Category: Travel posts

Our last night in Tucumcari was far from comfortable. The daytime temp was at 39 degrees C (102 F), no shade and with only the smaller ac unit working its little bones off all night sleep was of reduced quality…!!!

Santa Fe, New Mexico was the next planned stop as 66 looped north and the elevation climbed promising slightly cooler temps.

On the way we pulled off to a small roadside stand just past Pecos where we picked up some absolutely delicious cherries and sweet peas……from this very lovely young lady…

Yum…they were superb……

Next order of business…I had found an RV tech in Santa Fe who had a 5 star rating with over 200 reviews (impressive…!!)

Matt…the RV tech was superb arriving only 15 minutes after I called him. Unfortunately what he found was an enormous puddle of freon on the roof……AC unit officially pooched. There was a lot of dust in the desert and AC had bitten all of it requiring complete replacement…not a job for a mobile tech as it required a forklift to raise the unit onto the roof and he did not have a shop….or a forklift

Santa Fe RV could do the job…but in 4 weeks time….We did not plan to stay that long, so we decided to take our chances in Albuquerque.

In the meantime, Santa Fe required a little further investigation.

Our first foray was to Canyon Road on a recommendation from our friendly RV tech (always follow recommendations of locals) . Canyon Road is a whole neighborhood of art galleries and artisan shop fronts….

It was a beautiful day…in a beautiful place…..

In the meantime…

We had been having a little bit of an issue with a tire losing pressure, Scott could not resist the appeal of stopping at Chihuahua Tire to get it checked out. (Editor. Why attend some bland chain store if there’s a local shop and they were great by the way) An oil change at Oilstop and off to the downtown core of the city.

In the evening, we wandered downtown. Santa Fe is the oldest permanent settlement in North America. The Palace of the Governers in the downtown core is the oldest continuously serving seat of government in North America having held local government since 1610. A very cool place.

The old streets and little stores were just lovely….

It is an incredibly beautiful city. Not just its actual artwork and friezes on the highway barriers and bridges…but the buildings are either adobe or in that style. (Even McDonalds and Starbucks have conformed to the local building requirements.)

We lingered for a while around the cathedral…just because it was lovely…..one of the beautiful things which has made Santa Fe an artist hot spot is the colour of the light, as you will see in the photos below. It has a warm softness, accentuating the natural adobe colours, surprisingly easy on the eyes for a desert location.

Our last evening in the city we tried to capture the remaining neon on Old 66 but unfortunately most of it was no longer lit.

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We made a lunchtime stop just across the New Mexico border at the Glen Rio rest stop and Visitor Centre.

Glen Rio is a tiny (derelict) ghost town…but the visitor centre is nice. The lady in there recommended we stop at San Jon (pronounced San Hon) to see the world’s largest Flip Flop (under construction). On the journey of the giants, one could not possibly bypass that one which was on the way to Tucumcari…our destination today…and she assured us, not only should we swing by to see it, but the road was suitable for the trailer…..it was not..

We traveled a short distance hoping it would improve but with our teeth almost shaken from our mouths a sense of dread as to the condition of the trailer overtook us. With nowhere to turn around, we reversed from whence we came, it was no smoother the second time……the flipflop would wait for another day.

Blaze-In-Saddles, Tucumcari.

I kid you not………when we pulled into the campground in Tucumcari (Blaze In Saddles) I asked the owner if it would be possible to stay extra nights. He gave me a sideways ‘are you a crazy person’ look and said, “there’s nothing in Tucumcari”…..”Oh yes” we said eagerly.. “there’s the Rawhide Festival this very weekend…..!!!”

To be fair…if it had not been for the festival he was completely correct… Tucumcari is a town that is well past its sell-by date. The town is probably more than 50% derelict and abandoned……it has definitely seen better days. Once boasting a population around 12,000 it’s now down to 5,000.

Sad because there are a lot of iconic things here (claim to fame being that its where the TV series Rawhide was filmed …Clint Eastwood stayed here when he was a much younger man, and the town was a bustlin’ metropolis …!!)

The main strip is not long, but the remnants of a once thriving town are clear.

Tucumcari is one of the towns that the Pixar movie Cars was based on, it’s a town bypassed by the new highway and has lurched along into decline ever since. Mesa Tucumcari just outside the town is the inspiration for the Radiator Springs mountain in the movie.

The big draw for us was Rawhide Days Festival and the parade on Saturday featuring Mariachi Elvis…who could resist. What the parade lacked in size, was more than made up for by the man himself, Thank you very much.

Mariachi Elvis was absolutely not a disappointment…he was fantastic .

He even put on a rhinestone sombrero and white bejeweled ascot, belting out some Elvis songs in Spanish. He had a great voice, knew how to work a crowd and looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself…….we certainly were. If you ever get a chance to see Mariachi Elvis…get yourself there with bells on…you will not be disappointed.

