Route 66 TEXAS & NEW MEXICO Best Roadside Attractions 🇺🇲

Coming up we visit the Painted Desert, Julia takes a tumble and Gangsy leaves his mind. We're back on the road again and we're going to Geronimo where apparently there's the world's largest petrified tree so that's gotta be worth seeing isn't it? Well it's on the roof you might as well. Yeah big skinny tree. Big exit 280. Oh here we go here's the trading post. I wonder where the big petrified tree is. I wonder if that's it there. So we've just found, this is like petrified trees and it feels like stone. It's got a really unusual feeling hasn't it? Yeah and there clearly are trees because you can see the rings to denote the age. I'm not sure if this is the world's biggest piece. Hasn't got anything around it. Plastic shop so that is the world's largest petrified tree out there and there's a process that takes place over millions of years and it's more about how it's flooded and the minerals get into the wood isn't it Gary? Yeah the wood obviously lies underwater for so long that the minerals in the water replace the cells of the wood. Wow and we're actually going to go and see the petrified forest today. Absolutely love these. I mean they're not in our price range to be honest but they're so smooth. Look at the colours of the petrified wood. This one's four thousand eight hundred dollars so I won't be getting that today unfortunately but they're just beautiful. So we're in Holbrook and you'll see that here is the wigwam hotel. You can stay in these little wigwams, sleep in a wigwam. That's what it looks like. Oh look they've got doors. There's a little blue pulley van. Great little restaurant on the 66 Colonel Mustard. So we're going to go in here. I think they do a gyros. So we're right made up. Our food looks amazing doesn't it? So I've got a nice little gyros. I haven't had gyros pitta for ages. Gary's got like chilli fries but I think we're probably going to share it all. We took exit 311 off the 40 and we're going to go and see the petrified forest. It's a national park so we should be able to get in no problems with our America is beautiful card. Private vehicle is 25 dollars, motorbike 20 per person 15. Now hopefully we've got no issue with our card. We've just got out of the motorhome. At the very first stop we've been in the park one second and this is what's greeted us. I don't think we were expecting it to be quite so beautiful were we Gary? It's amazing. Look at all those colours and there's a lake over there as well. We've got the whole park to go through. Do we know how many miles it is? I think it's 34. There's a loop that you can drive the entire way through. Oh my gosh it's absolutely stunning. And it's so it's about what time is it about three o'clock in the afternoon? Yep. It's boiling hot still isn't it? What do you reckon it's about 20 30? Probably 25. Oh my gosh this is amazing. It didn't cost us anything obviously because of our America is beautiful pass and it is beautiful look at this. There's the Painted Desert Hotel which is the gift shop and bits and pieces now but it's fantastic and then outside you've got this. It's utterly breathtaking isn't it Gary? Inside the Painted Desert Inn. It's absolutely gorgeous. Here is the old Painted Desert Inn fountain menu and the price is incredible. You're seeing plain ice cream 15 cents, cup of milk or a coffee for 10 cents and then they've got this wonderful menu here and a full salad was like 35 cents, coleslaw 25 cents, sandwiches and hot sandwiches were 75 cents. Gosh it's a good job they're not that price anymore. I'm already big enough as it is these days. How interesting is that? So there is an area that they've dedicated for Route 66 because we're right on the point where Route 66 used to run through and all of the telegraph poles is where it used to run along. In a fantastic stroke of luck as you come out of the petrified forest you get to Crystal Forest RV campground and you're allowed to park here free as long as you're boondocking so like with absolutely no electricity or anything. We're just about to leave this lovely camp up. Honestly it's been brilliant hasn't it? It's been really nice, nice and quiet as well. It was really quiet last night. I didn't have a great night's sleep but mainly because I've been drinking but other than that I would have had the perfect night's sleep. There was no jennies on or nothing was there? No nothing at all. It was really quiet and just a really nice atmosphere. Thank you very much Crystal Forest RV Park. It was brilliant but we're now going to go back through the petrified forest and through the Painted Desert and see it for the second time. We saw it last night coming down here but we were really tired weren't we? So we didn't stop off at many spots. We'll show you a little bit of it as we go through but we're going to just enjoy our day and head towards New Mexico. We just had a right laugh with the guy entering. It was the same guy that was on the other side when we came in so we had a right laugh with him. Really lovely staff at these parks and they work really they work really long