Day 4 — to Holbrook, AZ

We’re in Holbrook, AZ, tonight. We checked TripAdvisor for the No. 1 restaurant in the area, which turns out to be an Italian eatery in a strip mall on the outskirts of this sad, strange little town. We drove up and down and back up the main drag before we finally found the place. By that time, I was ready for a drink. I swear to you, I was served a beer in a giant goldfish bowl. Yes, I finished it.

All that’s by way of saying: I’m writing today’s blog post now. Not sure how long I’ll last.

This morning we queued up Linda Rondstadt’s “Heart Like a Wheel” album and set a course from Tucumcari, New Mexico, to Holbrook, Arizona. (Incredibly coincidentally, she sings, “I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari,” in the song "Willin’.”) 

To break up the 400-mile drive, I had a few interesting stops planned along the way. But there’s this weird time warp that happens whenever we tow the trailer: The miles seem to stretch out longer, and at the same time, minutes compress. So if the highway signs say that it’s 140 miles to our destination, and if we’re driving 75 miles per hour, somehow it still takes us three hours to get there. 

Today, part of the problem was the fact that we were fighting a fierce headwind blowing straight across the desert, and an uphill grade as we climbed toward the Sandia Mountains. Bottom line: We only had time to fit on one of the planned stops: the Tinkertown Museum.

Natalie admitted later that she thought I was taking everyone to a “boring history museum.” That couldn’t have been further from the truth. It’s actually an enchanting little roadside attraction tucked into the the mountain village of Sandia Park, on the outskirts of Albuquerque. The 22-room museum features tiny wood carvings and miniature memorabilia lovingly set into all kinds of wacky dioramas — a Wild West town, a circus side show, an oddball cemetery. The building itself is a quirky collection of found objects; more than 50,000 glass bottles form the rambling walls. It’s all the work of Ross Ward, an artist and woodcarver who took more than 40 years to craft all of these tiny figures. It’s a flea market, a kooky art installation and an architectural oddity all rolled into one. It would take days — years, even — to see everything and to notice every mind-boggling detail.

These hummingbird feeders at the Tinkertown Museum are made from aluminum cans. 

The walls are lined with more than 50,000 glass bottles.

By the time we got back on the road, I knew that we would have to skip the other two Albuquerque-area attractions I had hoped to visit (the Anderson Abruzzo International Balloon Museum and the Sandia Park Tramway) so that we could (fingers crossed) squeeze in some time at the Sky City Cultural Center in Acoma Pueblo, about an an hour farther west. Acoma is one of the oldest continually inhabited communities in the United States, and I’d heard that a tour is a remarkable experience. But when we pulled off the highway,  a sign announced that said that Sky City is closed to the public as the residents celebrate a religious festival. I wish I had known that; we could have squeezed in a visit to the balloon museum or the mountain tram after all. By that time, we were too far down the road to backtrack, so we pressed on toward Holbrook, AZ.

We pulled off the interstate at the Petrified Forest National Park visitors center, about 30 miles before the Holbrook exit -- spent a little bit of time in the museum, picked up Junior Ranger activity packets and drove to a nearby scenic overlook before getting back on the interstate and driving the rest of the way into town. We’ll go back and do the Petrified Forest up right tomorrow.

This place gives me the heebie-jeebies, maybe because the surrounding desert is so desolate, maybe because the main street through Holbrook is a strip of pawn shops and shabby motels, maybe just because it’s Sunday night and there’s nobody around, or maybe I’m just jittery because there’s a problem with the trailer (see below).  

We drove through town, turned onto Historic Route 66 and, across from the Safeway and next to the self-storage garage, found the historic Wigwam Motel, a beacon along that highway since it opened in 1950. I don't know if the current owners are unfamiliar with modern business models or if they are just deliberately nostalgic. In an era of Expedia and Kayak and booking.com, I had a hell of a time figuring out how to make reservations here, and finally had to call — on an actual telephone — one day between the hours of 3 and 7 p.m. Mountain Standard Time to book the rooms. 

I didn’t have an email confirmation — or any confirmation, for that matter — of my reservation, so I was a little nervous that we wouldn’t have a place to stay tonight. Keith and I tried phoning a couple of hours out to make sure they were expecting us, but they calls never went through. When I arrived at the front desk and gave my name, the receptionist pulled out a giant ledger and found my name penciled in. So here we are.

News on the Teardrop front: I noticed this evening that the tail lights and side marker lights are on, even when the van’s engine is turned off. This shouldn’t happen, and signals some kind of problem with the wiring. My bet is that the repair the other day somehow bypassed a battery isolator in the trailer. We’ll have to call the Teardrop guys in Wisconsin to see if they know what the problem is and how to fix it. Until then, we’ll have to remember to unplug the trailer every time we stop somewhere, so that we don’t drain the van’s battery.