With luck, no wrong turns in Albuquerque.

If the hundreds of miles of plains, high plains, deserts and and brushfire warnings weren't enough to make the point that one isn't in New Albany any longer, there's always the architectural style.

It looks like the prototype for one of The Gary's exurban earth scrapers, perhaps a chain Tex-Mex outlet with plenty of Budweiser on tap. In fact, we're becoming familiar with the cookie cutter exurb, numerous views of which are afforded from the Interstate.

The old part of downtown Santa Fe has been scrubbed, polished and rendered into an adult Southwestern art and craft theme park, but it's been tastefully done in the main, and there are coffee shops and tap rooms for necessary refueling. Much, much history is on display, and it might be summarized as the record of intermingling between Spanish, Native American and later standard issue "American" cultures. In front of the cathedral is a statue of a local 17th-century Native American woman later elevated into sainthood.

Trinkets galore, and fun for browsing. Last night we were regaled by an elderly cabbie, who spun stories of Santa Fe's recent growth and the way it used to be when he was delivering milk. He dropped us off at a wonderfully electic brewpub, Second Street Brewing, where we watched a cross section of locals while draining the grain for a couple of hours.

This afternoon, we've moved on to Albuquerque and a meeting with reigning regional beer expert Stan Hieronymus. Albuquerque would appear to be nothing but exurb surrounded by relative emptiness. Saturday calls for the resumption of our journey toward the coast. Perhaps we can make California.

More later.