hours. They do yeah and they're just lovely as well. Yeah oh it's so nice it's a gorgeous day as well. The petrified wood is just beautiful. There's loads of it here, all different shapes and sizes. Gosh you can see why it's called the rainbow area. Look at that colours in that rock. All of this, they're all so unique. It's really hard to describe the colours that we're seeing. They're just magnificent and it's hard to believe that this is wood. It's rock solid. Look at that. Reminds me of the Rock of Gibraltar. It's almost like a tiny version of it which is one of our favourite places and we're at the Crystal Forest here aren't we? Yeah. Loads of trails here. The Crystal Forest trails just over a kilometre as well and collecting petrified wood is obviously illegal. They're so beautiful and if everybody collected it, Christ I'd have none left. It's really gorgeous up here. There's loads of trails isn't there? Yeah. Just behind us like everywhere. We're stood in the shade at the moment. It's really boiling. Another fabulous national park. There's a tree that fell over the water and it's created its own bridge. It's incredible. Have they put concrete underneath it Gary or something do you think? We're just about to leave our park up for the night aren't we? We are in Sanders. It's not a bad one. It's right outside the library here. I'll show you in a second what it looks like. It's quite noisy. You can still hear that i40 but I don't think anywhere along this route if you're doing a bit of boondocking you're going to get away with a quiet night. Not unless you travel a good mile away from the road. Yeah but it was great and we didn't get disturbed at all did we last night? Not at all. So here's where we parked up. We're right at a row of trees and this is the car park. The library is over there. The i40 is over there. I'm just going to stop in Lupton quickly. This is the last town in Arizona for us. Getting into Lupton. 13 feet 11. We've got plenty of room but if you are tall. But we just want to come see this red rock here. Wow look at this rock. It's got some painting on it. Just heading into New Mexico. New Mexico, true as it welcomes you. They've got the balloon there for the balloon festival. Just about to turn off. We've got one of them things in the road. We're turning off into Gallup and this will take us back onto the 66 we believe. Most patriotic small town in America. Population 21,678. Elevation 6,512. Oh gosh it's quite high up. So we're going to head to Jerry's which is in Gallup and we're going to have a bit of Mexican food. We're actually really hungry. We've just lost an hour so the clocks have gone forward. But that means that we're a little bit closer in time to the UK time. We're only seven hours behind you guys now which is a little bit easier to be able to talk to my kids and my family. Let's have a look see what it's all about. Is it busy? Gosh it is quite busy. So there's a little bit of a wait for the food in there. So that's all right. It looks really packed which is always a good sign that it must be really good. So we're excited to get called in but it's so windy here today. Like sand keeps blowing in my mouth and everything. So the menu is amazing isn't it? I'm just going for some sort of it's called a beef sofafia or something. I'm going to pronounce that wrong so excuse me anyone that speaks very good Mexican. So I'm going for that and what are you getting? I'm getting Miguel's Delight. He's getting Miguel's Delight and it sounds gorgeous. And I've got some tamales on the side. Oh I've only had them once before but my goodness. I reckon these are going to be good tamales. It's got a lovely atmosphere in here and really nice staff isn't it? It does. Okay here's my stuffed beef thing that I can't pronounce. It looks amazing. Gary's got a gorgeous one Miguel's Delight and he's got one of these sofias. It's like a puffed bread thing. That's what mine is but it's got meat in it. What does yours taste like babes? It's amazing. We're really happy with this aren't we? Yeah we really recommend this place. We've saved New Mexico a long time I think. What like parked outside this restaurant? Yes. We've just left the Awesome Jerry's which we really highly recommend. There's a massive cowboy here and there's one here. We're just going to get in the van now because it's so windy back on route 66 in Gallup. The El Rancho Hotel. Now this one was very popular in the sort of 40s and 50s with film stars. They stayed along here. It's still going so you can stay there. Even Gallup and the scenery is amazing. We're on the 66 here and the 40s just there to the right hand side. Can you guess where we are? Grandes New Mexico. How fantastic is this? We've also got the Fire and Ice Park straight over the road. A park to look around. You can see this beautiful sunset as we're heading towards Albuquerque. We're 13 miles out from destination. Look at that. We managed to find a brilliant boondocking spot just outside the Petroglyph Park. They do close the gate off at night but it was perfect for one nighter. So we've been in the States for seven months now