................................................Birthday Boy!!
Day 1 - Sunday 21st Dec
Not only was this the first day of our vacation, it was also John's birthday. We met Bill & Anna at noon and shared a farewell, happy birthday and merry Christmas lunch with them before hitting the road and driving north. We spent night one in a little town called Decatur, just outside Fort Worth after spending a really enjoyable evening with one of John's clients - Robin, his wife Patricia and their 3 children, Carlos, Kayla & Joseph. We spent the next morning at the local hospital only to discover that I have bruised ribs from a fall a few days earlier while shopping with Anna in a local mall (not sure how that happened - probably unbalanced with not enough parcels!) Treatment is non existent so if I don't breath too deeply or sneeze or hiccup or move too quickly all will be well so we finally continued on our way.
Next stop - Wichita Falls (so many towns bring songs to mind.....) It was extremely cold with temps reaching -2C. The actual Falls were right next to our hotel and we were surprised at the fact they were man-made and quite small - not sure how the town was named after them! We visited the local tourist information centre and found out the highlights of the town and so headed out to see the Burns Fantasy of Lights on the campus of Midwestern State University - the story behind this display is quite amazing but I won't go into that now - feel free to google it. Our hotel was just wonderful and offered a heated indoor pool and hot tub so when we arrived back there that night feeling very, very cold we decided to warm up in the hot spa - it was wonderful and very refreshing.
............................................................................................................The next morning we took to the road early as we were in for a long day's drive - destination Santa Fe via Amarillo. The drive was really interesting as we passed many cotton fields, some already harvested with the cotton baled and others just large white expanses. We also passed many production-line cow 'factories' - not very nice seeing the cattle so cramped together in a very unnatural environment - certainly not roaming free on luscious green pastures (I think that must be in fairytales...)
Lunch stop - Amarillo. We found a wonderful all organic salad bar - yay! Had a quick drive around the town and then headed for Santa Fe. It was really windy and we saw so many tumbleweeds blowing around - just like the movies. It's winter here but nothing is green. All the trees are bare and the grasses are all brown - I guess everything is now dormant waiting for the snow to cover them. 95% of the trip between Amarillo and Santa Fe is on the old Route 66 - another song jumps to mind!
Just outside Amarillo we saw The Cadillac Ranch - talk about different! Texas millionaire Stanley Marsh 111 was an eccentric – he acquired ten used Cadillacs, and then buried them nose-down, facing west along the historic Route 66 - apparently they are meant to represent the “Golden Age” of American automobiles. Visitors are encouraged to leave their mark on the ever-thickening graffiti covered cars - amazing!
We crossed the border into New Mexico and it wasn't long before the terrain became a little more hilly and then it happened - snow began falling! It was so exciting and the closer we came to Santa Fe the more snow we saw on the side of the road and on the surrounding hilltops.
We arrived at the Inn on the Alameda, where we're staying for the next 5 days, late afternoon and were so excited to see our balcony covered in snow and the extraordinary view from our room overlooking snow covered trees, cars, houses - just awesome! Our rooms are fantastic with an awesome fire in the lounge room. We left the unpacking and went for a walk to the nearby Plaza smiling all the way...... Santa Fe is just beautiful!
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