We've Crossed The Divide

Close-up and distant sights from 40/66 and the Continental Divide

Roof  construction of Hogan

Art  after reaching Holbrook

We had a good stay in Albuquerque and thought we would reach Flagstaff today but eventually decided to stay in Holbrook where we're in a Howard Johnson Motel. We thought that had a fun "old timy" ring to it but it seems they just bought it from Ramada and the bathroom and outer sink are carbon copies of the La Quinta Inn where we were in Amarillo. And we've noticed that some component of at least four of the hotels or motels we been in have had something showing ownership links with Wyndham Co. who owned the Whndham Gardens Hotel where we stayed the first night in OKC. What a scary global business. Before we know, one man will own them all. Or maybe he does already.

We had lots of fun watching Route 66 appear and disappear over the time of today's drive. It's interesting to see what condition it's in from place to place. It will run along parallel to Highway for  quite a while and then all of a sudden it will simply not be there. You can see that the 40 engineers decided that  40 needed to be where 66 was, and that was that.

When we reached the continental divide, we took the exit to see what all the signs said. We hadn't eaten lunch, so we bought a couple of sandwiches and some root beer and ate lunch on the porch of one of the Indian sales rooms. Air was still pretty chilly but the view was fun and the food OK. We took some pictures and the view was great. It was soon after that when we decided that we should call a halt to the day at Holbrook. We'll try to get an early start and reach the outskirts of Flagstaff before noon and in time to see Walnut Canyon and Meteor Crater before we have lunch and drive on toward the Mojave Desert and possibly Barstow. As Art just said after I wrote that, "At least to California." We're seeing all sorts of places we'd like to come back to another year, but after the trauma of Boreas and that killer highway with its black ice, we're both ready to be back in CA. We don't know if we can make it to Steve's for Thanksgiving, but we'll give it a try.