Santa Fe to Scottsdale

Tuesday, April 27 Santa Fe to Scottsdale: Route 25 to Route 40 East to Holbrooke
We got up at 6:00, as Cyrus was already up. Matt made coffee and got things ready for Cyrus’s breakfast, as I sat around and talked and played with Cyrus. He certainly is a talker; Matt made us some biscuits, offered up cereal if we wanted, and we all sat together for about 15 minutes before we headed off, and they all went their ways, Matt with Cyrus to pre school and work, Ligia to Albuquerque to teach. Our drive to Scottsdale took about nine hours though we thought it would be much less but there was no daylight saving time in Scottsdale. The ride was pretty interesting; heading down from Santa Fe to Albuquerque was busy, as lots of people were heading there from the Santa Fe area. We picked up Route 40 in Albequercue and followed it for a couple of hundred miles, till we reached Holbrooke, and then had a two to three hour ride on more scenic roads to Scottsdale. We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant and had a good meal, though the carne aside was awfully tough. After the first hour out of Holbrooke, which was mostly desert like, we got into lovely areas of pines and mountains, and this continued most of the way to Scottsdale. We climbed quite high up into the mountains, then wound our way back down to valleys, all the time surrounded by pine forests, many of which seemed to have been burned, either through controlled burning of forest fires; it was hard to tell which.

We arrived in Scottsdale around 4:00 and it was well into the nineties outside. Dad and Dorothy were in good form, seemed happy to see us and we talked for a couple of hours before going off to their favorite restaurant, a Chinese place about five minutes away. It was an awfully good restaurant, lots of choices and excellent food. Plus the waitresses, owners, even bar tenders, tend to stop by and talk with the customers, which makes it much more appealing to anyone who comes back often. Ed told all his jokes and played his usual tricks, but they seemed to know him well enough by now that they take it in stride. The owner, Eddie, especially, seems to be able to charm anyone and knows how to play up to Ed as well as the ladies. Evie had a great salad, Thai with cabbage and chicken, which she loved. I had a noodle basket with shrimp, scallops, and kalamari. It was surrounded by broccoli so it was quite good. We came home, watched the Cavs win in the final minute and Idol for a bit and went to bed around 9:30 as we were really tired. Ed and Dot stayed up for a bit.