i-40

when i left san luis obispo tuesday morning, i headed west towards i-40. of course, the highway i took to get there just happened to be the road on which james dean crashed his car, cutting his career tragically short. he essentially just turned a corner, had the sun in his eyes, and crashed his car in the middle of nowhere--it's not even a mountain road. so i got out to take a few pictures and pay homage to the king of cool. (for those of you who don't know, i know quite a lot about james dean, since he was very influential to the german films i on which wrote my honors thesis. go watch rebel without a cause if you haven't already seen it).



after about 3 hours i finally made it to barstow, where interstate 40 starts. pretty much immediately after i got on there was this sign for wilmington, nc, so of course i immediately pulled over on the shoulder to rather hazardously take the picture at the top of this post. quite funny to think that it is only 2554 miles to the east coast--at this point i had put about 9000 miles on my car since i left raleigh. after getting on the interstate it was incredibly desolate. i have now been in quite a few desolate parts of the country, but i think this california desert takes the cake. there was NOTHING--it looked like this, which is beautiful, but no gas, food, etc. not even a visitors center when i entered arizona. i decided to press on to flagstaff, which is a small university town and a common jumping off point to the grand canyon.

on the way i took a 20 mile detour off of 40 to go by lake havascu. now, what claim to fame does it have? the london bridge. in 1967 the london bridge, which had been built in 1831, was falling down. (haha?). the city of london sold it to robert mcculloch, who put it across this lake in arizona. in reality, it is a modern bridge with the original exterior granite put on top, but still--the london bridge. really quite bizarre in the middle of the arizona desert, but cool nonetheless. from there i went on to flagstaff, pulling in about 10 that night.

i drove 10 1/2 hours that day, and was quite tired and very sore, but i realized something as i went to bed. i have now driven every mile of i-40. having now driven from barstow to flagstaff, i had driven (or at least been in the car) when covering the rest of the miles to wilmington. neat, huh? i took this picture, very carefully, outside of my window at sunset.wednesday morning i woke up to find my car towed. needless to say this put a damper on my day, and i don't want to talk about it. by the time i rolled out of flagstaff wednesday, it was after noon. (interestingly, arizona does not belief in daylight savings, so in the summer they are on pacific time. but the indian reservation in the state do use daylight savings. strange place). i had wanted to go to sedona, but now had no time. so, continuing on i-40, i headed toward albuquerque. i was sooo ready to leave arizona.

of course, i stopped on the way at winslow, arizona. as in the eagles song: 'i was standin' on a corner in winslow arizona, there was such a fine sight to see. it's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed ford slowin' down to take a look at me.' there really isn't much of a town, and they really are just playing up their tie to the song, but it was neat to see. the town was also really big into their route 66 history. all the way from barstow to albuquerque, i-40 runs pretty much exactly parallel to the old famous route. and from flagstaff, it also follows the old santa fe railroad line. winslow, therefore, has both.
from there until santa fe i was probably more often in indian territory than not. it's one reservation after another, which means, for the average traveler, that there is no cheap gas. although, if you have time to stop, a lot of them are quite interesting. like this one that i saw from a distance--this pueblo in new mexico, called the laguna pueblo. founded in 1692 by refugees from other pueblos fleeing the spanish. and it's still occupied today--that's it below.

i stopped in the new mexico visitors center, and was quite impressed. staffed by indians (it was on a reservation) it was huge, modern, clean, and had a very friendly and helpful staff. the state is really trying to play up its tourism aspects, something i support whole-heartedly. i LOVE new mexico. maybe it was just me, but i thought the roadside scenery got much prettier when we entered the state. that day, though, i drove right on through albuquerque, taking i-25 up to santa fe. i reached my final destination, glorieta, about 8 (now mountain time). glorieta, while there is also a town, is know for its huge christian complex--a conference center, camp--they can do just about anything. my great-grandparents bought a house there a long time ago, and that's where i headed. (thanks uncle kirk!).