March 11, 2005 – Making our way to Santa Fe

March 11, 2005 – Making our way to Santa Fe

Needles, California reminded me of El Paso when we drove into the parking lot of the Best Western Colorado River Inn, at about 5:00 in the afternoon on Friday July 23rd 1999. El Paso crushes up against its own river, the Rio Grande, just like needles presses close to the more impressive Colorado. It’s about 2 blocks east off the West Broadway exit from Interstate 40 on the west end of town. The Colorado’s cool dark water was clearly visible off the driver’s side as we approached the West Broadway exit. The motel, for that's what it was, ran the length of a broad blacktop parking lot with head-in parking facing the second floor rooms of the motel and parking space across the driveway from the motel for the overflow.

It was over a 100 degrees when we unfolded from the air conditioned comfort of my wife “I”’s late model Jaguar XJ6, her pride and joy—the dream come true for a kid growing up in the suburbs of Glasgow watching elegant Jags pass her by on the London Road as she walked to school. There was no shade in that parking lot only a blazing hot sun beating down on baking macadam. We left our bags in the car, walked to the motel office, a high-ceilinged room sitting behind a Porte Cochere big enough for the cab of an 18-wheeler to drive through—at least it seemed that way. We got checked in and returned to the car, grabbed our bags from the now warming car interior mounted the stairs to the motel’s second floor and found our way to a room halfway between the office and the end of the long cinder block structure. The room was stuffy and we put the room air conditioner on full blast realizing that the noise would keep us off our sleep that night.

We dozed for an hour until the sun began to sink. At about 7:00 that evening we decided to venture out for dinner. Right next door to the Best Western is the Hungry Bear Restaurant and it was near enough that we decided to brave the elements and walk. This was the restaurant I remembered from my childhood before chains such as the now forgotten Sambo’s and today’s omnipresent Denny’s ran them all out of business; that is except for places like Needles, Blythe—on Interstate 10, and other small communities living off the Interstate and the surrounding farming community. Here they thrive because the locals come to socialize and the owners are reason enough to come. We had fast food cooked slow—hamburgers and fries and lots of cold water. As is my practice, I had a glass of the red wine that had no pretension of a name, but with the stick-to-your-ribs burger and decent fries, it was the perfect complement to the meal.

After a night’s sleep interrupted by noises in the night—the air conditioner turning on and off was maliciously trying to keep us off our rest—we woke refreshed and ready for the second leg of our journey: Needles across Arizona to Santa Fe. We check out of the motel, gas up at the Desert View Mobil Station next door and then merge onto Interstate 40 and head east, passing historic Route 66 which slices through the middle of downtown Needles. Stretches of the road made famous in the still popular song still run through the towns mentioned in the lyrics: “Flagstaff, Arizona don’t forget Winona, Kingman…” and then there’s “Gallup, New Mexico”. Each has signs along parts of their main street where the old highway still runs through. In Kingman, the once grand roadway has suffered the neglect of most all thoroughfares in small and medium size towns. They resembled old black men with pitted skin and liver spots where new macadam covers a pothole too big to ignore. We stopped in Kingman for breakfast—yes it was a Denny’s off the Interstate, though we did take an earlier exit in search of another greasy spoon like the Hungry Bear, but to no avail. I stocked up on cash at a Norwest Bank ATM—Norwest had just been bought by Wells Fargo, our bank in San Jose so there was no transaction fee.

Outside of Kingman, Interstate 40 begins a slow gradual climb toward Flagstaff and a land of green that makes you wonder how the same state can contain two such diverse ecosystems. The parched deserts of Phoenix and Tucson and the lands east and west of both cities and the lush green timber-populated land clustered around Flagstaff that experiences a proper winter, not the shirtsleeve substitute of the desert. Flagstaff has always meant the Grand Canyon to me. It’s where we’ve always stopped for the night—the Pony Soldier Motel at 3030 East Route 66—before our visit to Ferde Grofe's muse. We didn’t stop this time, we kept on moving. After another 36 miles east, we pass Meteor Crater off Interstate 40 at exit 233.

A few more hours of hard fast driving, the red rock panorama on either side of the road for miles, we reach Gallup a couple of hours after noon. Gallup is surrounded by some of the most beautiful natural land formations, as you’ll ever see—the Monument Valley with its natural red rock formations where filmmakers like John Ford of old, came to capture stunning scenery only a big screen can attempt to reproduce. It is also the largest American Indian center in the Southwest, surrounded by Zuni, Acoma, Laguna, Navajo and Hopi pueblos. The first time “I” and I drove through Gallup together, we had her brother and sister in law in the back seat. It was close to eight and we hadn’t made hotel reservations and stopped at the first motel that looked vacant. It was the El Capitan Motel. When we went in to register I knew it was a winner for our guests. The place was a museum of old movie memorabilia. Hollywood used the motel when shooting those westerns in the surrounding desert and the walls had pictures of every major star of the 1940s and 1950s. And the rooms were named after different stars, presumably because they stayed in them at one time. The interior of the place looked like the set of the Ponderosa from the TV series Bonanza. I’ll revisit Gallup another time, as it is a small town with a story.

More driving through a slightly greener less colorful landscape accompany the drive into Albuquerque. Once there, it’s another big southwestern city not much different in appearance from Tucson, Phoenix, or El Paso. As I 40 intersects Interstate 25 we exit northbound and point the car toward the high desert and Santa Fe. At about five in the evening, we finally reach Santa Fe and find our way to the Ft Marcy Inn, named for an 1846 Santa Fe US Military outpost that was located close by. It’s located at 320 Artist Road, near the Paseo de Peralta, a circular road ringing the capital and city center on the northeast side of Santa Fe, very close too to Canyon Road, a southwester art lover’s paradise of galleries and art boutiques. Ft Marcy would be our base for a week in the upscale southwest.