Since our last posting (no wi-fi last night), we have driven through the Springerville area of northeastern AZ at an elevation of nearly 7,000 feet and on into New Mexico.

Springerville was officially named for Henry Springer's trading post in 1876. Remember the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, AZ involving the Earp brothers and the Clanton boys?  Ike Clanton who was present at the shoot-out was killed in Springerville in 1887 by detective Jonas V. Brighton when he resisted arrest on charges of cattle rustling.  The wild west was real, folks, and Arizona and New Mexico were full of action.

We spent the night in the small New Mexico town of Quemado where I had a tamale and Sopaipillas and honey, something I haven't had in 25 years.  They are a type of fried puff pastry that taste a lot like Navajo fry bread but are hollow inside - just perfect to drizzle a bit of honey inside.  It is not a treat that is easy to eat - honey is liable to drip everywhere, but when it tastes that good, who cares. 

In the little town of Pie Town, NM, there is definitely P-I-E!  Joe and I had pie for breakfast and it was so good we each got 2 pieces.

I can definitely say that the last couple of days, for me at least, the food has been the highlight of the trip.  I would say for Joe, the food highlight would have been the King Crab legs in Juneau, AK.  My vote is for Navajo fry bread, sopaipillas, tamales and P-I-E.  Now we will definitely have to settle down and be good and eat as we should.

We stopped in Magdalena which used to be like Witchita, KS in that it was a railhead for cattle shipments.  We traveled along what was the last regularly-used cattle trail, formally called the Magdalena Livestock Driveway over which cattle from eastern Arizona and western NM were driven to the railhead in Magdalena for shipment to market.  Being a history buff, I can easily put myself back in time and imagine instead of a paved road, a mass of cattle lowing, dust billowing from hundreds of hooves being driven in the heat of the New Mexico sun.

In Magdalena, we stopped for gas and to our surprise, a young boy by the name of Zeb Apachito came up to admire the car.  He had seen it in Springerville the day before and hadn't had the chance to tell us how much he liked it.  He had been so disappointed in Springerville, so you can imagine how excited he was to see us again.  Joe took him for a ride down the main street of Magdalena and blew his car whistle - the one that sounds like a train whistle.  That was one excited boy.  Maybe someday he will get the opportunity to return the favor of a ride for a young boy in his old car.  

Our travels this afternoon brought us along parts of old Route 66 into Albuquerque. Joe is going to have the neck to the radiator repaired tomorrow morning so we'll probably spend the night again in Albuquerque or close by.  My only request is that we go to the "Jackalope".  This is a fantastic store in Albuquerque that I have known for about 30 years.  It is full of folk art from Mexico and all over the world, pottery, rugs - really unusual stuff.   

Sorry, folks.  No pictures tonight.  We went to Staples to have something checked on the computer and now I can't retrieve the photos I KNOW are saved and named. Maybe my mind will be fresher in the morning and I can figure it out or maybe we'll just have to go back to Staples and have them figure out what they did to sabotage my computer!