WHEN people talk about Route 66 road trips like they were the greatest thing ever, I hear two words: unnecessary and hardship.
A whole week – maybe two – of small towns and punishingly dull landscapes, quaint but unkempt hotels and meal after meal of burgers, malts and frito pies. Fun in theory, less so in actuality.
You can get good food in Chicago (the eastern end of the route) and Santa Monica, Calif. (the other end), but in between, well, that’s a lot of bad-for-you. (Whatever – I love junk food, but hate being fat.)
People don’t usually end up on Route 66 by accident, which is what happened to me.
I was driving between Las Vegas and Albuquerque, which requires that you follow the now-defunct route almost to the letter, from Kingman, Ariz., a little over an hour south of the Hoover Dam, to colorful Central Avenue, in quirky Albuquerque.
My plan was to book it from A to B; however, in a very short time, I experienced far too much for my own good and ended up having so much fun that I totally blew off the Grand Canyon, which is not the sort of thing you do lightly.
It all began in Albuquerque, one of those towns that you tend to appreciate more after the fact. New Mexico is one of the more unique states of the 50, whether you’re talking past or present. It’s the Louisiana of the Southwest; everything’s just a little different.
Albuquerque is as inhospitable to tourists as nearby Santa Fe is receptive. Alternately impoverished and bland, it’s as if the city has made an agreement with the more appealing parts of the state not to siphon off any business.
Because of its apparent lack of consideration for the leisure traveler, I have always been fond of Albuquerque. It helps if you go to Taos first, which is the most obnoxiously crowded small town this side of East Hampton in August, and about as expensive.
Albuquerque, on the other hand, is where people live. A few half-hearted attempts at keeping the traveler’s interest are made (Old Town is a good example), but on the whole, boring.
I started on a day of perfect weather – the first clear blue sky I’d seen in days – with a run down Central Avenue to the city’s fun Nob Hill district, coupled with a breakfast of biscuits and green chile sausage gravy. I ate this out of a tinfoil plate while driving around town and taking pictures. I don’t recommend this, but I can report with some satisfaction that none of my meal ended up gracing the front of my shirt.
Breakfast had come from The Flying Star, a local institution that used to be called the Double Rainbow. It has now branched out all over the city and has even spawned its own coffee bar chain, known as Satellite.
I knew I was being lazy by going back to this old favorite, but felt absolved in total once I had their gravy for the first time. It’s unbelievable. A lot of sausage gravy is starchy and bland – this is creamy, packed with sausage and spicy, thanks to the chile. It didn’t hurt that the biscuits were better than I’ve had in many a Southern dive.
Driving west on Central Avenue, you notice that Albuquerque did not miss out on the housing boom – downtown, there are things that are recognizable to people who are visiting from other places, such as condos, lofts and coffee bars.
Even though the downtown itself is still a little pointless beyond the fact that it is home to the legendary intersection of Route 66 and the Camino Real, the royal road to Mexico City, these new condos and lofts are really expensive.
More interesting, just south of the famous road crossing, is the barrio of Barelas, the neighborhood from which Albuquerque grew up. If I had been hungry, I would have stopped in at the Barelas Coffee House, a neighborhood institution that serves up OK renditions of New Mexican cuisine to a who’s-who of local politicos and famous types.
Instead, I popped in on the National Hispanic Cultural Center, which anchors the southern end of the Barelas neighborhood. It’s shaping into quite the empire, now featuring three theaters, an art museum, a nice restaurant – La Fonda del Bosque – and a good gift shop. It’s probably the most interesting stop you could make, if you were just in town for an hour or two.
Then again, you might prefer to save your time for a trip up to the famous Sky City pueblo. The famous Acoma settlement is conveniently located, turns out, just south of Exit 102 off I-40 (the road that replaces Route 66 in these parts).
Now regarded as one of the best cultural attractions belonging to a Native American community, you would never guess how spectacular a visit can be, at least not judging by the typically depressing casino and hotel that sits right at the highway off-ramp.
This glorified truck stop is another world from fifteen minutes or so to the south, where guided tours of the historic Sky City village are offered. The much-photographed beauty sits atop a nearly 400-foot-high mesa and is home to the San Esteban del Rey Mission, a relatively new arrival in the settlement, begun in 1630, shortly after New Mexico came under Spanish rule.
I quickly realized why people do the whole Route 66 thing, and why they spend so long doing it: What should have taken me an hour to drive was quickly threatening to monopolize an entire day. It made me wish I hadn’t planned to go all the way to Flagstaff that afternoon.
Having been so extensively waylaid up to this point, I was only able to give a cursory nod to the fascinating city of Gallup, which serves as a shopping and trading hub for numerous native communities on both sides of the state line.
