Wednesday 10/31/12
Garden City is in western Kansas so it wasn’t too long before we came to Lamar CO and our 6th Madonna. The “Big Timbers” mentioned in the inscription is for the large groves of cottonwoods growing along the Arkansas River here – a welcome sight after the hot dusty trail from Council Grove.
Madonna of the Trail – Lamar CO
Another find in Lamar is the petrified wood (former) gas station. According to Roadside America, it’s now an office, but I think that info’s obsolete. It doesn’t looked used to me. I do hope the building doesn’t get torn down – it’s very representative of a certain mind set in our exuberant it’s-mine-by-divine-right past.
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Our next planned stop was in nearby La Junta CO. When looking at the Roadside America offerings, who could resist a name like “Junkrassic Park”? “Since 1990, retired farmer Johnnie Allen has been welding huge sculptures made from cast off farm implement metal.” – roadsideamerica.com. Our GPS took us in a fairly round about way (we had it set to avoid dirt roads and I guess it didn’t know they were paved) and there it was. It’s quite amazing to wander around and figure out the puns.
After a lunch stop in La Junta, we headed south to Albuquerque and our last Madonna of the day. Unfortunately the park was undergoing some significant renovations and this was all we could get.
Madonna of the Trail – Albuquerque NM
We didn’t want to stop in Albuquerque for the night so pushed on to Grants NM. We didn’t figure on how bad the rush hour traffic was going to be, however, and didn’t pull into the hotel until ~8pm local time. Maybe ~7ish body time? A bit later than I normally like to eat supper, but I did want some real food. So we took a suggestion from the list the hotel supplied and went up I-40 one exit to Milan and the Wow Diner. All I can say is Wow!. It was truly excellent food.
613 mi, 12:25 hrs total, 9:27 hrs moving
[written 12/18/13]
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