From Arizona To New Mexico Via Route 60 (not 66), The Coolest Road You Never Heard Of

By Jim.

“It’s not supposed to be this hot this early in the year.”

That’s the line we kept hearing in Phoenix, It was hot.  100-degrees-every-day-we-were-there hot.  Which didn’t stop us from having a blast (if that sounds like a double entendre suggesting a blast furnace, well…).

We arrived in Phoenix Monday afternoon to some eerie road karma.  As we drove through downtown, consecutive exits on the freeway were Dysart Road and Litchfield Road.  Then the first RV park we went to, in Scottsdale, was one turn off Earl Road.

Tuesday, we played golf with old friends from Connecticut, Ron and Mary Ellen Vance.

They live in a wonderful spot north of Phoenix called Mirabel.  The only problem with the day came when I nearly keeled over sideways on the 16th green.   An hour later, after three Gatorades, some saltines and M&Ms, a bit of quality time on a massage table and lots of ice, I was fine.  Advice to all of you readers – before playing golf in 100-degree heat, eat breakfast.

Wednesday, after Ginny fed me a breakfast that would have bloated an offensive tackle, we went to Mesa to play golf with Keith and Julie Meador, who recently moved from Snoqualmie to Las Sendas.  More great fun, including the drama of having a snake play through us on the first green.

We also had the good fortune of finding an RV repair place in Mesa that fixed a minor water leak on the Iz.  (It’s like a house – there’s always something.)

Thursday morning, we set off on Route 60 east of Phoenix, heading for New Mexico.

Route 66 is the famous one.  Route 60 deserves more love.

The road was a thoroughfare before Interstate 40 was built.  Now it’s a lightly-trafficked two-lane highway through amazing terrain…

…including a mini-Grand Canyon (Salt River Canyon), which we drove down (a 2,000-foot drop), through and back up (2,000 more feet)…

…and even a scorched-earth copper mine (which undoubtedly would be Scott Pruitt’s and Ryan Zinke’s favorite site on the drive).

The drive through Salt River Canyon was right up there with traversing the Pacific Coast Highway and the New Priest Grade, but with banked curves and better guardrails. The scenery in the canyon ran us out of superlatives.

We stopped Thursday night in Springerville, AZ, just short of the New Mexico border, because it was halfway between Phoenix and Santa Fe.  It seemed like a nice enough place until we went into town to buy some groceries, where we overheard two locals talking about how the town water supply is now contaminated.  We went home, turned off the local water feed into the rig (we had enough in our storage tank to suffice) and hit the road especially early Friday morning.

Route 60 isn’t just scenic, it can be user-friendly.  One 20-mile stretch Friday morning was never-move-the-steering-wheel straight.

During that part of the drive, we went past the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which looked like a satellite dish farm connected to a Soviet-era blockhouse.

We were tempted to try to visit it, but it didn’t look all that welcoming.  We also made a mistake by not stopping in Pie Town, NM, population 186, where pie is served at five different roadside places.  We’ve been rushing from place to place so much, we misplaced our instinct to stop and explore offbeat spots.  We’ll do better, going forward.

We also crossed the Continental Divide, at 7,800 feet, on the Friday-morning drive.

Mid-afternoon Friday, we rolled into Santa Fe, one of the most anticipated pins on our map.  We’ll have more to report about it in future posts, but for the moment, all we’ll say is that the place makes a good first impression.