Tag: Route 66

ArizonaDiners Drive-Ins and DivesMexicanRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Salsa Brava – Flagstaff, Arizona

Gil Garduno2:55 PM

As the feminine form of “bravo,” brava translates from Spanish and Italian to “well done,” “excellent,” or “good.” Brava is often used to praise a female performer, often in conjunction with or preceding requesting an encore for a performance well executed.  Stemming from Italian and Spanish, brava can also be used to mean brave, angry or fierce.  I’m one of those Hispanic gents who expects…make that demands, salsa to be fierce and angry.  I want my salsa to bite me back, to reenforce through its potency and piquancy that pain is a flavor.  That’s especially true when a Mexican restaurant sports the audacious name “Salsa Brava.” Salsa Brava is a perpetual “best of the city” award-winner in Flagstaff.  It’s been earning “best Mexican” and “best salsa” accolades for the entirety of its nearly four decades years serving “The City of Seven Wonders.”  My hopes were that one of those seven wonders was indeed Salsa Brava’s eponymous salsa.  Make that salsas.  Shortly after you’re seated, your server will ferry to your table three salsas and a basket of chips.  The three salsas are a classic pico de gallo (mild), fire roasted-tomato chipotle (medium), and a pineapple/habanero (spicy).  Salsa is complimentary, increasingly…

AmericanBreakfastNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Del’s Restaurant – Tucumcari, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

The 1950s was the era of American Graffiti and Happy Days.  Motorists were getting their kicks on Route 66 and listening to Wolfman Jack howl as he spun Rock Around The Clock at 45rpm.  Vestiges of that era are still teeming in Tucumcari, the easternmost major town in the Land of Enchantment along Interstate 40.  Known by locals as “the town that’s two blocks wide and two miles long,” Tucumcari’s main thoroughfare traces the route blazed through town by old Route 66.  That route is festooned with vibrant neon signage that cuts a luminous swath through the town. The nocturnal spectacle of glowing neon might be the siren’s call that has drawn generations of “cruisers” to Tucumcari Boulevard. Not quite equidistant between Amarillo and Albuquerque, Tucumcari has long provided much-needed respite for weary travelers headed west.  In its halcyon days, hundreds of signs along the highways trumpeted “Tucumcari Tonite—2,000 Motel Rooms.”  There aren’t nearly as many motel rooms in Tucumcari today.  Among the survivors are the famous  Blue Swallow Motel which Smithsonian Magazine once called “the last, best, and friendliest of the old-time motels.”  Across Route 66 from the Blue Swallow stands another survivor, the landmark tepee fronting the historic Tee…

ArizonaBurgersIce CreamRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Delgadillo’s Snow Cap – Seligman, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

The quirky small town of Seligman, Arizona, is home to the longest surviving and preserved stretch of Route 66, an expanse which runs 160 miles to Topock, Arizona.  Almost equidistant between Kingman and Flagstaff, Seligman is considered (by Arizona legislative decree) the “birthplace of Historic Route 66.”  Credit that designation to Angel Delgadilla, a  soft-spoken Seligman barber and his brother Juan, a railroad worker who led efforts to preserve Route 66. When the town was bypassed by Interstate 40 in 1978, the brothers formed the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona. Soft-spoken though the brothers might have been, the Delgadillos became activists determined to keep their beloved hometown viable.  Before Interstate 40 bypassed Seligman, the town had twelve gas stations to accommodate all the traffic that used to come through. That changed in 1978 when Interstate 40 opened just two miles from town.  It took a major toll on communities like Seligman along Route 66.  Businesses were shuttered and people moved away. With Route 66 on life support, Angel and Juan lobbied local, state and national lawmakers and groups and by 1987, the State of Arizona designated the road as historic, securing Seligman’s future. The Seligman story was the inspiration…

AlbuquerqueBreakfastNew Mexico Culinary Treasures TrailRating: GoodSteak

Western View Diner & Steakhouse – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:20 AM

Since the 1930s, neon signage has been a prominent and vital part of Route 66 as it meanders through Albuquerque. From the foothills of the Sandias in the east to the parched desert expanse of the west, Route 66 is festooned with vibrant neon signage that cuts a luminous swath through the city. The nocturnal spectacle of glowing neon might be the siren’s call that has drawn generations of “cruisers” to Central Avenue. One of Albuquerque’s most prominent neon spangled signs celebrates Route 66 as it spans across all four lanes of Central Avenue near its intersection with Coors Boulevard Southwest. Literally at the shadow of that span is the Western View Diner & Steakhouse which has been pleasing weary travelers and hungry locals since 1937 thanks to generous portions of reasonably priced and delicious comfort food with a homemade taste that comes from years of plying its culinary craft. To say the Western View Diner & Steakhouse was at Albuquerque’s western fringes back when it launched seven decades ago is an understatement. Aside from sagebrush and vast expanses of horizon, there wasn’t much in the city this far west. The Western View is one of the very few surviving…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyItalianNew Mexico

