The Route 66 Chick

On Sunday my daughter, Erica Jett, and I went to the opening festivities of the New Mexico History Museum's new permanent exhibit, Setting the Standard:  The Fred Harvey Company and Its Legacy . There was a huge crowd, including former Harvey Girls and members of the Harvey family. New Mexicans and others have been getting hungry for the Fred Harvey story, fanned by the flames of Stephen Fried's excellent book, Appetite for America:  Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West - One Meal at a Time. The New Mexico History Museum staff must have felt very gratified by the immense interest and excellent attendance yesterday. Four showings during the day of Katrina Parks' documentary The Harvey Girls:  Opportunity Bound  appeared to all have been packed in the auditorium with overflow space in the lobby also being utilized. The 57-minute film was wonderfully done and included numerous delightful interviews with former Harvey Girls.  The 2:00 pm ...

It's virtually impossible to be in Albuquerque and not find yourself on Central Avenue/Route 66. Besides the soaring “Big I” and its interstate arteries, I-40 and I-25, Central is still the lifeblood of the city. I can remember stops on 66/Central when I was a child on trips with my parents. I can still recall the purple sunset and the lights up and down Central. Since daughter's college days and also since my own research trips when I went back for a master's degree a dozen years ago (did my master's at SIUE, but did a lot of my research at UNM), UNM has been a frequent stop over the years for concerts, recitals, library, or book store. And across Central from UNM is the great Frontier, with its smiling 'green light – it's your turn to order' fast, efficient service. The Frontier is celebrating its thirty-year anniversary, and it's a success story that's well deserved. It's hard to eat at the Frontier and not run into someone you know...

Red and green chile, walks in the sunshine, family time with daughter, son-in-law and co-in-laws, great food, Isotopes baseball, and the dry, sweet, clean air – these are the things I look forward to on each trip to Albuquerque. We scored on almost everything this trip except the weather and the baseball game. Of course, I was looking forward to sunny, warm, dry weather. I seldom even think about the weather when I'm headed to New Mexico, because it's always so dependably wonderful. But this time, I arrived just in time for close to a week of rainy, overcast, chilly weather – and it's not even monsoon season yet. Rainy mountain view outside Santa Fe. We had game tickets for Sunday night and it was a rain-out. Disappointing, but we did go see “Godzilla” instead, with New Mexico's beloved Bryan Cranston in one of the major roles. Good movie, great effects. But back to baseball. One of the hot news stories in Albuquerque was the dugout brawl between Isotopes...

On Wednesday night, I changed trains in Kansas City, from the short-run Missouri River Runner to the Southwest Chief, which runs Chicago to California. We were late upon arrival (about midnight) in Kansas City, but the Chief was held for us. Thankfully. Sleeping in a train coach is a real challenge, but still preferable to the hard benches in the Amtrak section of the magnificent (but not necessarily comfortable) Kansas City Union Station. On Thursday morning, I woke up to early light in the rolling plains of western Kansas and I parted the window curtains to start watching the passing sights. Grain elevators, dusty red roads, a man fixing a wheel, a German Shepherd lolling on cool concrete, water running full in an irrigation ditch. Then we were into the southeastern corner of Colorado, where the terrain changes again. We glided between low gray mesas dotted with scrub oak and mesquite. The sky was overcast with only occasional peeks of sunshine, so there weren't good v...