Taking a break on Route 66
By Carolyn Gonzales
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| Ned O'Malia at a quintessential Route 66 diner. |
Instead of a spring break road trip to South Padre or Cancun, 11 UNM Honors students took to the Mother Road, traveling Route 66 from Flagstaff to Amarillo with Ned O’Malia, honors adjunct faculty.
O’Malia first traveled the route in 1962 and has been taken with it ever since. In addition to visiting El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, Arizona’s Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon and Two Guns Trading Post, the students learned about literature, music and movies inspired by the road.
They traveled the road’s original alignment that came down from near Las Vegas, N.M., south. “The road had 18 dangerous twists and turns near Cochiti,” O’Malia said, adding that labor for the road came from Santa Fe inmates and Cochiti Indians.
They met the faces of Route 66. “We heard about the unsolved murder of Bud Rice whose body was found on the floor of his gas station,” O’Malia said. Rice gave the town of Budville its name. “Luci Peterson, a woman in her 70s, told us about finding his body,” he said.
For those who missed this year’s excursion, it will be offered again next year. “This was a great group of self-motivators,” said O’Malia, noting, “Once you’ve had honors students you never go back.”
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