Seems Like There's Always Something to Blog About

Today Cousin Sherry and I made an on-time departure from Silver City for the 90-minute drive to Hatch, New Mexico, Chile Capital of the World.  How do I know that this is the Chile Capital of the World?  Because their street sweeping machine said so on its door:

So now you know.

On the way to Hatch we saw a small windfarm, which is hardly notable anymore, but also a solar farm, which was cool.

Hatch has numerous stores dedicated to chiles - both red and green, although I didn't see any wreaths made from green chiles.

We met my aunt and uncle in Hatch because it's on I-25, north of Las Cruces which saves some travel time.  Plus it's home to Sparky's Barbecue which has great barbecue and the regional favorite, green chile cheeseburgers.  And fun decorations.

Aunt Susie and Uncle Terry said that Sparky's used to have a gigantic statue of a pig but that public outcry forced them to move the pig to the outskirts of town.  This is difficult to understand, but I guess the pig crossed the line and violated community standards.

 

Here I am, a bit fuzzy with Colonel Sanders, although I didn't see fried chicken on the menu.

 

And then we were off to Omaha.  I-25 goes north and follows, more or less, the path of the old Camino Real.  At Albuquerque, we turned east onto I-40 which follows, more or less, the path of the old Route 66.

 

One detour we did not take was to the Very Large Array, which is about an hour west of I-25.  You can't do it all.

 

We stopped in Tucumcari for dinner.  This is an old Route 66 town.  When I said something on Facebook about planning to stop there, a friend commented that she'd been through last year and that the town was "abandoned."  That's the right word, although it is not entirely empty.  When we stopped for gas Sherry asked a lady where we could get a bite and she directed us to Del's, which had a great soup and salad bar.  Plus a steer on its sign.

 

There's something about small towns in New Mexico that seems to encourage restaurateurs to put large animal and human figures on their properties (as long as they aren't pigs, of course).  Across the street from Del's was a cute little building that didn't have any large figures on it.

 

 

Then we headed east to Amarillo.  On the way I saw a remarkable salute to multi-culturalism:  a billboard for Dhillon's Truck Stop near San Jon, where the restaurant is called Taste of India.  No large cow figures here.

 

The other notable thing about northeast New Mexico and the Texas panhandle is that the scenery is 100% Old Western Movie Set.  I expected John Wayne to ride up over the horizon, although Sherry said that she hoped he wouldn't.

 

Tonight Aunt Susie, Sherry and I entertained ourselves in Amarillo by watching MSNBC and checking the weather.  Oh, and blogging.

 

Tomorrow we're aiming for Wichita.  See you then.