Train tracking

We decided that since there was such interest in the Madame Queen, we'd go and see her, you always go to Texas for a weekend drive.

Friday morning was La Leche League series meeting so Liam, Madeline and I went to that and meet up with the group here. I think it will be interesting. There were similarities and differences with meetings I've been to in NZ some of that's probably individual style. Quite a big group and several leaders which will be different. Still I've met some more people and we'll probably hook-up with some of them again later this week.

The kids and I packed up the camping gear we'd brought on thursday afternoon some clothes and food and collected Richard from work. Our outward journey was fairly straight forward once we overcame a diversion for petrol (called Gas here - the locals get so confused) leading to a different route out of Santa Fe, we got to Santa Rosa where we'd decided to camp that night in good time, realised we didn't have fuel for the cooker and didn't really have dinner food anyway so got drive thru food and headed to the lake where there was camping.

It spattered with rain occassionally but once we'd put the tent up it stopped. There's a kids playground at Rocky point campsite so Liam and Madeline gave the place the thumbs up.
Mostly the rain ment we were treated to a great sunset as it passed through the rain clouds and some spectacular lightning in the distance at and just after dusk.

Our tent was a success, not to big or small but we decided that should we see another WAL-MART or the like we'd get some pillows and another sleeping mat. One of the two we had has a serious puncture and the glue in the repair kit has dried up, it's also delaminating on one side so we'll definately need more glue, and another mat two between four is tight, otherwise a pleasant night (thou I didn't have the inflated mat).

Soon after sunrise as is the case with camping and children we were up, packed up and ready to find Amarillo and the train. Many local Santa Fe'ans rate Amarillo 26th destination to pick from a list of 25, so it came highly recommended!

Still we'd not driven on the I-40 -it looks straight on a map - it is.
Santa Rosa at some point in it's past was a bigger town, or at least more people stopped there for gas, there are a lot of deserted gas stations - five in a row at one point, thou one is now a chinese resturant and varying quality of motel - at least two were deserted, the rooms open and wrecked. It's a town of tall neon signs for major chains and references to its site on the former route 66.

After spending an hour driving around looking for the 'city' shops (and failling) we went to a small grocery store for some rather over sugared danish and drove on the Armarillo.

More long straight roads but interesting for us - so many trucks! and the odd train. The trains are huge they are able to stack two containers on top of each other so they are high, and then they had three engines and lots of trucks.

So Amarillo on the way in we almost missed Cadillac Ranch as we drove by - but didn't quite amazing - and strange.

So to find Madame Queen. We drove around a bit, found the train tracks probably close. Checking the address before we started would have sped up the process but we hadn't so asked a hotel, heard of it, "used to be in front of the Santa Fe building but it was moved and don't know where to" asked about pamphets about Amarillo, yes have one. Flicking through in the car and bingo "Madame Queen" corner of second and lincoln OK lets go. None of our maps had this much detail. But we found lincoln and drove down hit the train tracks - good sign we thought, found a second street - NO TRAIN humm lets see if lincoln continues on the otherside of the tracks.
Yes, and another second street and Yeah a train!!

It was a hit Liam and Richard did a walk round looked at it all. There are plans to create an education centre with the train.

It was about lunch time and very hot, Richard had found a water park on the net so we had an address for it and went there for a great afternoon. Liam's favorite was the lazy river which pushes you along, Madeline seemed to like the wave pool and the baby pool slide. A great way to spend a hot afternoon. We went and found our pillows and mats and when to Applebees for dinner (avoided cooking all weekend!) then headed back to Santa Rosa Lake State Park to camp again, figured it would be late but we knew the place so it would be OK. I was except
on the way, just after sunset the battery light came on and didn't go off and the voltage meter registered dropping volts in the battery Oh oh humm. So using nothing electrical except the headlights we drove on Got to Santa Rosa lake figured we'd deal with the car in the morning and camped. A very comfortable night, pillows and mats all worked well.

The Ranger gave us a jump start and we set off. The warning light had started beeping as we'd stopped the night before and it started just in Santa Rosa, with it the ABS light comes on the steering gets heavy all sorts of other things -everything- is electrically assisted. So we pulled into a wreckers where we thought we might get some help. As it turned out an Auto Repair guy across the road lived at his shop and we spoke to him. after soem discussion of possibilities we charged the battery for a couple of hours figuring we'd driven OK on battery to Santa Rosa and with a good charge hopefully we'd get home. Sat around with the car talking to his family for a while then went to a diner and had some food and coffee.
Got in set off. Voltage seemed to be dropping faster -see how we go.

Got to Clines corners and the warning bell started -stopped straight away there was shade, gas stations and food. Good place for a wait. Really weren't sure what to do next. Rang AAA (who we'd joined ) they could organise a tow but the truck would only have room for two humm.
Spoke to the guy from Santa Rosa, he'd mentioned that he might be going to Espanola later anyway, he wasn'tsure yet if he was going or not, call back. Neither really good options but what.
Richard decided to see what one of the guys he works with was doing, he helped us looking for places to rent too lets see what he's up to.
Rang and he came and met us (about an hour from Santa Fe) and we charged the battery again off his car and set off in tandem, when the bell came on we stopped and charged again, three times and we were back at the hotel. What a relief!

Now we just have to deal with the car.

Rang the car yard we got it from and they set up a tow truck and garage to look at it - he came took the car away.