Milsteads Garage
08-24-2021, 06:25 PM
My wife Sarah and I were sitting around talking about some of the stuff I did when I lived in Laguna Nm and one of them was the day I took my mark II for a ride on an original part of Route 66 on the cars birthday, September 7 th of 2019. I lived in Laguna nm which is off of route 6 and Interstate 40 exit 126. If you have ever watched the series “Breaking Bad” I lived 5 or so miles from the “cook site” movie location located off the tohajillee exit 131. It was a particularly bad day for me. I was in the process to move to Phoenix Az to start a new life with Sarah, my girlfriend at the time. We were in a 426 mile long distance relationship that was very hard on both of us. I was panicked, scared, stressed, lonely, upset, tired, every emotion you could think of, it felt like I was feeling it. One of the things I was thinking of was how in the 5 years I spent there, I never cruised the mother road. The Mark II was the next car in line that I had to bring to my house in Phoenix but I had this idea, why not take the Mark? This, was a hugely bad idea to say the least. The car is a mess, but it was even worse then. To elaborate, the car had been sitting in front of the previous owners house on the street and it had not moved from that spot in 20 years. Matter of fact, it had not moved in 40 years under its own power. I had just gotten the engine unsiezed by letting it sit with diesel fuel in the cylinders for the previous 2 weeks. The car did run but only moved in the yard. It had no working brakes, just the emergency brake. It had rusty brake lines, fuel lines so getting it to run off the fuel tank was out of the question. To get the car running I had hastily wired a fuel pump under the hood and ran a rubber hose through the fire wall and into a 5 gallon can which was sitting on the passengers floor board. Despite all this, the engine ran pretty good and the transmission went into gear. The other thing I had going for it was I installed a new set of 3 inch 8.20x15 whitewalls so at least I wouldnt get a flat. I figure, why the hell not? You only live once. My trip started off at my old street address which was 10 Pima Rd, Laguna NM. My first stop was going to be Maybelles diner, which was abandoned. I figure if I could make it over the train bridge which was the entrance to Highland meadows, the Subdivision I lived in, I would see how I felt. Well, off I went. The transmission shifted through the gears and the hand brake worked good enough. I finally made it to Maybelles diner and I was feeling a bit more confident. There were 3 directions I could go. Down the west part of 66 which is original pre 1937 route you can still drive, left or right on Route 6, or I could open some gates and go north east on the original part of 66 which was built in 1923 but has been long abandoned for 50 plus years. Im the guy who never takes the easy road so I did the raw, dangerous, lonely, abandoned stretch. My first stop was about a mile or so north of Maybelles to another tressel style bridge that overlooked a small gorge. The paved bridge had holes that you could see through to the water beneath. I pulled the emergency brake to make sure it worked then put the car in drive and began to idle across it. I was very nervous but excited. I stayed there a few minutes, chucked some rocks off the bridge 100 feet down into the water. It was probably the neatest place I had been to that wasn’t a junkyard and it was only 7 miles from my house. Such a shame I didn’t find this out until a few weeks before I had to move out. Onward to another abandoned little Adobe building that used to be a general store. I got about 10 miles up this chuckholed, destroyed road when I realized my gas can sitting on the floor was half empty. I decided to turn around and make it back before I ran completely out of fuel. About 3 miles from home, that can was getting really empty so I had to tip the can on its side so I could use a corner to act as a sump to get every last drop out of that can or face walking. I made it to the corner and the engine goes flat ass dead, no more fuel. I had to push the car the 1/8 of a mile back into my yard. That was the first adventure of many more hopefully to come.
http://route66times.com/l/nm/26-correo-wild-horse-mesa-bar.htm
http://route66times.com/l/nm/26-correo-wild-horse-mesa-bar.htm