Continuing west on Route 66 we reach Continental Divide..The Continental Divide also known as "The Continental Divide of the Americas", "Continental Gulf of Division" or the "Great Divide" is a special kind of "Drainage Divide", in which the outlet of the "drainage basins" it divides, are oceans. Therefore, the Continental Divide, is a watershed: from the divide, the waters can flow east into the Atlantic Ocean or west into the Pacific Ocean. The Divide was a place where travellers stopped to fill their tanks and bougth mementos. Jack DeVere Rittenhouse in his "A Guide Book to Highway 66" lets us know how it was in 1946: "... are several establishments: The Top O' The World Hotel & Cafe, Great Divide Trading Co., and the Continental Trading Post and grocery..
West of Continental Divide is Gallup, NM...El Rancho Hotel, Gallup, New Mexico, is a historic hotel built by the brother of film director D.W. Griffith. It is located on old U.S. Route 66 and became the temporary home for many Hollywood movie stars. It is on the Trails of the Ancients Byway, one of the designated New Mexico Scenic Byways. El Rancho, which was opened in 1937 by R.E. “Griff” Griffith, brother of the famed movie director D.W. Griffith. The Griffiths encouraged filmmakers to shoot movies in the Gallup area, and the hotel benefited by having a bevy of stars — including John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck and Humphrey Bogart — stay at the hotel during productions up to the 1960s.
