Today was another not very action packed day of driving. It started out fun though, meeting up with my friend for breakfast where we spent an hour talking about Canadian/American differences in culture, such as not giving your card to the restaurant staff to pay (which I still think is weird and always will).
There really isn’t much to say about today as I headed for Albuquerque, though I did come across a very nice view point. As I was starting to leave, some motorcyclists arrived and asked me to take their photo, which I of course did. After I did, they gave me a little coin that said “Pray Always” on it. I’m not religious, but it’s still a cool coin and I appreciate their gift.
I also needed to find a postcard for Arizona before I crossed into New Mexico, which is surprisingly hard to find on Google Maps, since “postcard” just brings up Walmart and Target and whatnot, and “gift shop” brings up a disproportionate number of flower stores, which is not what I want.
I first went to a Barnes and Noble, but they didn’t have anything. So I stopped at a “gift shop” that I randomly came across in some small town, but they were closed, so I carried on only to find another “gift shop” a few miles down the road, only to find out that the only stuff they had were giant wooden carvings that I couldn’t fit into my car even if I wanted to! They suggested I go to the chamber of commerce, but it was unfortunately closed.
I then tried a visitor information center in another small town, and while they were very nice, the postcards they had didn’t really scream “Arizona”, they were instead more local attractions. The woman I talked to there was very kind though, and has friends that live in Campbell River! It’s a small world. She asked me to put a pin on my home town, which I of course did (I love those pin-your-home maps).
In yet another small town I came across a gift shop for a petrified wood museum (yeah, it’s a real thing) and they did have a few postcards, so I picked one up but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I went to another tourist information place in that town, who suggested I go to the Safeway down the road. This was an odd suggestion since I didn’t think grocery chains had local post cards, but it turns out they do! I was able to pick up a few nice ones for my collection, and now I know to try Safeway if I’m in a pinch when looking for a postcard.
I also realized I was near Route 66, and then came across the same type of Wigwams from the Cars movie! At least that’s the only place I know them from.
I carried on into New Mexico, towards the “Sky City” rest area, which was marked as open on the New Mexico website, only to find it was in fact, not open, and very blocked off. I’ve not had good luck with rest areas on this trip being open, and it feels weird that so many of them are closed when they’re such a big safety thing (driving tired can be extremely dangerous).
I ended up getting a room in the Casino Hotel across the road, which ended up only being $67 USD (free if I win the slots! Except I don’t gamble…), the same price as last night’s motel but MUCH nicer and (hopefully) bug free.
As I was writing this entry, the power just turned off randomly. A few seconds later it turned back on, but I’m not too sure what that was about, and it made the internet go down for about 10 minutes which was annoying for the movie I was downloading on my phone, but oh well. It’s back now.