近距离内射合集

NEWKIRK 鈥� A wise man once said: Life is a highway.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Route 66, photographer Jessica Baca and I traveled 100 miles of Route 66 throughout eastern New Mexico, from Newkirk to Clines Corners.

Thank God gas is cheaper than ever.

My tribute to America鈥檚 most famous highway begins, naturally, at the pump.

At a travel stop in the tiny town of Newkirk, I spot two young men wearing overalls and newsboy caps filling up an antique car. They tell me they are cousins 鈥� Brad and Joe Zimmerman from northeast Missouri 鈥� and have been traveling for 14 days along the entirety of Route 66 in a 100-year-old Buick Master Six.

The two had car trouble that stranded them in Springfield, Illinois, for a day and a half, but the century-old car has been largely reliable, Brad tells me. What it lacks in fuel efficiency, it makes up for in charm, he says.

鈥淚t鈥檚 cool,鈥� Brad says of his first time in New Mexico. 鈥淚t鈥檚 long between gas stations.鈥�

A few miles west, we stop on the side of the highway to explore the ghost town of Cuervo. Cuervo was a cattle-ranching town home to a few hundred people at its peak, until it was split by the construction of Interstate 40 in the late 1960s and early 1970s. What鈥檚 left now is a few crumbling buildings 鈥� a church, seemingly still connected to power, some old houses, a wooden outhouse.

Though long deserted, these old buildings are filled with stuff 鈥� in one small house, I spot the door of an old refrigerator, a stuffed lamb and a pair of headphones that look to be no less than 50 years old. Whoever left it all must have been in a hurry to get out of Cuervo, I think to myself.

As we walk, we meet Ren and Mike Reich, travelers from Ventura County, California, who have been driving along Route 66 since the start in Chicago and will take it all the way to its conclusion at the Santa Monica Pier. They鈥檝e driven the route in bits and pieces before, they tell me, but this is the first time they鈥檝e traveled it from start to finish.

Ren tells us to watch out for rattlesnakes. The thought that I might find a snake in one of these abandoned buildings had not crossed my mind at all, but now that it has, I can鈥檛 stop hearing the real or imagined buzzing of a rattlesnake in the dry brush on all sides of me. I鈥檝e got to get out of here.

We drive west to Santa Rosa, a desert town of less than 3,000 people along the Pecos River off of Exit 277. Santa Rosa was a Route 66 boomtown until I-40 bypassed it in 1972. Today, it holds some reminders: old neon signs, motels for weary travelers.

Most of the people who pass through Santa Rosa are tourists on Route 66, said Anna Baca, who owns La Villa Burgers and Boba in downtown Santa Rosa with her husband, Herman.

Herman grew up in Santa Rosa and tells me he left for 30 years to work as an engineer in Albuquerque and El Paso before returning two years ago to open the restaurant. Things have slowed down in Santa Rosa since he was young. Grocery stores have thinned out over time. Four restaurants have closed in the last five years, he says, but the summer of the Route 66 centennial has so far been good for business.

The Bacas keep track of where their visitors hail from using pins on a giant map in the gift shop. They鈥檝e been getting travelers from all over the world this summer 鈥� Europeans especially, they tell me.

鈥淓verybody鈥檚 coming along,鈥� Herman says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been real big.鈥�

The people of Santa Rosa are generous with their time and proud of their deep family ties, eager to show travelers black-and-white photos of relatives.

Michael Gallegos is the fourth-generation owner of Fashion Fantasy, a women鈥檚 clothing store next door to the Bacas鈥� burger shop, looking out onto the old Route 66. His grandfather opened the shop as a general store called OK Clothiers in 1935, he says, and Gallegos inherited it from his grandmother after she died four years ago.

Gallegos keeps a portrait of her hanging in the shop above a bouquet of plastic Lego flowers.

鈥淚 hate real flowers because they die,鈥� he says.

Gallegos says the centennial has offered a much-needed respite from Santa Rosa鈥檚 typically sleepy summers.

鈥淚f we didn鈥檛 have Route 66, I don鈥檛 know if we鈥檇 still be here,鈥� he tells me.

Like any good newspaperwomen, we pay a visit to the offices of the Guadalupe County Communicator down the street, where we meet publisher Tom McDonald, who wrote for the Las Vegas Optic and the Roswell Daily Record before he bought the paper in 2017. It still publishes once a week, but it鈥檚 for sale to a good home, he tells me.

