Third day, May 30: from Santa Fe’ to Gallup

Before leaving Santa Fe’ our guide Stefano did a briefing in which he explained, especially to us who were starting Route 66 West, some things about the trip, things that are integrated here in some parts of my story. One of the most important is that during the Tour you don’t drink alcol, or rather, you don’t drink during the motorcycle ride, in the evening you drink free! In fact, on the trailer attached to the escort van, driven by the excellent Mick, In addition to the spare motorcycle and various tools, there was a large portable fridge full of beer cans! As soon as we stopped at our destination every day, Mick passed by with a bucket full of cans And he gave them to each of us, while we were close to the motorcycles and still to take the key to our room. In America, however, you can’t drink alcohol in open places, often at the exit of the premises there is a sign that warns of this prohibition.

Speaking of meals… mine was a holiday totally on a motorcycle, in the evening you arrived at your destination quite tired and with little desire to go around to find a place to eat different from the usual Burger or Tacos and Burritos, so I only ate that, apart from a couple of times unlikely pizzas. Only at the Grand Canyon Village we went to a Steakhouse, convinced we could eat maybe a T-bone and instead not, the photo below is what they served us, you want also because it was late… Yes, here we have dinner early and then we were in an isolated area, a few kilometers from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

We depart from the Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza hotel to Gallup, an ancient city of the West, inhabited mainly by Native Americans of the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni tribes. But before arriving in Gallup we first made a stop at Mádrid (pronounced with an accent on the letter A), a settlement of a few houses, mainly inhabited by artists, along the Turquoise Trail. Among the curiosities of the place there is the famous Maggie’s Diner, immortalized from the movie “Wild Hogs”, known in Italy with the title “Svalvolati on the Road”! Once we left, after a few kilometers, we stopped in a clearing on the side of the road to observe the vastness of the territory, mainly desert. In the distance Stefano made us see the presence of an “Indian” settlement (I prefer to call them “natives”) of the Acoma tribe. In Gallup we stayed at the Best Western Plus Gallup, a short distance from El Rancho Historic Motel & Hotel, a place full of photographs of actors and directors who came to the area to have an environment suitable for shooting western films, who then stayed at El Rancho. We had dinner right there and dinner was offered by Eagle Rider.

On the road, since these first days, we were all together in a column, at lunch and dinner we were always a bit divided, sometimes most of them in the same place, but we Italians from the second part of Route 66 were always together: Marco and Chiara were really nice, we bonded right away and we had a lot of fun, I always said that they had “adopted” me! There were also other Italians: a couple from Cuneo, one from Emilia, one from Milan. Others came from Spain, Paraguay and another nation that I don’t remember anymore. We Italians were the only HOGs of the group and we were also the only ones to own a Harley Davidson, the others had BMW and more.

Another interesting thing about driving in the United States, which I find very intelligent, is that at intersections the traffic lights are not in front of the vehicle stopped at the stop but on the other side of the intersection, as in the photographs below, taken by Chiara when we were in Los Angeles. This way you don’t have to stand still in the car with your head in the windshield waiting for the green to turn on.