Road to Santa Fe

In Monument Valley, I bought Henry a book called “Navajo Weapon” about the Navajo Code Talkers who served in World War II, and I got a book called “house of Rain” by a man who is tracking the Anasazi people through the Southwest. Both are really good books.

Henry got to reading his book as we left Monument Valley and read the whole way to Santa Fe. Once he starts, he can’t stop.

Apache Casino

Throughout the ride, there were many utterances by Jeff as to the veracity of the Mountain West Directory’s assessments of steep grades. We found ourselves on some steep hills that got the engine hot that weren’t in the book. After awhile, I picked up the angry snap of Jeff’s fingers when he switched the knobs from air conditioning to heat to help keep the engine cool. We read on the RV.net forums that running the heat on uphill climbs helps to keep the engine cool, and it seems to work for us.

After passing through the city of Farmington, we soon entered an Apache Indian Reservation. From the highway, you couldn’t see any houses, in fact the only sign of life was a group of beautiful horses grazing. There were signs for a casino up ahead, and we were surprised to see the casino was in an inflatable tent-like building off the side of the road.

The rest of the ride to Santa Fe was scenic and uneventful. We arrived at the campground around 6:00 p.m. and got settled in for two nights. Jeff remembered some Santa Fe restaurants on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and we found one nine miles down the road from the campground. It’s called Harry’s Roadhouse, and it was packed when we got there – interesting since it was a Monday night. The food was pretty good – but we didn’t think it was really great. I had a flat iron steak with a cheese enchilada. Steak was good – enchilada, not so much. Jeff got turkey enchiladas, but they couldn’t compare to the chicken enchiladas in Grand Junction. Ruth got very daring and ordered a Greek pizza, which she liked, except she thought it was a bit too cheesy and took some of the Feta off Henry got a hamburger, which was very good.

My aunt and uncle live in Taos, New Mexico, about 90 minutes north of Santa Fe, so I called them up and asked if they were up for visitors. We made plans to head up the following day, and then called it a night.