Grants, where we stayed for a night on a "normal", private campground, is located by historic Route 66. We soon remembered that this route runs along a railroad, one of the busiest in US - all night long we heared trains passing by. We will follow it for a while so we will see many of them. Our railway people could learn a lot about efficient use of railroads - trains go one after anothes, sometimes they are pulled by four, sometimes by five engines. And of these cars, there are forty or more… or maybe even hundered, as we actually counted one of them. To make it even more efficient most of the wagons are really platforms with containers. Usually two - one on top of the other.
Both Route 66 and the railroad ran through small and big towns. And very often right through their centers. That must have been no fun at all, especially that there is so many of those trains that they block the roads for quite a few hours each day. And they are really noisy.
Grants was lucky, railroad passed it by mile or two south. Just like now Interstate 40. The town is now trying really hard to grab some attention that Route 66 gets and sell some souvenirs, but is not doing too well. Polish journalist Wojciech Orliński in his book "Route 66 Does Not Exist" gave Gallup as an example of poor town on the route. But Gallup compared to Grants is a real metropoly. Grants is a place with houses falling apart and Indians with food stamps. Laundromat is twice as expensive as in any RV Resort, that's life, poor people usually have to pay more.
We used Grants for laundry and shopping, but we also tasted some local cultural life. On top of Walmart and laundry place there is also a museum dedicated to uranium mining. For 3 USD per person (kids free) you can go underground to artifiicial mine drift and see what miner's work looked like. It's a little bit confusing when you see pictures on the wall showing that uranium mines were open-pit... Maybe at first it was different.
Next day we left around noon. We didn't feel like going back to the interstate, so we stayed at Route 66. The landscape mad us feel like Lightening McQuinn. It's not entirely as in "Cars", where the interstate runs straight through mountains cut in half, and Route 66 winds, turns, goes up and down. Sometimes it even seems that they did more work on old route than on interstate and now trucks have to climb slowly and turn sharply, and "66" hides in half-tunnels. Anyway, the inspiration for the movie (which Pawel thinks is one of the best movies ever) are obvious.
We reached Gallup, not a very pretty town, being famous mostly for being on the famous route (with much better result than Grants). On top of a few not the best restaurants that remember better times there are lots of trading posts selling Indian souvenirs. Advice for travelers: it's better to buy souvenirs in shops before Gallup, right on Continental Divide (which, for some reason, we cross again) or after Gallup towards west, there are lots of trading posts there. But for some reason we've decided to do our shopping in Gallup where selection was worse and prices higher.
After long search, just before 6 pm we ended up in a shop run by two Arabic-looking women. There was a calendar in the back with Golden Dome in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and poster with proud Jaser Arafat. Contrasting a bit with all the Indian souvenirs, but if you let your imagination wonder you might find some similarities between Palestinians and Indians. So why wouldn't they all live in land of Navajo.
As we found out from short small talk there are around 60 Arabic families living in Gallup. That's why there is a nice mosque with minaret, we passed when we entered Gallup. It reminded us of Libya. Nafusa Mountains, rocky desert and lonely mosque... It took us a while to remember we're not in Africa but on the border between New Mexico and Arizona.
Palestinian women didn't want to bargain, saying it's difficult to make ends meet anyway. You know - one of them said - if you want to make money here, you have to sell vodka, and we wanted to sell something more halal. We could also have a restaurant but locals might not like Arabic food... - she added. We didn't bargain much, but for small talk in Arabic we got a discount.
Exhausted by all the shopping we got to our next stop: campsite by the gift shop at the entrance to Petrified Forrest, next attraction on our way. Of course, as usually, we got there late: gates to Petrified Forest close at 5 pm and and we were there at 5.15. Our campsite was just across the park but we had to go all the way around it. We got there after 6.
Temperature at night was more bearable, some 2-3 C (36 F), so there were not only other RVs around but also some tough guys in tents. They are bikers. Bikers in New Mexico and then in Arizona are a good indicator of road difficulty. As soon as we see them on the road we can expect steep hillls. That is why we prefer not to see them. Early we go to sleep to be prepared for Petrified Forest.
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