Time to Break Bad

Day Six, Wednesday, August 24

Ah, long day of driving once again over with!

We awoke a little earlier than we had the past few days, mainly so that we could head down and grab some breakfast in preparation for a long day; we probably wouldn't be eating lunch until closer to dinner time. We hit up the Wal-Mart in Amarillo on our way out of town to pick up some spray paint and off we went.

Our first stop was the Cadillac Ranch, just outside of Amarillo. Similar to (and inspiration of) the VW Ranch from yesterday, it features ten of the eponymous vehicles with their noses buried in the ground, sticking up and covered in graffiti. That's where the spray paint comes in! I got "True Blue" and Dana got a fluorescent pink, so it worked fairly well to spray down a coat of blue and then spray pink over it.

D'aww. Of course, right after writing that, the wind caused a lot of my spray paint to fleck all over Dana. Boo. Stupid me. We stopped at a nearby gas station to clean up a bit and booked west on the interstate once again.

After awhile we exited onto what was once Route 66 and drove it for a dozen miles or so until we came through a town known as Adrian, TX. Adrian is notable in that it's the midpoint of the former Route 66. There's a little "Midpoint Cafe" at this spot and a few signs marking it as such.

There's me trying to decide which way we're supposed to go. Anyway, we dropped by the gift shop and I picked up a cool sign that shows all the cities that Route 66 goes through all the way to Chicago in the east and Los Angeles in the west. Pretty boss, I must say. Oh, and the Route 66 memorabilia didn't end there, since our next stop was a vintage sign on the Mother Road.

Pretty cool, right? I thought so. After some research, we found that many of the communities that were once situated on Route 66 were boomtowns in the middle of the century, but gradually declined once the interstate superseded it. McLean and Shamrock were probably victims of this, which is why they look basically like ghost towns now. Well, that and the fact that it was well over one hundred degrees, anyway.

Next up was Albuquerque. Our first stop was the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, which featured an array of historical information and artifacts about the development and use of nuclear weaponry and technology. It was really enlightening, and the array of artifacts and models they had was impressive.

Nuclear artillery cannon

The Davy Crockett, the only single-man-capable nuclear weapon

Models of Fat Man and Little Boy

In the midst of looking at all the missiles, planes, and land vehicles out back, Dana looked behind her to find a snake slithering past with a distinctive diamond pattern. It was neat to see the little reptile crawling through the dirt, since we don't really have snakes of even that size back in New Jersey.

Next up was lunch/dinner, which we bought at a high-rated Mexican place called The Taqueria Mexico. As one would expect, the food was absolutely fantastic and authentic. After polishing off our food, we headed south to check out Albuquerque Studios, a television and film studio where, among other things, Breaking Bad is shot. Of course, we couldn't see much on the lot, but it was cool to see, and on the way we even saw a giant stone snake built for the University of New Mexico.

Main gate of the studio

Big snake

Right near the lot. Look anything like Breaking Bad scenery?

Our final stop on the way out of town was our fourth Madonna of the trip, placed downtown in Albuquerque to mark the coast-to-coast route of the National Old Trails Road. This one was relatively easy to find, and we parked for a second just to walk over and take a few pictures. It was good to see her again after over 1,100 miles.

Four Madonnas down, eight to go. Well, we won't see them all this trip, but it would be pretty cool to make it a goal to see the rest of them on future travels. After the Madonna, we'd worn out our Albuquerque welcome, so we headed northward toward our hotel for the night in Farmington, New Mexico. After hitting a traffic jam and watching some really sweet desert lightning in the distance, we were on the open road. We stopped to take a few pictures on the way.

"The Mexican Hat"

Western New Mexico was absolutely beautiful, and oddly enough, it rained quite a bit on our trek up north to Farmington. As we headed across the desert, our elevation breached 7,300, and we crossed the continental divide: the division where the watershed changes from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific. We got to our hotel at around nine, checked in and promptly collapsed on the bed.

States: Texas, New Mexico

Cities: Amarillo, Albuquerque, Farmington

Coming up tomorrow:

• Grand Canyon
• Four Corners
• Monument Valley

Yeah, no kitschy stuff tomorrow! The real deal. See you in Flagstaff!