A movie set

We are staying tonight at the original Cozy Cones motel. For those of you not Pixar-literate, this is the motel owned by Sally, the purple Porsche, in Cars. In real life, the rooms are wigwams rather than traffic cones (ok, they're sort of octagonal concrete shacks with a small en-suite), but that's just poetic license. The Cars team spent a week in town with story boards and cameras - the story of Holbrook, AZ, once a major town on the major road to California, is exactly that of Radiator Springs.

We started today on a wild goose chase for that road - a sign for the historical route 66 led us off the I-40 but then abandoned us. The famous road has been subsumed by freeways or out-of-town boulevards, and following it now requires something more than googlemaps and an eye on the road signs. Even the website of the official supporters' club only offers to sell you a map - there's nothing online.

We gave up and turned back to the freeway, but found the road later completely by accident on an unscheduled detour to Santa Fe. One day we'll "do the route" (our waiter tonight asked whether that was our plan - I don't know what world he lives in where English people with two small boys pop over to do that in March, but it's probably quite a good one). This time the end justifies the means and we'll stick to the multi-carriageway in order to get to the canyon. But it's nice to explore and support just a couple of places.

Nowhere at the motel is Cars the film mentioned - though over a dozen classic cars are parked around the lot. It's not mentioned on their website. Hence we can roll up to this place which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, at 5.30pm in Spring Break and help ourselves to what isn't even their last wigwam. They're missing a whole magic-show of tricks - I'm told that the bed and breakfast which is used as Miss Hooley's fictional home in the BBC's Balamory is booked over a year in advance solely on the basis of its on-screen fame (and of course Miss H herself is never actually there...). The cafe at the bottom of the street (mentioned in the Cars credits for its chilli, they told me proudly) has a small case of memorabilia, provided by John Lassiter on his last trip through, because he was so surprised at how little they had. None of this is mentioned outside the building.

As we left, we were told about the railroad station we'll drive past tomorrow, where Geronimo apparently started his final journey after his surrender. Again, I'm sure we could have driven straight past without the slightest idea.

I can't say I'm sad about the lack of branding - the sense that one simply wouldn't have come here if one didn't already know (how English is that?!). But, as it did in the summer, panic strikes - what gems are we simply driving straight past?

Today's Stats:

Started Driving: 07:45 MST (Daylight Saving)
Finished Driving: 17:10 MST (Standard)
Miles: 465
States: 2
License plates: 9 more for a total of 39. 12 to go.
Breakfast: Super 8, Tucumcari, NM
Lunch: French Pastry Shop, Santa Fe, NM
Dinner: Joe and Aggie's Cafe, Holbrook, AZ
Favourite place name: Continental Divide, AZ
Trains seen: dozens. More than I've seen outside a station since arriving in this country.
Status of body-clock: so screwed up we might even make sunrise at the canyon.
Scary gas stations: several