M’tucci’s Bar Roma – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:52 PM

Just prior to a planned visit to Rome, Saint Monica and her son, Saint Augustine, discovered that Saturday was observed as a day of fasting in Rome.  It was not, however, a fast day in their hometown of Milan. They consulted Saint Ambrose who advised: “When I am here (in Milan) I do not fast. On Saturday, when in Rome I do fast on Saturday.” That reply is believed to have been the genesis of the saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  It’s a good thing they didn’t ask Saint Gregory the Great for advice–especially if they enjoyed eating.  Saint Gregory believed eating–or more precisely the pleasurable overindulgence in food–was viewed as “an ungodly preoccupation with temporal and corporeal pleasures at the expense of spirituality.”  Those of you who enjoy reading this blog would probably be condemned to an eternity in Hell with me. Church leaders of the Middle Ages didn’t just denounce the derivation of pleasure from eating in a general sense. They listed five specific ways in which gluttony was a sin: eating too soon, eating too expensively, eating too much, eating too eagerly, eating too daintily and eating wildly. By Middle Age standards, many…

AlbuquerqueFood TruckMexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Tacos

Taco Bus – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Perhaps no mobile conveyance in the Land of Enchantment has ferried as many interesting people on as many colorful journeys as the “Road Hog,” the psychedelic bus which shuttled its passengers from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock to Llano Largo, New Mexico. The Road Hog’s 1969 arrival in Llano Largo heralded the start of the “summer of the hippie invasion” as The Taos News called it. There unwashed masses settled into a Utopian agrarian commune they called the Hog Farm. The Road Hog with its familiar duck hood ornament and Grateful Dead-style tie-dyed design became a common sight in Peñasco, my childhood home.   Everyone–from sanctimonious adults to horny teenagers–visited the Hog Farm.  The former feigned shock and outrage at the audacity of the hippies frolicking in their altogether.  The latter gaped in astonishment at the nubile nymphs parading a boldness exceeding the rather benign porn of the time.  By road, our home was several miles away from the Hog Farm.  By hiking over the river, through the woods and up the hills behind our home we could easily walk to the Hog Farm.  My friends and I grabbed many an eyeful and a good education in anatomy and biology every time we…

New MexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Comet II – Santa Rosa, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Shake the hand that shook the hand of…The Vitamin Kid.  At 87-years young, the Vitamin Kid–once the fastest runner in Guadalupe County–has slowed down just a bit, but he’s still as sharp as a tack, retaining an encyclopedic memory of details that would make a great novel.  Fittingly, a novel–specifically Rudolfo Anaya’s immortal Bless Me Ultima—is where many of us became acquainted with the fleet-footed Vitamin Kid, one of Antonio Márez’s best friends.  While Márez, Ultima’s precocious protagonist, is based loosely on author Rudolfo Anaya, the Vitamin Kid was based on Johnny Martinez who’s also become a legend in the Land of Enchantment.   Johnny Martinez and Rudolfo Anaya were friends and neighbors in Santa Rosa during more innocent times.  Back then you could hang out by the river with your friends all day long, but everyone skeddaled home before it got dark.  Dusk was when La Llorona began her vigil on the riverbanks wailing into the night and searching for children to drag, screaming to a watery grave.  Johnny remains wary of the river to this day.  Mostly, however, his memories of growing up in Santa Rosa are of more pleasant times–of the youthful adventures he shared with lifelong and new…

Dog FriendlyIndianRating: N/R (Not Rated)TexasUnited States

It’s A Punjabi Affair – Amarillo, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

During our last full year at Intel, my friend Bill Resnik and I had the distinct honor and privilege of working on a project with a team from Microsoft comprised mostly of information technology professionals with roots in the exotic subcontinent of India.  We had expected impeccable technical expertise, but their dedication and focus was far beyond what any of us would have anticipated.  As an example, Kannan, a technical solutions analyst once took a well-deserved vacation in Hawaii and still called in to daily project meetings.  Tropical birds sang in the background as Kannan provided his updates while lounging on the lanai. Never one to miss out on an opportunity, Bill downloaded an application for his iPhone which played everything from beautiful bird songs to simple tweets and chirps.  The second Kannan began to speak during a meeting–either from his San Francisco home base or somewhere Microsoft had dispatched him–Bill would play bird sounds that weren’t necessarily indigenous to Kannan’s location at the time.  We heard everything from turkeys gobbling and chickens cackling to a pterodactyl screeching.  It was driving Kannan batty trying to figure out where all these strange and exotic bird sounds were emanating.  It brought to…

Bar & GrillBurgersRating: N/R (Not Rated)TexasUnited States

The Golden Light Cafe & Cantina – Amarillo, Texas

Gil Garduno12:02 AM

Published in 1938, John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novels ever written. Replete with timeless themes of struggle, destitution, injustice, and the pursuit of a delusive “Promised Land,” the novel centers around the trevails of the Joad family.  Along with thousands of other tenant farmers from Oklahoma who lost their livelihood and property because of the Dust Bowl, the Joads travel the relatively nascent Route 66 toward California and the pursuit of a piece of land to call their own. Every night on their journey, the Joads and their fellow migrants witnessed man’s inclinations toward desperation, violence, and murderous anger as well as generousity and respect.   We couldn’t help but think about the Joads when we made reservations for three nights at Amarillo’s Hubbel Duplex.  We couldn’t help but reflect on all the “Okies” who passed in front of the Duplex en route to California.  Situated on the western end of West Sixth Street, the brick dwelling remains virtually unchanged since its construction in 1925.  West Sixth Street was the first paved highway through Amarillo and a vibrant part of Route 66. Today the U.S. Route 66-Sixth Street Historic District runs for…