I’d already been driving for well over an hour when I pulled off the freeway for gas, and to capture the sunrise I could only see in my rearview mirror. Leaving Tucumcari shortly after 5:30 meant no return visit to Kix On 66, which Caroline and I visited last year because they don’t open until 6:00. That was okay, or so I thought, as I’d be passing Santa Rosa further west, where we’d had the best breakfast burritos ever at Lulu’s Kitchen On Route 66, except it turns out that they are closed on weekends; I’ve been foiled. Option number three would be a winner, too: I’d hold out to the other side of Albuquerque and grab a truly great green chili burger at Laguna Burger at the Laguna Pueblo. That didn’t work out either, as they were still serving breakfast at 10:30 and wouldn’t make me a burger.

It wasn’t until I reached Gallup, New Mexico, 310 miles (500 km) away from Tucumcari, that I’d get a Navajo variation of the green chili burger at Earl’s Family Restaurant. I skipped looking at the menu and asked if they had a green chili burger; I was assured they did, so I told the server to bring me one. I was surprised when, under a heap of cheesy fries and green chilies mixed with Fritos, I found the burger underneath it all, served open-face. My other surprise was looking around me at the approximately 100 Navajo customers; I appeared to be the only white guy and knew I was at the right place.

Reentering the Southwestern United States is a powerful reminder of just how different the landscapes are, with the effect on the senses best being realized when approaching slowly on roads instead of flying in.

Another great benefit of a slow approach is that, at some point, you can tune in to KTNN – The Voice of the Navajo Nation on AM 660. But then today, I learned something fantastic: KTNN is now broadcasting on FM radio at 101.5, though that will do nothing for you unless you are within range of their signal, so if you go to KTNNonline.com, you can tune into what is being listened to over parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. Even if you don’t like Country & Western or Powwow music, pay special attention to the ads and when the announcers come on, as they often speak Navajo mixed with a bit of English.

Somewhere along the drive home between Heber and Payson, I let Caroline in on the secret that I was only about two hours away from her.

It was back in Adrian, Texas, where the first glimpse of the Southwest came into view, but it’s not until nearly reaching Phoenix from the north that you’ll encounter the mighty saguaro cactus. Something else about this landscape is that you may not appreciate it as much when you are living here as you will after being gone for an extended period of time and then returning to its stark ruggedness.

While romanticizing the desert, I still find it impossible to do the same for the city I’m about to drive into. I’m on the edge of Fountain Hills, and the temperature at the end of September is still burning at a mid-summer heat of 116 degrees (46.6 Celsius). While that is a heavy reality check, I’m only about 45 minutes from getting home to the person who will be genuinely happy to see me, just as I am to see her. Our vacation is officially over.

It’s been an intense six weeks, traveling to Oregon for a month, coming home for 72 hours, leaving for Santa Fe, plus the activity around those adventures required to make them happen. Now we need to go home. Enthusiasm a few days ago had big ideas for how Sunday would play out, but in the face of a reality where not quite exhaustion but a certain tiredness is swirling about, those plans, whatever they were, are being put to the side because we just want to get home and hibernate in the nest. But we’re not yet so old that we’d capitulate to the demands of sleep, so with some finessing the story, we’ll try to appear to have been busy, even though our return trip will be a pretty direct shot back to Phoenix.

In Santa Fe, we don’t only eat at the Pantry; we also try getting a meal in at Tia Sophia’s, preferably on a Sunday morning before the tourists descend into the Santa Fe Plaza and while the Monday-through-Friday crowd is sleeping in. And though we showed up early, we’d still be about a dozen behind others who lined up while we went for a short walk. In a second, we knew what we wanted: Caroline opted for the Huevos Rancheros with green chile for $12.50, and I ordered the Cheese Enchiladas with two fried eggs served Christmas style (red and green), also for $12.50, though there was an upcharge for the eggs. I’m noting these prices because Caroline recently commented on how nice it was that we used to include the cost of gas or motels in blog entries frequently and that she likes being able to compare between then and now. Regarding the wall art menus painted by younger customers, this is the Zozobra, a representation of worries and gloom. Once a year (this year is the 100th anniversary), a 50-foot tall (15-meter) effigy is burned to great fanfare. We were supposed to be on hand for this momentous event this year, but it turns out that we’ll be on vacation far from Santa Fe, New Mexico, at that time.

