Route 66, Day 10 by Bryan Patterson June 16, 2015 - Albuquerque
has some good bike shops and the one that we found was Performance
Bicycles, but before heading there we were told that we had to have
breakfast at Range Café. What a great café, with great breakfast. We
were not disappointed and the food was very tasty. Interestingly enough
it was next door to the first bar to be given an alcohol licence in New
Mexico!
Once we had eaten breakfast we were off to Performance Bicycle to get
mark’s bike repaired and to get Sidd’s bike on the road too. What a
place, I would recommend this bike shop to anyone. Bryan Wenzel the
young mechanic was brilliant. Once wwe had explained what we were doing
he immediately got stuck into fixing Mark’s bike. Luckily there was not
a lot of damage, surprising really after the crash. It didn’t take long
to get the bike back in good shape and onto the road. Meanwhile James
repaired Sidd’s puncture, so we were on the way.
Well not quite, no Route 66. It was highway 40 and no roads close by
that we could actually take to even get close to the route! So once
again we had to use the van and made our way to Santa Rosa. On the way
we discovered Café Fina, a wonderful café that was organic and was
owned by Ringo Stinett , a cajun Indian. He’d owned this café for some
years and was a character. We snacked and then were on our way. Giselle
has done a great job of calling ahead to book the camp site, but one or
two other calls are made too – you need to ask James and Cristian about
these! We make Santa Rosa which has the Blue Lagoon. There is a series
of pools that are connected underground in this area, and the Blue
Lagoon is one of them, pure water at 61 degrees, that rises from 81
feet down.
The pool is 60 feet wide and 3000 gallons pass through every minute!
The adults take the plunge, and although cold it’s really refreshing
and wonderful. The kids chicken out and will not get in! So we head to
Route 66 which is 3 miles away. We start our ride only to be stopped by
paramedics who explain that they have been held back as there is a
police situation a mile down the road! Another hold up, so we wait and
after a while we are allowed to pedal on past the situation, which the
paramedics are now at. Seems there was a stand-off that may not have
finished in a success, sadly.
It’s mid-day and very very hot and we are all getting heat exhaustion.
We mark our finish and van to Tucumceri and the camp site. We are
disappointed with the day and the fact that we didn’t ride the miles we
should have. It’s a late finish, after dark, and we have to put up the
tent and make dinner. So it’s a late to sleeping bags but we are
staying in this camp site for two nights
