Logged 70 miles on Sunday from Las Vegas,N.M. to Santa Rosa. Majority of the route was along Highway 84, which was pretty desolate and wonderfully downhill.
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| Route 66 stamped into concrete sidewalk |
The final portion of about 17 miles was on I-40. By the time I arrived in Santa Rosa my feet were melting.
Beau and Melissa from the First Baptist Church in Santa Rosa gave me a place to stay Sunday night.
The boys were super courteous and they tipped their hats and politely shook my hand when they greeted me.
Just down the street from the church was a local tourist attraction called the Blue Hole. It’s a circular bell-shaped pool, about 130-feet deep and the water temperatures in the 60s. A lot of people use it as a local swimming hole and for scuba diving.
The water is a deep rich blue color. Some locals say if you dropped a nickel in the water you’d be able to see it at the bottom. Others say there are 600 miles worth of caves underneath and that’s where the scuba divers explore.
There’s rumor this is where Billy the Kid once swam.
In March of this past year a Navy veteran and expert diver, Shane Thompson, was scuba diving and exploring passageways. He got trapped and died in the caverns below. Read more HERE.
Santa Rosa is a very small community of about 2800 right on the Historic Route 66.
On an interesting but sad note the old hotel signs with the illuminated pipe neon lighting are still here, but so many of them are closed and in very poor shape.
