We saw our first hitchhikers yesterday, so apparently people still do travel the road that way. Of course, we didn't pick them up: even if we had wanted to, the back seat is full of food, cameras, etc... that's what we get for living out of the car. I probably wouldn't have picked them up anyways - I'm reminded of one of Jo Williams' stories that I'm not sure we got on tape at Edgewood. She carries a gun in her car in case of breakdowns, she said. The first chamber has snakeshot, because if you're broken down on the side of the road, there's a good chance you might run into a snake in the grass. The other 5 chambers, she said, are for "two-legged snakes." And the one time she ever picked up hitchhikers on I-40, that gun was ready.

But some people still do pick up hitchhikers - someone even tried to give me a ride yesterday. I was wakling back along the side of the road to get a picture of something we'd passed, a middle-aged guy in a pick-up pulled over on the other side of the road and stuck his thumb out of his window with a questioning look on his face. I thanked him and told him I was fine, and he drove on. But at least I know that if I need ride, someone out there's willing to stop, though for all I know he had a gun on his lap too.

We met Rich Williams, former president of the NM Rt. 66 Association, at the Rt. 66 Diner in Albuquerque. He was a pretty cool guy, and he brought us NM 66 pins and bought our lunch. He also shared some interesting information about Route 66:

Downtown Albuquerque has invested in signs and even trash cans bearing the Route 66 name.

Much of New Mexico remains virtually the same as it was years ago because the state is too poor for any new development projects, according to Rich. (However, we did see that at least the city has money: downtown, there were many newer-looking signs and murals - it looks like they're making quite an effort to revitalize that area. And Interstate Highway funds are still flowing to the state, no matter how poor it is. The major freeway interchange in Albuquerque, I-25 and I-40, is newly completed/redone and has a bright turquoise stripe running along the side.)

After we had turned off the camera and put away the mics, Rich also told us a little about the "darker" side of 66. Of course he mentioned "Bloody 66" and the accidents that many others have told us about. But he also discussed the fact that Route 66 catered mostly to white travelers; many establishments, he said, discriminated against blacks, Hispanics, Indians, Japanese, etc. Finally, he talked a bit about the workers who built 66 and the conditions they worked under, as well as bringing up the Okies and Arkies that never made it to California and either died or got stuck somewhere and had to eek out a living there for the rest of their lives.

After that, we headed up to Santa Fe. There really wasn't much Route 66 related stuff to see up there, as this alignment was already bypassed in 1937, but the shops around the plaza (as well as the people there) were interesting and well worth the trip. Rather than finish the pre-1937 "hook" alignment (Albuquerque -> Santa Fe -> Santa Rosa), we took another highway (285) down from Santa Fe to Cline's Corners, which boasts the largest Route 66 curio shop (according to the "Here It Is" map series) and is about halfway on the "straight" road from Albuquerque to Santa Rosa. Cline's Corners didn't end up being all that interesting: though they're the largest curio shop we've seen on 66, they don't have much 66 stuff. And fudge is $3.50 per 1/4 pound!! But the drive down was some pretty cool scenery, and we saw an amazing sunset on the way.

One of the cars at Bozo's Route 66 Auto Museum in Santa Rosa, NM.

Today we spent almost all day in Santa Rosa, NM... now that we're finally on (ahead of, actually) schedule, we had time to really do all we wanted to. Pretty much every business in town that caters to the road got a visit from us, so we got a lot of interviews. And, of course, those are like pictures: do a lot, and you'll have a few really good ones. So we added an interview with Joseph Campos (the mayor) and "Bozo" the Rt. 66 Auto Museum owner to our list of really interesting interviews. We also saw a few interesting things: Santa Rosa is a little unique for the desert due to the fact that it has lakes (the first real water we've seen since the CO river) for residents and travelers. One of these is the Blue Hole, 81 feet deep and consistently 61 degrees... its caves are a constant destination for scuba divers. Another interesting thing about Santa Rosa is that it is currently redoing parts of Rt 66, a project that has a price tag of millions. Sixty-six, by the time the project is complete, will have gone from two lanes to five (two in each direction and a turn lane) and will have new sidewalks for pedestrians. Maybe it'll even have traffic signals; we didn't ask the mayor about it, but Shekar later noticed that there were no traffic lights in Santa Rosa, which seems strange given all the traffic that used to come through the town on 66.