I drove 384 miles today from Santa Fe New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona. We really enjoyed staying in Santa Fe. While all of the stores were displaying very beautiful but expensive things, very few tourists seemed to be purchasing things. It was clear that the Covid-19 virus has impacted Santa Fe hard. I would say that fully one third of the stores were vacant, another third were closed, and the remaining third that were open, weren't busy. The town was not packed at all and those tourists that were there were not carrying packages. Anyway, we stayed at the historic La Fonda Hotel. I woke up around 4:30 and decided to check out the Orionids meteor shower. While I didn't see any, there were countless stars in the sky above Santa Fe.
We knew we had a long drive to Flagstaff so we got up early, had breakfast at a nice cafe that has been in the same location since 1909 and got on the road. We refueled the minivan and ourselves in Gallup New Mexico. We then decided to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona (such a fine sight to see).
Our stop here was brief but enjoyable. The road from Windslow to Flagstaff seemed to mainly be climbing and we passed several towering mesas and red rocks were prevalent.
Tomorrow we intend to return to Route 66 to see the Arizona towns of Williams, Seligman, Kingman, and Oatman.