Tuesday, Aug 14 – Albuquerque, NM to Gallup, NM

I’m getting behind on posting my progress! It’s been a busy couple of days, long drives, work to do for my job, trying to post at the end of the day…

Tuesday we drove through Albuquerque on Route 66. As we cleared civilization, the views became breathtaking!

Few small towns worth writing about, didn’t even take pictures, although we drove as much of Route 66 as possible – until we ran into a flooded road, both Route 66 and I-40 were closed due to a flash flood. About a 40 min delay as 2 front-end loaders and 6 dump trucks with snow plows cleared the mud, debris and standing water off I-40. Fortunately we were at an on-ramp to the freeway and were able to re-join I-40 when they opened the road.

With darkness and rain closing in, we called it a night in Gallup, NM.

Videos of New Mexico Roads

And a few videos of driving through New Mexico.
 
While part of the trip is on I-40, the two-lane roads are reminiscent of days gone by. No shoulders, only grass, winding through the country. This evokes images of yesteryear, I can only imagine what it was like driving through hot New Mexico in a 20s or 30s-era automobile. Thankfully we have air conditioning, great audio and cars that don’t get flat tires in the middle of nowhere.

And we can enjoy great drives!

The Flood

While going through Route 66 east of Gallup, we noticed a long back-up on Route 66. We figured we were pretty lucky until traffic came to a complete stop.

It seems a thunderstorm caused a flash flood that overflowed the culverts and flooded I-40 and Route 66. By the time we arrived on the scene, there was a half-mile back-up and trucks were busy clearing the final debris, mud and water off of I-40 with snowplow-equipped dump trucks.

After the dump trucks and front end loaders cleared the freeway, they pulled off and parked next to flooded Route 66 and they let us back on. First they got the traffic flowing on I-40, two police SUVs pacing traffic very slowly, and then they opened the on-ramp for us, which was conveniently located just before the flooded area.

With darkness approaching, more rain ahead and behind us and lousy headlights on the Vette, we decided to call it a night in Gallup.

You can see in the two videos how much the creek overflowed in what is normally a dry creek in the summer. You can see in the picture how much Route 66 (the service road) was flooded. I-40 was worse before the road crews cleared the mud and debree, and the creek subsided quite a bit. Fortunately, there’s an on-ramp to the freeway, hidden in the pic by brush, and we were on our way. 

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