Day 26- Wednesday, April 13 - Holbrook, AZ to Dalhart, TX

Starting mileage:  80415 Starting time:7:00 am
Ending mileage: 80914 Ending time: 5:00 pm
Travel mileage:  499 Travel time: 8:00 hours (not counting 2 hour time change)

A chilly morning with temperatures only in the 20s but bright and sunny.

Breakfast at the hotel was memorable but not in a good way. At 6:30am, the coffee was only lukewarm. When one guest commented on this, the attendant suggested putting it in the microwave for 30 seconds!

We bought gas shortly after getting into New Mexico at $3.92/gallon, getting cheaper as we head away from California.😀

To the north of I-40, there were many spectacular red sandstone cliffs and sharp-sided mesas off to the distance. There is a lot of scrubby rangeland with short grass, yuccas and some cholla cactus.

It was interesting seeing billboards catering to women truckers, with a photo of a woman and touting well-lighted parking or clean bathrooms. We like the truck stops as they generally have nice clean bathrooms.

Near Albuquerque we could see the snow-covered top of Mt. Taylor, a little over 11,000' and the tallest mountain in New Mexico.

We passed lava beds that didn't look that old but were actually part of the last lava flow in New Mexico, 3900 years ago. These are along I-40 at the northern edge of the El Malpais National Monument which encompasses volcanoes, lava tubes and lava beds from 700,000 to 3900 years ago. It would have been interesting to explore if we had more time.

We passed over the continental divide at 7,200', west of Albuquerque. To the west, water drains into the Colorado River and to the east, into the Rio Grande River.

Much of I-40 follows and replaces the old route 66. Many of the exits mention "historic route 66". Sadly, there are the ruins of many gas stations, motels and other businesses along the old route which went out of business when bypassed by the interstate when it was built in the 1960s. I remember traveling along route 66 around 1960 when traveling out west with my grandparents.

The wind has been pretty fierce much of the day with gusts up to 40 and 50 mph. We passed a large wind farm at one point - good to see. At times, tumble-weed blew across the road in front of us.

We entered the Mountain time zone going into New Mexico and then Central time zone going into Texas so we "lost" two hours today.

Instead of continuing on I-40 across the Texas panhandle and into Oklahoma, we decided to take Rt 54 northeast from Tucumcari, NM. We got to our hotel, the Best Western Nursanickel (don't know where the name came from), in Dalhart, TX at 5pm. 

Dalhart is a city of about 7,000 on the border of the the Dallam and Hartley counties - the name is taken from the names of both counties. It is interesting because Dallam is "dry" and Hartley is not. When we went to dinner, we were in Dallam County and had to get a $3 temporary membership in a club in order to be served alcohol in the restaurant!

We had a delicious dinner at the XIT Wood-fired grill of fried dill pickles and Texas-style BBQ with brisket, sausage and pulled pork. For dinner we had complementary bread pudding with bourbon sauce which was also delicious.

Dinner at the XIT steakhouse and BBQ

"Membership" card allowing us to be served alcohol