Out With the Truckers and the Kickers and The Cowboy Angels

After a night in Amarillo, I hit the road early and passed into New Mexico - my first blue state since Virginia. I was getting off I-40 for the first time and headed for Chimayo to visit my favorite cousin and artist extraordinaire George Zarolinski.

South of Santa Fe, looking northeast.

I would have liked spending some time in Santa Fe, but I had one more long day on the road and home was calling loudly to me.

Chimayo is a quiet place, except for the nearly constant barking of dogs in the distance.

And while I was there, another dog was added to its population. George rescued the dog on the right (Shorty) from the local shelter and he came home with her that day, joining Buster (on the left) who was clearly very excited about the new addition to his pack.

Buster and Shorty - kinda sound like a couple of tw0-bit gangsters from Prohibition days....

Following the Ghost of Tom Joad

"The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it." - John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

"Yes as through this life I've wandered I've seen lots of funny men
some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen"
- Woody Guthrie, Pretty Boy Floyd

Leaving Little Rock early in the morning, I rambled West through the Ozarks and then into Oklahoma. I passed through Woody Guthrie country and then Oklahoma City, where I caught up to the old Route 66. From there, I followed the route taken by many before me - in the Dust Bowl times particularly - on the way to the Garden of Eden called California. I simply had to get off the interstate several times to check out some of the few still existing sections.

Although the historic highway more or less remains only in memory, there remain sections of the old road here and there all the way to California, with one particularly long section in western Arizona. In other places, one can see glimpses of the old road bed in the median strip of I-40.

Pushing ever West.

It was very quiet.

They called it "The Mother Road."

The West Texas Panhandle.

Along part of old 66 in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Happy Motoring!

One can see a long way off.

The La Mesa Motel in Santa Rosa.

The precursor of the Visa card.