I would have loved to stay at the appealing, rambling El Rancho hotel, an old-school stopover with the slogan “Charm of Yesterday, Convenience of Tomorrow” that hosted everyone from Ronald Reagan to Katharine Hepburn, back in the day. The signs all over the bustling town advertising Genaro’s Restaurant as “Home of the Stuffed Sopapilla” constitute what I call extreme teasing, mostly because I spent 20 futile minutes looking for the place.
Now pressed for time, I headed for the highway. Not before stopping, however, for one last green chile and cheese Lotaburger at New Mexico institution Blake’s – my second in 24 hours. Like I said – more fun in theory than in actuality, but how do you say no? (I think Blake’s is better than In-N-Out Burger, but then again, nobody asked.)
After a couple of hours taking in the extreme emptiness of the Navajo Nation, interrupted only by off-ramp come-ons that have achieved various success (tired-looking souvenir stands, abandoned gas stations, garish curio empires), I pulled into Winslow, Arizona.
It’s an intriguing town that, despite being in the middle of nowhere in an age where everything seems to happen in big cities, is managing to pull itself up by its bootstraps.
Famously sung of by The Eagles (Standing on a corner .Ñ.Ñ. well, you know), Winslow is not the quintessential attractive small town. You don’t see a lot of people wanting second homes here. Winslow was and remains a tattered oasis in the desert. If you’ve spent any time in the Southwest, you may have seen plenty of towns like this almost abandoned.
Here, though, amid the dust, the fast-food outlets and the gas stations, you notice things that are slightly unusual – a coffee bar, some handsome downtown blocks and, most interestingly, the historic La Posada, renovated to the point where you would be excused for thinking that the 1929 railroad hotel was built yesterday.
Commissioned by Fred Harvey, famously responsible for the concessions along the Santa Fe Railroad back then, the hotel is one of the prettiest in the Southwest, even if its exterior reflects an odd mix of Southwest and Tuscan stylings.
Freight trains still pass rather frequently (and make surprisingly little noise); the hotel owns the adjacent Amtrak station, which is still served twice daily on the Los Angeles-Chicago route. Turns out, that’s two more stops per day than you get in a city like Phoenix, where no trains stop at all. (Just one more thing to add to the long list I am compiling, detailing my case against Phoenix, in my estimation one of the most worthless cities in the world, but that’s a rant for another time.)
Why I hadn’t planned to spend the night here was beyond me. It wasn’t about the hotel, which is nice enough, I suppose. What really bummed me out was the reminder that La Posada is home to The Turquoise Room restaurant, a serious-dining-at-nice-prices type place, where the menu alternately celebrates native traditions, local offerings (things do grow/are produced around here!) and the classics you would have found in one of the Harvey House restaurants, once a staple of travel in the southwest, with more than 80 locations at the company’s peak.
Dinner wasn’t going to be served for another hour or two, and I’d made plans to get to Flagstaff. I immediately began cursing my need to constantly be making plans. Luckily, the landscape as you climb up into Flagstaff becomes as appealing as you’d expect pine trees and mountains to appear after a day in the desert. Such a pleasure is the combination of dry, cool air, ample sunshine, green forest and the beautiful San Francisco Peaks to the north, I hardly remembered that I was supposed to be beating myself up.
Then, dinnertime hit, and I couldn’t find anything in Flagstaff I preferred more than the menu at La Posada’s Turquoise Room. I ended up punishing myself by going to bed hungry. Next time, I wouldn’t be so quick to make my precious plans.
THE LOWDOWN
GO: The stretch of Route 66 between Kingman, Ariz., (1 hour south of Las Vegas) and Albuquerque is easily one of the most satisfying; you can reach it by flying into Las Vegas or Phoenix, both served from New York daily, by multiple carriers. If you prefer to fly into Albuquerque, a connecting flight will be necessary.
STAY: The pick of the route between Albuquerque and Flagstaff is Winslow’s La Posada Hotel & Gardens. Rooms from $99. (928) 289-4366; http://www.laposada.org. Also consider the vintage (if a little scruffy) El Rancho in Gallup, NM, with a neat little restaurant and friendly staff. Doubles from $68. (800) 543-6351; http://www.elranchohotel.com. In sprawling Flagstaff, your best bet is the Hotel Monte Vista. A couple years older even than La Posada, the hotel is at a busy downtown intersection, but is a neat place to hang your hat for a night, with plenty of shops and restaurants within walking distance. Rooms from $50, (800) 545-3068; http://www.hotelmontevista.com.
DO: The National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque features numerous cultural events and exhibits, information at nhccnm.org. The Acoma Sky City Cultural Center offers a museum, cultural activities, tours and more, a package that includes a museum visit and a tour goes for $20; information at http://www.acomaskycity.org.
MORE INFO: Learn more about travel to New Mexico and Arizona by visiting http://www.newmexico.org and http://www.arizonaguide.com.