I Knew We Should’ve Taken That Left Turn…

Originally published at Route 96. You can comment here or there.

We were totally unimpressed by Historic Old Town Albuerquerqueequegque, which is basically an adobe strip mall featuring historic T-shirt vendors, historic discount liquors, a historic pawn shop (we loaded up on historic $2 CDs), and the historic Montoya Cafe, whose fancy Mexican crackers were served with melted historic Cheez Whiz.

The Off-Ramp of the Beast

Originally published at Route 96. You can comment here or there.

Why hasn’t this been in a Robert Rodriguez movie yet? There’s a highway through the New Mexico desert called Route 666!

We’d seen it marked like a prophecy on a huge road map on the wall of the Elvis Diner in Memphis, and we resolved over fried peanut butter and quaalude sandwiches to drive that bad boy. 3,000 km later, we were there! What I really wanted was a picture in front of one of those black and white shield shaped highway signs saying “Route 666 South,” with all of us throwing the heavy metal devil sign in front of it. Knights in Satan’s service, that’s what we are, yeah.

But our half-inflated dark master was not smiling on us this day. We drove fifty damn miles up the Highway of the Beast, and every single Route 666 sign had been swiped, no doubt to be hung with pride in college dorm rooms and fun family restaurants across the Southwest. In the end, we had to make do with a little green and white mileage sign and some admittedly deckid highway to hell scenery. It was real Roadrunner and Coyote territory out there, with mesas (mesae?) and tumbleweeds and big red boulders precariously balanced on slender fingers of rock.

Afterwards, we passed the MTV Rock The Vote bus heading the other way, so it could’ve been them that stole the signs. I wouldn’t put it past that noted defender of democracy Jenny McCarthy.

[2006 Edit: Well, the world is just a little less cool today: In July 2003, Route 666 was renamed Route 491, “putting an end to decades of devilish innuendo and road sign thievery.” Navajo medicine men were on hand to bless the new highway and ‘cleanse’ the demons of the old one. OK, the part about the Navajo medicine men is a little cool. And Route 666 never became a Robert Rodriguez movie, but it did become a Lou Diamond Phillips movie, which is almost as good, right? “Not terrible,” raves “User Comments” at IMDB.]

04755 km

Originally published at Route 96. You can comment here or there.

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Or just read the LJ feed like the craven coward you are. just kidding lol kthx gbye!