Day 5 Amarillo to Tucumcari

An earlier blog today, only 5.00pm here....

With a change in plan by the organisers we changed two planned nights in Amarillo to break the 300 mile journey to Albuquerque with a stop in Tucumcari about 120 miles (fastest route).  And what a good idea.  After a tiring run into Amarillo after the massive detour to the absent rodeo a rest day was needed.  A relaxing start with a later breakfast with our 'placcy' bowls, cutlery and paper plates we headed for the buried limos just outside Amarillo.  This was, for me, T, a little disappointing, crowded as such, littered with spray cans and a little underwhelming.  It's amazing what Billy Connolly and a TV camera can do to soup up the feature.  We walked up took a photo and walked away.  Other people, tssttt.

As we moved on the effects of rest and a lighter day resulted in an increased sense of chilledness as we headed to Vega to entertain ourselves, although the gash in my side still hurts a tad.  Anyone seen Grown Ups?

We headed down the Texas Route 66 keeping a calm 55 mph which was a change from the previous Texan 75 mph limit on more challenging roads, not that the Camero struggled with the tight bends.

Our final Texan stop off was the cafe at the centre if the route.  Well almost, the original route went via Santa Fe which we will discuss tomorrow so I think with our little detours we'll be a few miles over the 2278 advertised below.  A little like Haltwhistle, Adrian, with its population of 153 hosts the Midpoint cafe and another tourist trap.  We bumped into a family we met two times previously again.  After an over priced lunch and even more over priced gift shop we left the masses and headed on.  There appears to be a lot of people doing this route but no one seems to be on the same roads as us so we can only assume they are taking the interstate, cheats.

Just before leaving we did bow to the tourist attraction of signing the Rainbow pickup.

We pressed on and decided to shake off the shock of being near other tourists and hit a section of the the old road as we entered New Mexico.

My car, its now dirty an' all!!

Making a record hotel arrival, 1.50 pm in New Mexico mountain time, an hour saved from our starting point.  We managed to check in early, hit the "shops" for sun cream and hit the pool.  Now having showered we're considering going out for some tea, which will be our first 3 meal day since starting.  Can't wait to see if anywhere has some non potato based vegetable.  Things have been so bad, even I've had to eat salad twice.

Hotel great again albeit a chain, clean and friendly.  Thanks for all the comments, good fun to keep up and hopefully results in a quicker photo album when we get back.  Millie exposed below, sos pet like man like.  Reeeeaaaaaalllllyyyyyyyy.   Not.  Don't forget lunchtime Spanish time skypeing a possibility, we're now 7 hours behind.