The highway leading out of Silver City, New Mexico was very bumpy and Beautiful Dreamer was shimmying and shaking unless I kept the speed below 55 or so.
Had a wonderful pit-stop at The Adobe Café and Bakery in Reserve, NM - some of the best espresso we can remember and the pastries were drop-dead delicious. Really nice people - the staff were joking with each other and when I chimed in, they incorporated me into their banter. If we lived within 60 miles of this place, we would be there for meals at least twice/week - it was that good and that fun of an experience.
It is nice too that since they are in a very remote area, they stock bulk foods and HABA (Health And Beauty Aids) items but definitely of the alt.culture/hippie persuasion - ear candles, teas, etc...
Stopped along the way to take photos and spent 45 minutes at the Petrified Forest also stopped in at the Painted Desert Indian Center just outside the park. They have no online presence but the place is well worth stopping if you want to get some nice petrified wood and other minerals. I got a nice piece of pet. wood, a trilobite fossil, a piece of agate and a large calcite crystal - calcite has cool optical properties - fun to play with. Some of the online reviews (here and here) cite surly staff but we were there to get some nice pieces and not just kick the tires and collect our free piece of p. wood and we had zero problems. Also, the cheap chinese crap is extremely obvious as to what it is -- all of the p. wood has been locally harvested on private land and the cutting and polishing is done on site. The quality is good and the prices are very reasonable.
I was expecting to walk into a tourist trap with p. wood from Chile but this was the real deal...
Because the road was so bumpy, I am really tired and heading to bed after surfing for a bit. Thunderbunny hit 11,000 miles today and we are past our 3,500th trip mile with about 80 hours of driving time. Did chinese takeout for dinner and then on the road tomorrow to the Grand Canyon - decide how much time we want to spend there and then North to Utah. Got stocked up on beer and wine as it is mostly a dry state.
Do not feel like doing photos tonight so no pics for a few days.