Also stood and chatted to a lady who was sitting at the back spinning (well really….how could I resist..!!) Lovely lady…thanks for your time Eleanor…. :-).She also showed me some work she had done bias weaving on a pin loom….I may have another hobby…….!!! (Editor, just what her ladyship needs, a new hobby)

It was a fantastic day….

In the meantime, based on a recommendation from the lady in the New Mexico Visitor Centre on the highway…..we also had to back track to San Jon. It is indeed under construction and if you kinda look sidey ways, half shut your eyes, squint a lot and pile in some imagination…….well…..what do YOU think…? I can only assume the residents arrived by the small boat, which ran aground leaving the stranded.

The trip back to San Jon led us through some more relics, lost places off the now beaten track.

There is so much old neon in Tucumcari that we had to do a night drive to see how much of it was still operational…..

The whole time we were in Tucumcari the temp did not drop below 38 C ……and in the midst of it our front AC unit failed…. (that’s the big one that does most of the work……argh) With a bit of internet sleuthing I had some possible reasons for it and with luck some simple solving. Also found a mobile RV tech in Santa Fe with a five-star review…Santa Fe, New Mexico being the next stop on our calendar.

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It’s difficult to drive around Amarillo without the song playing in your head the whole time…LOL….

Now we were into the middle of June and the temps were climbing (for us poor pasty Scottish people..!!) We hit Home Depot for a roll of Reflectix (the silvery covered bubble wrap insulation) to cover the skylight windows in the trailer to provide reinforcements for the AC in the ongoing battle with the heat.

Amarillo has its attractions…..The Big Texan is one of the most Texan tho… biggest and freshest portion of battered mushrooms I have ever seen…..(delicious too.. 😋) The 72oz steak is smaller than Texas, though only slightly

We took a wander along 6th street, Amarillos historic district, which also coincides with the track of Rte 66 through the city….

There are lots of small independent antique/junk/collectible stores along this stretch. Artisan stores, small cafes…lovely places to wander in and out of….The people were, without exception, wonderfully friendly, welcoming, genuine and chatty.

One of the artisans is the guy who makes jewelry out of the chunks of paint which flake off the cars at the Cadillac Ranch. He was inspired by Fordite, jewelry made from the overspray in the Ford plant paint booths in Detroit.

My blogtographer had a field day with all the murals and interesting little spots …and we stopped for the most amazing Mexican food for lunch.

I think I actually managed to not buy anything….(it was not easy let me tell you….)

We wandered by a little bodyshop and stopped to chat to the owner…he invited us in to admire his work….and we did…!!!

It was a hot day…turns out June is the hottest month in Amarillo……phewff..!!

One of the ‘not to be missed’ places to visit we did stop by at was the iconic Cadillac Ranch……it’s impressive from the road as you drive by…and it has inspired other similar art installations….but it was a huge disappointment…..the area was strewn with garbage…plastic bags and empty spray cans……The storm which struck the previous evening had turned the site into a mud pit, but the stream of visitors was constant.

Time to continue west……the next stop on the road, Adrian Texas…..the midpoint of the journey…..

Adrian had its own little bits of derelict charm…..and the station with the bent door…..I don’t think they have bullfighting there, but on The Mother Road anything is possible

…and just like that…..who would believe it…..we are halfway there…..

Shortly after Adrian, the road crosses into New Mexico…the landscape changes again……

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We did not spend much time in the core of Oklahoma City, but what we saw of the surrounding area and the suburbs, have nestled themselves into the rolling forested landscape, and mostly disappear from view.

Driving out the west side of OKC, our first photo op stop was Yukon. The town was actually named after the Canadian Territory. (and it sits in Canadian County..!!) Flour mills were the mainstay of this town..

Continuing west on 66…the next town is El Reno…the ‘Crossroads of America’ where Rte 66 crosses the Chisholm Trail. It took a bit of searching to find out what the crossroads was …..the Chisholm Trail was one of the major cattle driving trails…..and crossed the Mother Road at El Reno.

….just outside El Reno we followed a chunk of the old road to find a tribute to the ‘mufflermen giants’……. an art installation by John Cerney…the scavenger hunt continues

Next stop…Clinton OK……boasted a route 66 museum and visitor centre, handily located at a suitable interval for a lunch stop….and a wander round the museum (to the tune of…..yup…..”Get your kicks…on Route 66″)

Crossing into Texas, the landscape changes quite distinctly….. Texas is flat. .!!!

First town across the border is Shamrock…with all the expected Irish references in the town…LOL……but…we had to pull over to snag some pictures of the U-Drop-Inn Cafe and Conoco Tower station (of Cars fame..)

Groom Texas…..claim to fame …the leaning tower….!!! AH yes, the leaning tower of Groom, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

….and this is indeed the road to…….

Our campsite was at the less than impressive Sod Dawg RV park….Although it had our three essentials, especially power for the A/C, calling it desolate makes it sound far more welcoming than it was in real life.

Where we were treated to the most amazing thunderstorm that evening just as the sun set…..the land is so flat you can see the storm coming forever…then just as it hit Amarillo…it divided, half went north, the other half went south of us…Incredible sky….