traveling around in our UK registered motorhome and we're now at a crossroads. We've got two months left to go and we're like what should we do? So Gary what have we decided? So today we're going to go around and look at some of the RV dealers in Albuquerque where we are at the moment to see what's on the market because one of our options is actually to buy one over here, register it here and then just come back and forth visiting it. So I've just taken a right old tumble down the bloody stairs and twisted my knee. I tell you what these are high to get in and out of. I'd need more railing Gary. Hey everyone. So we've been in Tucumcari for about 10 days now haven't we babes? Yes. Hold up in a motel room. Gosh I've not been able to walk. It's been a bloody nightmare since I took a tumble out of an RV at Camping World. Not that they care. Anyways that's another story. So what we're doing is we're heading to Amarillo today. Unfortunately I still can't walk properly. So we're going to be doing minimum bits and pieces aren't we? Yeah. And actually there's a sign here Route 66 sign and I saw it on Facebook or something. I thought I must go and see that and somebody had said they didn't realise until they took the picture that there was a tarantula right behind them. So there's tarantulas here. So you know I'm not being funny. I'll jump out of my skin if I see a tarantula. So here in Vega they have this windmill blade with a nice Route 66 mural on the side. You can see how big it is. I mean it's huge because compared to the van at the end there it's massive. And on this one you can actually walk inside. So you can actually see. So all of those have ever wondered what the inside of a windmill blade is like. Then this is what it's like. Steps here. Out of the sun. And wow. So it's fibreglass. It looks like it's made of fibreglass all the way down there with that curve in the roof. Hey so we're back on the Route 66 now today. We've spent a couple of days in the Ashmore Inn and Suites but we're just about to set off and Gary can't close the engine bonnet. Not really quite sure why. Obviously my knee's been quite bad so we decided we were going to stay in a hotel for about five nights and they had a swimming pool so I was able to do some sort of hydrotherapy in the pool and try and get it better. I can walk on it a little bit but not very long unaided so I'm still using crutches a lot but it is a lot better than it was. But this is this is going to be a long long recovery. I think it's going to be another couple of weeks. Gary's finally managed to shut the bonnet. What was wrong with it? So it got so cold last night and there was a bit of rain as well so the rain's got into all the mechanism. Obviously iced in and it just needed a bit of manipulation to break up the ice that was in there and now it's all right. So that's how cold it is. It's freezing. We're in Amarillo so we're going to we're going to do a quick stop before we head on our way. We're going to go and see the Cadillac Ranch. Just arriving at the Cadillac Ranch and look there's just loads of graffiti all over the road as well and on the bins. So there it is. It's just over here. Oh it's really wobbly. Gary's going to try and take us as close as possible because yeah I can walk up there with my crutches. So here it is the Cadillac Ranch. Everybody's sort of leaving their mark on it. It's brilliant. It's really iconic and you can see how far it is from the road. You'll see the motor home there. So this is the longest walk I've done in a couple of weeks actually. Here's Gangsy. So Gangsy what are you putting up there? Right, undercoat and I'm going to put a new life in the van. A new life in the van? I'm going to put YT on there as well. Okay, short for YouTube. Not much in here. Yeah it'll be just a new. Oh no this that's not going to fit. Oh it might. Oh it's got layers upon layers. I mean you can physically see how thick it is. Oh you've done it. Although it, oh dear, it looks like hate mail. A new life in the van. That will ensure we get no more new subscribers. Oh it's brilliant darling. So we are, which one are we? We're the third Cadillac in aren't we? Oh we are. We are. That's why I do something a little bit else. So if you do come this way everyone, take a picture of it and tag us in. We're on Facebook so you know tag us in on Facebook if you do see it because it's probably going to get painted over anyway very soon. But if it doesn't, well that'll be great. Gary's doing something else. I'm not sure what he's doing. Oh it's a bit of a surprise and I'm obviously, I'm on my crutches so it's not so easy. I'm going to do the reveal. What have you done? G and J. G and J. Oh you are romantic you. Come on gangsy. Yeah don't paint over the love heart but please take a picture if you're here. From the Cadillac ranch and you've got the second amendment cowboy. It's brilliant. Look how massive it is and they've got some old beautiful Cadillacs out here. Look at that powder blue one there Gary. My favourite colour. Coming next time someone kisses the Blarney stone. We're in Tulsa and we're also inside a giant whale.