Day 8 in the big (brother) car

Thursday 21st
Today was the sector from Flagstaff to Albuquerque. (Yes, "Hot dog, jumping frog, !") it was an awesome drive, we drove past a place called "Two Guns" obviously named after Chuck Norris, and I did think about asking for tickets to the gun show, lol. (If you don't get those jokes, then, well, nevermind. :P) we then took a diversion to Meteor Crater, which is on the incredibly aptly named, 'Meteor Crater Road.' when we got there it turned out there was a $15 each admission fee, now, we'd seen the pictures on our special maps, and to be honest, we didn't feel it was worth it, so we headed back to the route, even though i would really liked to have seen it and al the other stuff they had there, it just didn't seem worth the money. Oddly enough, the center (as it is American) is pretty much the first brick building we'd seen! No wonder the slightest wind destroys their towns, they're made of balsa wood! (jokes) we then went through Winslow, definately a one road town, and Joseph City (not very city like) beore leaving the 66 again at holbrook to go down to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, again this is a national park area, so money to get in (25 for yosemite, 25 for grand canyon, 10 for here) and it wasn't very forest like, but that is only to be expected, a) in the middle of the desert, and b) it's caled petrified as the all the water here was replaced underground with silica which was then taken up by the tree's roots and slowly crystalized the tree from within! There are many chunks of trunk lying around with the most amazing colours in them where the silica has crystalized, and all the textures have changed, it really is an odd but very cool thing to see. The painted desert, is rumoured (though I doubt the legitimacy of this) to be the reason colour film was invented. The sand and rocks change colour due to the different types of rock, the silica content and so on, and again, it was very odd to see a hill that started white, went to a lavender colour, then a pale green, and then dusty red at the bottom, but again, very cool. After that we were back on 66, (still the I-40, as many sections are) or about 30 miles, then 66 seperated from the main drag and rang alongside as Frontage Road all the way to Albuquerque, this was the most fun drive so far, seeing all the cars flying along the interstate as you bounce and bump your way along a rollercoaster-like road, with corners and bends and everything. Just after a place called Laguna, we decided to divert down the pre 1937 stretch of 66 that goes about 20 miles south of Albuquerque (man am I getting bored of typing that word) as it was rumoured to be quite a view. We weren't disappointed, the first thing we encountered was a dust and gravel road for a few miles, with big bumps and lots of loose shale, which was incredibly fun to drive, then we hit the south route 6, and meandered through the wilderness for a bit right next to big rock formations with hairpin corners to get round them, it was a truely amazing drive, and we eventually arrived in Albuquerque, on the correct road (Central Ave) at number 4000, our hotel was 13317, so we decided to head to the longer end of the road, and were surprised when the numbers started to decrease. but it's ok readers, as once they hit 0, they started counting back up again. WTF?!? still, we got to our hotel all right in the end! :) and I was then rather allergic to something, possibly the coat that Alana had left in the room which was mostly used previously with horses, the one thing that sets my allergy off worst! doh. so i dosed myself up on drugs, she hid the coat away, I had a shower and went to bed.