Winslow to Albuquerque

 Good sleep, hot shower and yogurt / fruit bar at the hotel. Then gas and go. We needed another 300+ mile day to get to Albuquerque by tonight but still wanted to see some side roads. Took Rt 40 for 50 miles or so and went SE on Rt 180 so we could come back up through the Petrified forest park. Light traffic and cooler today. Petrified is another place they set aside (thanks Teddy Roosevelt) and it is bizarre to ride by these logs made of stone just laying all over. Used Hannah's free park pass and saved $10 (which is the real reason I brought her along). Like all the parks, it is a simple, low budget operation that makes these natural beauties accessible to everyone. Watched the movie at the visitor center and walked around the log/rocks there. Quick version is, trees torn down in some weather event, floated downstream and ended up in river bottoms, then covered by silt / volcano ash, minerals leached into the wood cells and then it all dried, earth crust pushes it all up, wind blows all the ash.silt away and voila, petrified logs. (I should been a park ranger...)
We went to Gallop for lunch and found the oldest restaurant in Gallop which had good south-west food and funky decor. Perfect! Old newspapers, 50's music, old decor.
From Gallup we went south to cut through the El Malpais Natural Conservation Area. Like most everything we rode through today, this is part of the Painted Desert so we got lots of great views.

We pulled into Grants for one last tankful to get us to Albuquerque and ran into a nice old guy on a beautiful 1969 BWM. It looked like it just rolled off the line so I chatted the guy up and he bought it when it was new back in 1969. He said they had a very active BMW group out here and his mission this weekend was to ride to all the old forts and take pictures for the group. Kind of a scavenger hunt thing. I told him of my secret plan to stash my RT out west and then fly out a few times a year to ride it. He thought that could be arranged.
He said the best way to ABQ was on old Rt66 which runs beside the highway for about 35 more miles before it merges with Rt40. We did and it was a nice nostalgic road with the old gas stations and old cars abandoned here and there.
I knew about where Jakes new place was so we ot in Rt15 and got a room at a hotel I have stayed at a couple times, then rode to Jakes. We walked a ways to a pizza place he liked and then took a cab to a barbecue he and the other physics grad students were having. They are either quantum folks and or astrophysics so had a nice evening coming up to speed on how little I know and how minuscule I am in the universe. Ah that old college excitement of new discovery!!
Jake's room-mate, Satomi, gave us all a ride back and Hannah and I limped back to motel, crawled in bed and zonked out.
Now we have 3 days to get back to Vegas...