The radio station in Santa Rosa runs out of the back of an ice cream and candy shop called Bill鈥檚 Place, just off Route 66. Sixteen-year-old Leah Moncayo works behind the counter on her summers off from Santa Rosa High School, which makes her the fifth generation in her family to work there, her grandmother, Christina Esquibel, says. 

I walk across the street to the Santa Rosa City Hall and ask the woman at the front desk if the mayor is there and if I can have a few minutes with him. This seems like the kind of place where you might be able to do that. The woman tells me he鈥檚 not in, but he does have an auto shop at the edge of town, and I might be able to find him there. I pick up a business card with his cellphone number and say I鈥檒l try him later.

We drive east to the Route 66 Auto Museum, home to a collection of roadside memorabilia and candy-colored classic cars. A man pulls up to the museum in a Route 66-themed novelty button-down shirt with a cameraman trailing behind him, and the woman behind the counter asks if he鈥檚 filming a documentary. He has a YouTube channel, he tells her.

I ask her if she gets a lot of YouTubers coming through the museum, and she tells me he is the second in recent days. The YouTuber tells her that he is going to exit and walk back in through the front door while his cameraman films him pretending he鈥檚 there for the first time.

I think about how our jobs are not so different, his and mine, only I鈥檓 not allowed to pretend 鈥� I have to take things as they are.

It鈥檚 hot and I鈥檓 turning irritable, so I make my way to the Blue Hole, a naturally occurring swimming pond east of town. The Blue Hole, 60 feet across and 81 feet deep, is a popular destination for scuba divers, but casual bathers are welcome. Its crystalline waters are 62 degrees all year round.

Some gutsier swimmers are diving off of a rock into the water, but I don鈥檛 feel as brave. I pad into the water, but it鈥檚 unbearably cold. A teenage boy tells me that it鈥檚 too cold to step in slowly and if I want to go in, I just have to jump. Maybe this is a metaphor for something.

After about 15 minutes at the Blue Hole, it starts pouring rain, and we evacuate. We鈥檙e drenched and pelted with hail while stuck under a metal awning with a woman from Austin, Texas, who tells us a friend suggested she visit the Blue Hole so she could get in the water.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e in the water now,鈥� Jessica tells her.

My clothes are soaked and I can feel a sunburn forming on my shoulders, so I decide I鈥檇 better head home. As I drive toward Albuquerque, I am taken by a series of billboards advertising New Mexico-themed T-shirts, firecrackers and beef jerky at a nearby truck stop. The one that finally gets me is a sign promising 鈥済irl stuff.鈥� OK, I think to myself, I鈥檒l bite.

I pull over at the Flying C Ranch, a gas station and gift shop off of Exit 234 near the turnoff to Encino. I remember that I鈥檝e promised my editors to take some cellphone video for social media, so I take out my phone and record myself walking through the front doors, but I suddenly feel very self-conscious as I am greeted by the woman at the cash register. I put my phone down. It鈥檚 at 2% anyway, and when I try to plug it in, I get a message saying the charging port is full of water. As I flip through a rack of patriotic headwear, I see the YouTuber again.

That America鈥檚 250th birthday and Route 66鈥檚 100th align seems less like a coincidence when you consider how distinctly American it is to travel long distances by car. No other country is so vast and so untainted by a public high-speed rail system that the best and sometimes only way to truly see America from sea to shining sea is to drive.

And yet, all around New Mexico鈥檚 Route 66 are the markings of a divided America. A gas pump in Santa Rosa wears a 鈥淟et鈥檚 go Brandon鈥� sticker. On an abandoned house in Cuervo, someone has graffitied curse words for Donald Trump. Politics seems to be the undercurrent of every conversation: about gas prices, tourism, business closures, inflation.

I pick up a T-shirt at the Flying C Ranch that reads, 鈥淪ure鈥�You can trust your government. Ask any taxpayer!鈥� and wonder if the Americans of a hundred years ago ever anticipated this when they established its Main Street in 1926. 

Granted, life was not easy then, either. In 1929, three years after the genesis of Route 66, the stock market crashed, catapulting the nation into the Great Depression, which left a quarter of Americans without jobs. The Depression, combined with a devastating drought in the Great Plains 鈥� the Dust Bowl 鈥� produced a mass migration of destitute people westward on Route 66 in search of prosperity.

Much has changed since then in many ways 鈥� and in others, much has stayed the same. Despite a country mired in turmoil, we still take to the road.

What does it mean to be American in 2026? Maybe it means to always be in search of something better. Maybe it means to get in the car and drive.

When she鈥檚 not swimming in the Blue Hole, Natalie Robbins covers education for the Journal. You can reach her at nrobbins@abqjournal.com.