April 19 - 2018 Golden, Colorado

The last three days we have been in transit.
Tuesday, the 17th, we went from Towaoc to Albuquerque, New Mexico. 250 miles / 400 km.
For the first time throughout our trip, we had to take severe (voldsomt) weather into consideration when we moved.
The weather forecast (vejrudsigten) predicted very strong winds all day Tuesday.
We tried to outrun it by leaving very early in the morning. We only partly succeeded.
After an hour we ran into very strong sidewinds. 30 mph (13 m/s) and 50 mph (22-23 m/s) in the gusts (vindstød). It was a tough ride. And several places we ran into dust storms with low visibility (sigtbarhed).

We saw tumbleweeds cross the road all day

The wind peaked (toppede) in the afternoon with 70 mph (31 m/s) in the gusts. By then we were already setup at the campground, but sitting in the camper was like being on a boat 😊

We checked out The Old Town of Albuquerque. A lot of adobe houses (the unique style of architecture in the southwest).
The town was founded in 1706, and some of the buildings are almost that old.

Last but not least we toured some of the remains of the famous Route 66. Route 66 was established in 1926 going from Chicago to Santa Monica, California. This was the first long road out to the west coast. This was BIG, because it made it much easier to drive to and from the west. There was a boom in tourism, now that it was easier to see all the sights - like the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Las Vegas, Hollywood…. (Has anyone seen National Lampoon’s “Vacation” movie #1 (the Griswold’s)? They drove Route 66.) Towns grew along the route, catering to the tourists and truck drivers, who were driving through. Motels, restaurants, movie theaters, souvenir stores…. 

The road was slowly replaced with the interstate system, and in 1984, it finally closed. There are still roads, were Route 66 used to be. Some of the towns have died (anyone seen the movie “Cars”? McQueen strands in one of these dying towns). Some of them have kept the tourism going, by holding on to the atmosphere of Route 66. Albuquerque has capitalized on it. It has a 20-mile stretch of the old road.   A lot of the old style has been preserved and a lot of old signs are still up. We ended the day eating at the 66 Diner. A place with a lot of the old memorabilia from Route 66.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, the 18th, we moved from Albuquerque to Aguilar, Colorado. 275 miles / 440 km.
It is very dry in this area this year and therefore the fire danger is very big.
Albuquerque, for instance has had 0.38 inches / 9,5 mm of rain since October last year!
If you then add very strong winds to that, it does not take much to create a huge wildfire.
We saw traces of fires on our way up.  Just a couple of hours north of us, there is a fire covering
35000 acres / 150.000 hektar. Twenty some houses have burned down.

Thursday, the 19th, we moved from Aguilar to Golden, Colorado. 190 miles / 300 km.
We moved along the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and could begin to see the snowclad tops in the horizon.

Written by Mary & JJ