Day 7 - Albuquerque... Here we come!

If sleeping in a wigwam was turning back the clock then visiting the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert brought new meaning to 'going back in time'... nature's own pictures tell the story.

Old Route 66 cuts right through the park... but all that's left are the telegraph poles to mark where the old road once was.

The haul across the i40 brought a new state, New Mexico as we slipped into Gallup - home of the famous El Rancho Hotel.

Once the domain of big screen stars who hunkered down while on location for their latest and greatest movie, today it proudly boasts this link to the past.

We slipped through the highest point on our journey - the Continental Divide... and on down to Prewitt.

Not much happens here... but even less than when Paul and Robyn first met the caretaker 'Sunshine' for the long since disused Swap Meet 66 location. Sadly her departure has spelled the complete ruin and vandalism of this well know land mark and perhaps typifies the ever evolving story of the mother road.

In Grants we framed the cars before taking on Deadman's Curve, that ever tightening corner that probably only matches many roads down under.

A quick blast down what we could find of the old road on and off the i40 eventually brought us to the Unser Museum in Albuquerque. Even the girls found interest in what might be expected to be a boys museum. The story of this very famous racing family well set out in the privately held museum. All that was left was the run to Santa Fe for the night in the early variant of Route 66.

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