End of the road......

Wednesday evening we returned to “Second Street Brewery” and saw the “Amtrak Flyer” pass by (in ‘Roadrunner’ livery!) whilst enjoying the best fish & chips of the whole trip....the IPA was good too! This morning we packed the car for its penultimate trip, from Santa Fe down to Albuquerque, and set off along Highway 14, the ‘Turquoise Route’.... a scenic drive through old ‘Ghost Towns‘! ( Turquoise, lapis lazuli and silver were once mined here.) The first town we encountered was Cerrilios, once expected to become the capital of New Mexico before Santa Fe got the nod. Now its just a few dusty streets where nothing ‘opens’ before ‘whenever’! Three miles further on, we encountered ‘Madrid’, a former ghost town that experienced a resurgence through an influx of creative artists.

We parked, had coffee, and wandered down Main Street.....there are some very odd people there and had it not been for ‘Hugh’, an Irishman who relocated to Madrid around thirteen years, we’d have been out of there sooner!

Anyway, we arrived in Albuquerque in the early afternoon and headed for ’Old Town’, which has a really nice Plaza....a bit like ’Disney’, but the real thing! Once again we discovered that a laid-back approach to living is needed in the Southwest!!

Back at the hotel, I checked the milometer and found that we’ve driven approximately 5,000 miles on this leg of the trip, which means that we’ve put in a combined total of some 9,000 miles over the entirety of our road journey! Next stop Chicago.....more to follow!! Now, there’s only one song that springs to mind!