July 26th. Amarillo to Albuquerque.

We checked out of ‘Motel 6’ and headed down the road to ‘Waffle House’ for breakfast. A small classic diner with waiters easing around, carrying pots of coffee or plates of food. At the business end was the short-order cook with a battery of waffle irons and grills in front of him as he effortlessly filled the constant stream of orders. We had orange juice, hash browns cheese and with bacon on the side and a few cups of scalding coffee, all for $15 – yummee. Back on the road again, we drive through wide open plains and then drop down onto another undulating landscape complete with obligatory bluffs, still fairly green but with the reddish earth peeking through here and there. One of the things that strikes me every day is the stream, every half hour or so, of trucks carrying military equipment painted in desert colours, heading East, just to remind you that there is unfinished business being taken care of. The first stop was Adrian, the halfway point on ’66 exactly 1139 miles from Chicago and Los Angeles. As we made a detour to Memphis and Dallas we passed the halfway point a while ago, but hey, lets celebrate. Next stop was Tucumcari a stretch of ’66 just off the main highway but wonderfully preserved, there are a few closed down motels and garages but there is a classic collection of roadside Motels and shops and quite a few people buzzing around as well, locals and travellers. We went on to Santa Rosa to visit the ‘Blue Hole’ apparently a 100 ft. deep, crystal clear swimming hole but there were no signposts (something which I’ve noticed, some curiosities are not signposted, shops, motels and restaurants are) and Betty didn’t know where it was, so instead of driving around for half an hour we headed on to Clines Corners, a place which cropped up in several books as a trading post and stop-off point. It still is but the Indian section is dwarfed by a shop containing enormous amounts of tack, some of which I will gladly show you on my return to Madrid. We then drove through some heavy rain which I can only assume was the leftover from Hurricane Dolly as she spent her forces meandering upstate. We arrived in Albuquerque (founded by the Spanish and named after the cork-producing town of the same name in Extremadura, Spain, a region where a lot of the Conquistadores came from). We checked into the cheapest motel yet - $50, but it’s within striking distance of the action, which takes place on Central and 4th. We weren’t allowed into the first bar, the gorilla at the door said something about Willy’s Ramones t-shirt but I think it had more to do with the fact that the mono cellular life-form had never seen a Spanish passport before, mind you, the conditions of entry were daunting – No known felons, no guns, no knives, no gang colours, no bandanas, no baseball caps on backwards… Just as well I suppose, so we took our custom across the road to Maloneys, a great bar with enormous beer mugs , close on a litre. As usual, loads of staff making sure that everyone was well attended, if this bar were in Madrid, there would be a third of the staff, embittered and grumpy, skiving off for cigarette breaks and with little or no table service, but I won’t go down that road. I noticed the doorman was ‘carding’ everyone as they came in and passing the card through some sort of scanner, as I had already had two buckets of ‘Fat Tire’ ale, a very pleasant brew, I decided that we were the best of mates so I asked him what that (the scanning) was all about. He said that because the legal age for drinking is 21 (you can die for your country at 18), a lot of people had forged IDs and the law were very strict on underage drinking. Apparently in this part of the world they are prone to fisticuffs and car crashes after a night on the sauce, now where does that remind me of…We left Maloneys and said goodbye to our new best friends, the barmaid was excellent – I saw her refuse a guy on no uncertain terms – it was only when we got out onto the street that Willy pointed out a long string of snot stuck to my t-shirt, I’d had a sneezing fit and thought I’d cleaned it all up, so much for credibility. We went up to a square where every Saturday there is some kind of ‘Summerfest’, a soul band was just finishing and all the food stalls were shutting up, it was still quite early, don’t ask me what time. Most of the stuff on offer was Mexican and South American which reflects the population mix here. We got a Pizza and back to the ranch for pizzas, beers and Saturday night live, though I must say the latter escaped me.