Day 9, Tucumcari to Santa Fe. Gorgeous dogs and freezing water.

20/8/11 woke up in Tucumcari, New Mexico

We woke up in “Blue Swallow Motel” on the outskirts of Tucumcari. Built in the 40s, the motel became the destination in itself. The Blue Swallow is arguably the most friendly, treasured and well-known motel on Route 66. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Listed on the market last year for 375.000 USD, it’s been purchased by a lovely couple, Kevin and Nancy, and their two gorgeous Golden Retrievers! If you are after something classic. retro with a difference, it’s a must. Also, it’s probably the cheapest one you will ever find.

Dogs at the Blue Swallow

My personal favourite was the view from the bathroom, you also had a feeling you are showering outdoors, when the window was open. It may sound freaky for some of you , but for me it was great.

Our next stop was Santa Rosa, famous for a Route 66 and Auto Museum and then a place called the Blue Hole. museum was pretty cool, the cars were decent, Shane enjoyed it, so I was happy.

Blue hole was awesome. Thanks to the collection of artesian springs in the area, Santa Rosa is also known as the City of Natural Lakes. Blue Hole attracts scuba divers from far and wide, even though the water temperature resembles melting ice, as the visibility of the 80ft deep and 60ft wide hole is amazing.
The freeze did not seem inviting. There were many people jumping into it from the shore or 18ft high wall, but even the drops of water falling on my hands from being splashed whilst people were disappearing in the crystal clear lake were freezing cold. Well, Shane and Leah did not have that problem.

Leah after the jump

Since we are trying to push Leah to do things out of her comfort zone, we encouraged her to do that too. Shane went first and jumped from the highest point available, which was around 20ft. It looks pretty mild from the water level, but things change when you stand on top of the wall, looking into the perfect shade of blue, thinking:” Shit, that looks further than I thought!” But being the bloke he is, there was no turning back and chickening out. So off he went.

Leah wasn’t that quick. She got up there and decided: “no way!”, but after what seemed like 5 hours, tears and wobbling back and forth, she jumped and loved it! Shane managed to talk her into it, but I think the final straw was the 20 USD he promised her for pushing the boundaries and being brave. Whatever works, as long as she is not a pussy, we are going to be happy. She needs to grow big balls, to deal with anything life throws at her, so now we are in the process of “blowing the balls up”. Experience is everything. “Try anything one, twice if you like is”, as someone once said.
I am very proud of her.
I made her watch “Hanna” the other day. For any of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a movie about young girl on a mission to kill her mum murderer. The girl is like a young Lara Croft. She jumps, shoots, kills, speaks several languages.

I thin we are trying to plant some of those qualities into Leah, well, I would hope she is not going to kill anyone but apart from that she should get some inspiration from this film.

After Santa Rosa we headed up north to Santa Fe, through a small, but very pretty town ..Las Vegas! But this one was not the gambling centre of the world.
We had lunch in a mexican restaurant, but the one thing worth mentioning is a cool sign, just off the old town: “Welcome to Las Vegas, a town rich in history. Don’t drink and drive, or you will become history”.

After finally arriving in Santa Fe, we pretty much crashed in the hotel, as it had a nice pool and a fire place next to it. Shane went to the gym, and me and Leah warmed up our asses in the jacuzzi and after over an hour bubbling away, we moved to the awesome fire place mentioned, warming our bits up, as it was pretty “chilly” outside (as I found our, Santa Fe is the highest state capital in USD when it comes to the altitude, so it is not as hot as down in Texas or Arkansas).
After a relaxing afternoon, starving like a bunch of lions on a veggie diet, we called the room service, just to find out that Hilton Santa Fe does not do room service after 10pm. ?!?!

Chilling in Santa Fe

On the town we went. A nice caffe / restaurant was just around the corner. It specialised in healthy foodski, so me and Shane were happy bunnies. Plus it had Kurt Cobain’s portrait on the wall, which is a massive brownie point for me. I like.