Something is burrowing through the desert when a creature pops up through a hole in the dirt. A grey rabbit stands, brushing himself off and looking at his surroundings. Realizing he’s not where he should be, he checks his map and says aloud with mild irritation: I knew I should’ve taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
That Bugs Bunny statement is a long-recurring theme and gag in a number of Warner Brothers cartoons. But seriously, that is one very specific geographical reference. What does Bugs mean by “that left turn?” Is it a real thing?
After the 1937 realignment of highway US route-66, Central Avenue became the east-west “Mother Road” through the city of Albuquerque. Driving west on Central Avenue towards the city’s Old Town district, the road bends slightly right and northwest to run parallel with the Rio Grande river. The road eventually comes up to a junction, and drivers are faced with choices at the intersection of what are now Central Avenue and Rio Grande Boulevard.
• Turn right, and drivers are headed away from US-66 and north towards Santa Fe.
• Stay left, and drivers continue west on US-66 towards Arizona and the highway’s west terminus in Los Angeles, California.
John Deeth wrote about this in August 2011 and thanks to the interwebs, that’s how we came to visit and photograph this ordinary looking intersection in Albuquerque during our journey through the American Southwest.
And in the picture below? We stayed left.
Westbound on Central Avenue (US-66) at Rio Grande Boulevard: Albuquerque, NM – 7 Oct 2018.
I made the street picture above on 7 October 2018. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-cDo.
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