We’ve been on the road for the past few days, driving from Flagstaff, AZ through Santa Fe, NM, and now, we’re in the booming metropolis of Artesia, NM.

In Gallup, NM, we stopped at the historic El Rancho Hotel for lunch. The walls were plastered with old black-and-white photos of the old Western movie stars who stayed there while filming. I am sad to say that I recognized almost none of them.

Harrison took down an impressive bowl of green chile stew. We’ve apparently been eating “Midwexican” (coined by our friend James) for too long; the salsa and chiles were spicy! We’re not used to that.

The rest of Friday was uneventful, as we drove through not one, but TWO huge rainstorms. The rain foiled our plans, and we were sadly unable to see the El Morro and El Malpais national monuments.

 

Our phones even alerted us to the fact that there was a flash-flood warnings between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Fortunately, our hotel did not lose power, and we were not swept away in a swollen arroyo.

This morning, we met the team from the Ride the Future Tour in the hotel breakfast room. They are also taking a cross-country road trip, but they’re driving only gas-free vehicles. They started in Charleston, SC, and are riding to the Google headquarters to increase interest in electric modes of transportation. So cool!

Before taking off, we photographed the New Mexico State Capitol, which was surprisingly difficult to find within the complex!

The drive from Santa Fe to Artesia is super-boring. I’m just going to tell it like it is. There is nothing. No-thing. You can see forever, and there is nothing to see.

I was thrilled to get to Roswell, NM, because it meant seeing people. Harrison was thrilled about the space-themed McDonald’s:

And, of course, we visited the Roswell UFO museum. It’s pretty hokey, and the “exhibits” (enlargements of various documents and snapshots) look like they were curated by a seventh-grader.

I’m going to turn things over now to Harrison for his next installment of his “Driver’s Log” posts! You can hear his (probably more enthusiastic) report for the last few days.