Albuquerque Journal – Caminobleu

August 23, 2026

I was happy to see that today the Albuquerque Journal saw fit to publish my letter in support of Gail Evans’ column last week on her analysis of New Mexico’s energy situation.

If you click and scroll through this link you will find my letter, and if you click here you can read Gail Evans’ column.

Hi Suzanne, here you go. Not sure why I didn’t copy the letter in the first place. If you scroll down in the link, you should be able to find the letter there and also Gail Evans’ article to which I was responoding.

Oil profits should go to solar and wind power development

Thank you for publishing Gail Evans’ column on New Mexico’s energy policies. She is absolutely right. New Mexico and the gas and oil companies are making billions in profits from New Mexico’s gas and oil reserves. The state is raking in money in taxes, but the people of New Mexico are paying through the nose because the carbon produced by oil and gas extraction is ruining our climate and our health. Global warming has never been more evident than this summer, not only in New Mexico, but around the country and around the world. This is the first time in more than 40 years in New Mexico that I have seen the Rio Grande and our irrigation ditches completely dry.

We should not be subsidizing the oil companies. Our governor’s $250 proposed payback to the people of New Mexico is an insult. We are paying a lot for gas for our cars, our homes and our electricity. We should be putting oil company profits into building solar and wind power and stop killing ourselves and all other living things by encouraging increased fossil fuel extraction. And we should be charging oil and gas companies for the cost of the ecological disasters they are causing.

Linnea Hendrickson

Albuquerque

Below is a rainbow, a sign of hope for our parched land, taken on one of my early morning walks (they have to be early because otherwise it is too hot). I cannot imagine how difficult it is for people whose work requires them to be doing physical labor outside during this summer of endless 90-100 degree days.

Thanks to Esther Jantzen, who founded our little group of Elder Activist Readers (EAR), for bringing Evans’ column to my attention and encouraging me to write a letter.

I will update our reading list soon.

https://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/opinion-talk-of-the-town/3105472

The front page headlines of this morning’s Albuquerque Journal, “A Very Fun 60s Vibe” caught my eye. The lead story refers to the re-opening this week of the Imperial Motel on the “Mother Road” in Albuquerque, a renovated 1960s era motel, complete with its classic neon sign and “butterfly roof.” (Apparently it is not yet listed on hotel booking websites.)

A secondary article mentions a Route 66 Visitor Center at the top of Nine-Mile Hill that is being turned over to the City of Albuquerque from Bernalillo County. I’d never heard of this place, apparently built with pandemic development money and completed in 2023.

I mentioned the newspaper articles to Kent who wanted to know, “Why is Route 66 so famous? Is it the song? or the TV series? Why doesn’t anyone write about Highway 14?”

Me: “What is Highway 14? What TV series?”

I’d never heard of either Highway 14 or the Route 66 series that ran from 1960-64 and had its own theme song (not the more famous, “Get Your Kicks on Route 66,” written by Bobby Troup in the 1940s” and first recorded by Nat King Cole).

Of course, I didn’t remember these details, but Google sent me to a lengthy Wikipedia article on the well-known song, and a separate article on the TV series.

From there it was a hop to a YouTube video featuring a couple of opening segments from the series with its theme music.

Meanwhile, the unsung Highway 14 that goes through Wyoming will be explored another day.

“I think it’s partly the song and maybe the TV series. It was the main road to California during the Dust Bowl. Let’s ask Jeanne!”

So, I texted our friend Jeanne Whitehouse Peterson, whose late husband David Kammer, did extensive research on the “Mother Road.” Jeanne is also the author of the children’s picture book illustrated by Kimberly Bulcken Root, Don’t Forget Winona

I’m already humming:

Well, it winds from Chicago to LA
More than two thousand miles all the way
Get your kicks on Route 66.

Jeanne replied:

David would tell you that:

(1) it’s important as the new highway system was east to west. Route 66 was meant to arc from the (rust belt) heartland ( Chicago), through the center of the country and on to LA.

(2) Easy then for migrants in Oklahoma to get to the “promised land.”

(3) Then the books, song and TV show because it became famous.

Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath? Wasn’t that set on Route 66? “Yes,” Jeanne said, “I think he used the term “Mother Road.”

See: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/back0303.cfm

I’ve found “Route 66” signs in far-flung places, including small towns in France and in a restaurant in Rome. I guess it’s true that “all roads lead to Rome.”

A route 66 sign along the Via Gebennensis in France

After Jeanne published Don’t Forget Winona, I became obsessed with the “Get Your Kicks” song and illegally downloaded at least a dozen versions from the now defunct Limewire and burned them onto a CD, which is now buried somewhere among many CDs (which reminds me, I took my Bose radio/player to a repair shop about 18 months ago, and last I checked about a year ago, it was still waiting for a replacement part). Wikipedia has an extensive history of the many recorded versions of the song, which will now be bouncing around in my head for the rest of the day (I’ll have to hunt for that CD or maybe I’ll just ask for it on Spotify).

A quick search of “Route 66” on Amazon brought up at least thirty-two books on the “Mother Road,” and did not include Jeanne Whitehouse Peterson’s Don’t Forget Winona.

Let’s get that keyword in the Amazon description somehow, Jeanne!

Now, maybe it’s time to take a ride or a walk on old Route 66 through Albuquerque.