Albuquerque, NM to Winslow, AZ

Saturday; Albuquerque, NM

We took Saturday as a rest and bike-maintenance day while in Albuquerque. Saturday morning, even after all ice melted, we found the bikes to be encrusted in reddish, crumbly silt, and it occurred to us it might be prudent to get the grime and any road salt rinsed off, as well as an oil and air filter change. We took them in to Sandia BMW, where they squeezed us in between a bunch of maintenance being done on several police bikes. There, they told us the red stuff is a mineral salt mined elsewhere in New Mexico, and used in place of road salt. It is also considered to be more corrosive than the usual road salt.





Saturday around sunset, we rode the Sandia Peak tram, the world's longest tramway. On the ground it was in the high 30s; at 10,000+ feet on Sandia Peak, it was eight degrees with twenty knot winds, so needless to say, our stay outside the tram shelter was brief!







Sunday; Albuquerque, NM to Winslow, AZ



We got a bit of a late start Sunday, waiting for the temperature to get out of the twenties in Albuquerque; it was as low as 10° along our route in the morning, although later in the day we saw some high 40s.

We've been paralleling old Route 66 for some time now:



Crossing the Arizona state line:



Some scenes from the petrified forest and painted desert, where we had a late picnic lunch by the Agate Bridge (a petrified fallen tree):

















There were vast petrified forests, all the fallen and petrified trees had cracked under their own weight, making it look as though someone had come along and chopped it into firewood!



We found a cool hotel, La Posada, in Winslow AZ ('standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona') La Posada is an old railroad hotel in the process of being restored. We stayed in the Clark Gable room! (Photos uploading now...)

We continually overestimate how far we'll progress in a given day; the distances here are so much more vast than we're used to at home, that we've become pretty bad at time/distance estimation. But, today, we think we'll spend some time at Meteor Crater, and then continue on to the Grand Canyon.