July 11th - From Albuquerque, New Mexico to Amarillo, Texas

Since I awakened at 4 in the morning from some kind of weird nightmare, I was short of sleep and feeling groggy and irritable in the morning. But the drive west from Albuquerque to Amarillo, Texas, was not very challenging and Monika drove after lunch so it ended up going all right. The road was straight, flat, dry, and boring—the type of road where we saw passengers in other vehicles stretched out taking a nap, and I couldn't really blame them. The most noticeable changes were a gradual shift from desert-like vegetation to scrub brush and small trees. Partly that depended on elevation because even in New Mexico the ridges that were over 6,000 feet had bushes and small trees whereas the valleys and lower ridges did not. The Texas panhandle area was more verdant, and that evening we were treated to a thunderstorm rolling thru, which was the first rain we have seen since Colorado City, I believe. Utah, Arizona and New Mexico were all bone dry and blistering hot.

We arrived in Amarillo fairly early and had to pay the normal “rack” rate since our discount coupons were not good for weekends—that’s often stated in the fine print at the bottom. But the beds were comfortable and we both had a good nap before driving over to the starting point to sign in and get the map for the Amarillo Route 66 walk. We had dinner in our hotel room—we were both rather tired of eating out in restaurants and wanted some simple fare, after which we worked on the journal a bit and turned in for the evening.