After getting the 1939 Ford back together and running again, I decided that we needed to take her for a test drive! The weather has been very nice, too nice actually, but that is another story, and I was frankly getting tired of staying home, so we filled the old girl up with gas and took off down 260.

Once we got to Springerville we headed south down 180 to Alpine where we stopped for a bowl of chili and a cup of coffee at the Bear Wallow Café. I have to say I really like the Bear Wallow, I wish someone would open up a back to basics greasy spoon café like that in Show Low. Sure miss our old Burg and Brew, I wish they had replaced it after the fire.

Anyways after our break we headed down 180 into New Mexico, one of my favorite drives. It occurred to me that after all the trips up and down 180 we had never ventured over to Reserve which is on NM12, a left turn and a nice drive through mountains got us to Reserve. A very typical small western mountain town, couple of bars, a café or two and a lot of churches. A number of old buildings and quite a few mobile homes. A number of folks were out and about and they all waved and pointed at the car, as did most of the folks we met on route 12. Once we had seen all of the sights in Reserve, we headed up NM 12 to NM 32 which we took up to Quemado  NM. NM32 is a really nice drive winding through a very pleasant valley and very well thinned Ponderosa Pine forest that transitions into a Juniper/Oak forest as you drop down and head north. I imagine that it would be breath taking in the mid to late summer after a bit of rain.

We stopped for gas in Quemado at a really nice gas station/ general store on US 60. Which became the high point of my day. A young woman, guessing in her early 30s was at the station filling her mom van and trying to keep her three little ones from running amok, came over to my pump and told me that she thought that we had one of the prettiest and most distinctive cars that she had ever seen. She was quite interested to know what it was and everything about it, a usual gas station old car conversation that is one of the main reasons that I have and drive old cars. It makes all of the work, time and effort worth it!

Had we had, a bit more time, we would have continued east on 60 to Pie Town, for pie… but since we both are on diets, we decided to head west back toward Springerville on 60.

All in all a really nice 275 mile or so drive, nice weather, good conversations highly recommend it as a nice day trip, that is if you live in the White Mountains…. just sayin…