Billy Connolly's Route 66_ The Big Yin on the Ultimate American Road Trip - Billy Connolly [86]
Almost perfectly square in shape, New Mexico has more history than any other state along Route 66, with Native American Pueblo dwellings dotted along the road. But it also has its fair share of the bizarre, outlandish and freaky often found along the Mother Road. South of Albuquerque, for instance, there’s a town named after a 1950s radio quiz show. The programme’s producers offered to rock up and record the next episode anywhere that was prepared to change its name to the title of the show. That’s why some seven thousand people now live in a town called Truth or Consequences rather than Hot Springs.
From Glenrio, I rode straight through to Santa Fe, a distance of nearly 250 miles. Once again, I was buffeted by a side wind that was beyond belief. It blew me all over the damn place. Sharing the road with big rigs when there were side winds was a double-edged sword. Sometimes I thought the wind would sweep me under one of them and I’d be squashed into the tarmac. At other times, a truck would come along and shield me from the wind. But this was a finely judged thing – if a gust slipped under the truck, or between the truck and its trailer, my shield would become a lethal hazard. I had to keep my wits about me all the time.
Arriving in Santa Fe, I was booked into a hotel in which my wife and I had stayed some years previously. It hadn’t changed a bit. Santa Fe is a beautiful town. It’s full of tourist traps, but I don’t mind that. The stores sell turquoise jewellery and all sorts of beaded things, some of them outstandingly fabulous and very expensive, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s a lovely, relaxed and relaxing place. And the food is great – a blessed relief after all the crap I’d been eating for weeks.
Strictly speaking, Santa Fe wasn’t even on Route 66 during the road’s heyday. When the route was first designated in 1926, everyone expected it to go straight through the town because it was the capital of New Mexico and where the Pecos and Santa Fe trails met. And indeed, for the first eleven years of Route 66, it turned northwest at Santa Rosa, headed up to Santa Fe, then turned back down south to Albuquerque.
However, in 1937, A.T. Hannett, the Governor of New Mexico, was not re-elected and he blamed a ring of powerful lawyers and influential landowners based in Santa Fe. As an act of defiance against this cabal, he re-routed Route 66 directly to Albu querque, bypassing Santa Fe altogether. With just a few months to go before the new governor was inaugurated, Hannett forced the road builders to work seven days a week, including Christmas, to construct a new highway through virgin landscape. The road cut across public and private land, showing complete disregard for ownership rights. By the time the new governor was installed, it was too late for him to do anything about it. Drivers welcomed the change, which shaved more than ninety miles off Route 66 between Santa Rosa and Albuquerque, but in the end Santa Fe benefited, too. The city grew on its own merits, without relying on Route 66 traffic, so when the road was decommissioned Santa Fe was unaffected, unlike most places along the route. Its isolation also meant it developed in a unique way. It’s a beautiful city of adobe buildings, with none taller than three storeys. I’d strongly advise you to make the detour off Route 66 and have a look.
I’d come to Santa Fe to experience a miracle. At least, that’s what I’d been told. I don’t believe in miracles or the supernatural, but I don’t have a problem with anyone who does. So I was quite looking forward to my visit to the Loretto Chapel, a charming former Roman Catholic church in the shadow of St Francis Cathedral on the fringes of the downtown area. The oddest thing about the chapel is that it has no priests. Introduced to someone who was described