The historic core of this city would surely benefit from being a pedestrian-only zone. I know it helps with our ability to take photos when the streets are still mostly empty of the hundreds of parked cars that will spoil the view later in the day.

We are across the street and around the corner from the famous Inn of Five Graces that Caroline and I will never stay at. Not that we wouldn’t like to, but at over $1300 a night (€1,200), unless we visit in the late fall or winter when we can book a cheap room for only $875 a night, we won’t be affording a weekend here any time soon. I do wonder what it would be like to not care about the expense and book a week in one of the upgraded suites, drop $15,000 for the experience, and just hang out in the vibe to write and have no concerns about the worries that plague the frugal and poor.

This is the San Miguel Mission, said to be the oldest church in the United States dating to between 1610-1626. This was our hoped-for destination had we been able to arrive earlier in Santa Fe on Thursday. Someday we’ll poke our heads through the doors and see the inside for ourselves.

There’s something to be said about the visual acuity of eyes that tease out details from the shadows that our cameras perform rather poorly. I could use my phone for some horrid HDR attempts at lighting this, and at times, it does okay when viewed on my phone, but past that, they don’t survive the quality test over the long run. I could shoot HDR using my DSLR, but I’m not serious enough about this craft to travel with my tripod, so I’ll accept the poorly lit shadows while reserving the right to find yet one more thing to whine about.

What I don’t need to lament is the allegedly awesome green chile burgers found at a gas station in Laguna, New Mexico, because the reviews are correct: they are awesome indeed. No factory-formed patties or lean meat here, just a cooked-to-order massive half-pound burger with a good portion of green chiles thrown on top, though next time, I’ll probably ask for double chile. Their milkshakes are also in a league of quality that should draw people in. Sadly, we skipped their fries because even splitting the burger was difficult, considering we’d just eaten breakfast a couple of hours earlier, all the more reason to stop in again. The hole-in-the-wall joint is found at the Route 66 Pit Stop at Laguna Pueblo.

There might be five people still living here in Lupton, Arizona, on the border with New Mexico, but likely not more than that. This is nearly a ghost town here in 2024, but decades ago, in the heyday of American travel, these outposts in the middle of nowhere were magical places where many people had their first encounters with the exotic world of Native Americans and the Old West. Back then, a road trip truly meant leisure travel, with people taking their time to reach destinations, compared to today’s travel where the stuff between are inconveniences.

Indian Village Trading Post, also in Lupton, Arizona, once had a vibrant mural, but after the abandonment of the shop, just like everything else, things continue to fade under the relentless sun.

Even the Painted Cliffs Welcome Center is now closed, although the public toilets are still maintained. Aside from encountering this antlion (Vella fallax texana) in its mating form and just learning that you can see this area in the 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath, there’s a sense of the tragic felt when stopping here by those of us who feel some nostalgia for the golden age of car travel in America. When I think about what I really experience out here at rest stops along our highways, I’m saddened by the plastic bottles of urine tossed out of windows, diapers, tons of toilet paper, cans, and fast food trash. Then there’s the hyper-aggression of the drivers bent on being anywhere other than where they are. I wonder how many are actually unhappy with themselves and are effectively trying to escape their inner turmoil as they race into impatience.

Hints of monsoon were on the horizon, and lucky us, we drove right into the maelstrom, but not only that, the storm followed us home. Once it arrived in Phoenix at night, we were treated to hail, rolling thunder, and a microburst that took out hundreds of trees between our place and Caroline’s office in Scottsdale. Now that we’re back home, we are taking a breather and are looking forward to not going anywhere for a solid two weeks.