there – in fact, she made all of my time in New Mexico fun. (Just wish Tina could’ve been there with us!)
I left Albuquerque a bit later than I planned (the fun of trying to find an internet connection and wait for photos to upload while on the road). I started to head toward Roswell when it occurred to me that I was going miles out of my way just to see alien signs and paraphernalia, not even real aliens. (I definitely would have driven out of my way for that.) So I put my friend Katy’s Austin address into Aidan: 12h 30m and nearly 900 miles. I decided I’d head there and just stop somewhere along the way when I got tired. I realized that I’d also be losing another hour going into Central Time – so the aliens were definitely out.
It just happened that the new route took me through one of the places I originally said I wanted to stop: Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. How cool would it be to put that as your return address on an envelope? I stopped briefly for gas, so I could say I was there and got back on the road.
What finally drew me to a full stop was a movie theater. I was tired and felt like zoning out and getting my mind off things, realized there was a movie theater in El Paso, Texas, so stopped. Unfortunately none of the movies I wanted to see would be starting for more than an hour, so I just got popcorn (afraid it was dinner again) and went to find a place to bed down for the night. Hopefully I can get an early start tomorrow because it’s going to be a long – hopefully good – day…
Amy's America 