On the road again. Cookie Puss riding shotgun this time.

PJ kept an eye out for Smokies coming up the rear.

First stop: What A Grind in Trinidad, CO. Good coffee and we parked right out front so we could keep an eye on the passengers.

Next stop: Albuquerque. We went to this diner because I had read good things about it, it had a cool sign, and was right on Rt. 66.

It wasn’t very good and they served fake butter, which as you know is one of my major peeves.
The chicken rice soup was really good so I had hope for the rest of the meal.

The jalapeno poppers were greasy, and not in a good way. Like the oil was old. Yuk.

The meatloaf wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t that great. The mashed potatoes weren’t fresh. Not sure if they were from a package or frozen or what but how hard is it to make fresh mashed potatoes in a DINER- sheesh. The veggies were good.

Fake butter!

DM had some kinda Mexican combo plate that he said was also only OK.

See? That face says “only OK”

After dinner we walked around a little bit in the revitalized downtown which wasn’t all that exciting. Then we went back to the La Quinta which we chose because they allow pets in the rooms without any extra fees. The rooms are clean and nice, too.

The next day we went to an old diner downtown called Lindy’s. The use real half and half so they probably use real butter, too!

I didn’t find out about the butter because I didn’t order anything that I needed to put butter on. Plain old scrambled eggs and hash browns. Again, tho, ONLY OK!

DM had corn beef hash, eggs and hashbrowns. I think he enjoyed them. Still, what gives Albuquerque? Next time we go thru on the way back, I have a couple ideas of places to go that I’ve already been to that know are good.

Pretty sunset on the road from Flagstaff to Phoenix.

Oops this is out of order. This is a sign for the Hollywood Bar and Cafe I’ve seen a million times and always been too lazy to stop and shoot. it’s in Trinidad, CO and I think it’s closed now because there was a stabbing or something.

I think this was also in Trinidad.

This too.

Remember when we went to Dallas and I took all those pictures that dissapeared? I took them again. This is in Raton, New Mexico.

So is this.

And this:

Ok, back to the right order. Here we are at Groggy’s in Mesa (Phoenix). This is the bar me and DM used to go to when I first started visiting (stalking) him when he lived out there. Heh.

This is The Ham Bone, another of our old haunts. They’ve fixed it up a little including the sign which used to be broken and when lit up just said “bone dancing”.

Does anyone know this guy!? I recognized him! I didn’t want to tell him that because, hello, I’m not hitting on you, dude. So I made DM ask him where he’s from. He’s from So Cal but not anywhere near where I’m from. However, he also said *I* looked familiar to HIM. WTF? So I thought I’d ask around. Maybe we met thru mutual friends or something.

After the Ham Bone we drove around Mesa to look at other cool signs. I’ve seen this one in books but never in person so that was fun. There were lots more but it was night and I didn’t have a tripod so they were all super blurry. Yea, didn’t have a tripod, that’s it…:)

So that’s it! We went from Phoenix to LA the next day with minimal fanfare. I have lots of pics from when DM was here and he’s coming back again next week so I guess I better make another post or two before then.