We tried to take a side trip to Palo Duro Canyon State park…..but the rainstorms in those few days had completely flooded the area and all the hiking trails were closed. One of the largest canyons in the U.S, it’s known as The Grand Canyon of Texas, where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed….maybe next time….

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If you ask Google…the road from Tulsa to Oklahoma City is only an hour and a half but as ever with this route 66 shenanigans….it took us a bit longer than that…!!! Often trundling along at 55mph parallel to the freeway.

We had made a variety of stops along the way from Tulsa to our next harbour, another gracious ‘Boondockers Welcome’ host in Edmond, Oklahoma. Edmond is slightly north of the city and is very close to route 66 so it worked out quite perfectly.

By this point of the journey, we were well into June, and it was becoming uncomfortably warm…..!!! Our host was in a secluded housing area and had easy parking on a lovely big concrete pad (an easy back in for me…!!!)..Thanks David we thoroughly enjoyed our stay.

There were a couple of attractions on the list just east of Oklahoma City so once the trailer was parked and plugged in (ie. AC running to prevent the cat from cooking…!!) we set off to explore.

Arcadia is a tiny little town east of Edmond with a selection of route 66 attractions. (778 miles of the 2400-mile journey completed…!!)

Arcadia has this beautiful big round barn on the north side of the highway…built in 1880.

Like many older buildings which have lost their original reason for being, the barn had fallen into such serious disrepair the roof collapsed. A group of local enthusiasts took on the project to restore the structure and reconstruct the roof. They continue to maintain it with volunteers and funds raised in their store on the ground floor, concerts, rentals of the hall on the second floor (which is fabulous) and donations. It’s always neat to find these places where the people caring for them have such passion.

We stumbled on this big stone building behind the barn….It was for sale, and we have seen a lot of that along the way. Although the signs speak of forlorn hope more than expectation.

Next box to tick on this days list was the Paul Mcartney sign….(oh yes…!!)

We searched and searched for it just ‘cos it seemed a little crazy…LOL…..the sign is a spot where Paul McCartney reputedly stopped and asked someone for directions…..now tell me that is not a unique attraction…..but even (rather ironically) with some local directions…we could not find it…..the highway was under construction so we assumed the sign had been moved for safe keeping.

For the next tick we took a drive back to the Threatt Filling station…….it was a bit underwhelming….

Photo by Rhys Martin

After the fact in researching for the blog, I find out it was the only black owned and operated filling station on route 66. Built in 1915 and operated ’til the 1970’s. Still owned by the Threatt family who plan to have it restored and open for the 2026 100th anniversary of the Mother Road.

The other ruined gas station closer to Arcadia seemed more intriguing…even its bare bones spoke of a once attractive building. Stories abound of rum runners, speakeasy/gambling den in the back and even tales of a printing press making counterfeit notes.

Last stop in Arcadia is Pops…….which describes itself as food, fuel and fizz….

It’s a gas station with a diner…..and every type of soda pop imaginable…..oh…and a giant neon, colour changing pop bottle outside, in typical Route 66 roadside attraction style.!!

We were recommended by many people that a must visit in OK City was the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building bombing memorial. Remember that awful homemade bomb that blew up the daycare…..I would have guessed that it was in the last 10 years …but no….1995….( sign of old age creeping up. It was almost 30 years ago. I think the awfulness of it makes it seem far more recent……the memorial is one of those incredibly poignant serene darkly beautiful places.

The memorial itself is the site of the Murrah Building that was the main target of the attack. The event itself happened at 9.02…so the gates at either end are 9.01 and 9.03……the minute before, the minute after…..and what is in between changed everything.

The people who were killed are represented by empty chairs…..the small, children’s chairs are heartbreaking.

On a lighter note……another recommendation was the Cowboy Museum. Why not we thought….we are, after all, in cowboy country and we have jumped in with both feet to the western culture.

Well wow…..this place is a MUST to visit if you are ever anywhere close to this city. It is an astonishing collection……… of all sorts of unexpected treasures…

But more….it is a tribute to the history and development of the west through to theatre and film from the silent era to the present day…and a vast collection of the evolution of western boots, of hats (and sombreros) of hand-woven ropes and mecates, saddles, chaps, the history of wranglers and rodeo.

The history of barbed wire, or the devils’ rope, is way more interesting than you could imagine…..also a vast collection of brands…including the curious history of the Maverick brand and why the word came to mean what it means.

Outside there is an extensive sculptural garden …and representations of pioneering challenges (how to fit your worldly possessions in a covered wagon) and reconstructions of first people’s dwellings and cultures…… oh…and there is also an impressive art collection……!!!!

Like most things once you start to look at the detail and how things became what they are now…….its fascinating….we were in there for hours…and I would go back without hesitation……

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Tulsa was a three-day stopover….. with a lovely Boondockers Welcome host. (Thanks LeeAnn and Jeff..😁)

It was an opportunity for a bit of breath catching and a wee trek back up the road to hit some of the stuff we drove by on the way into the city (the stuff you can’t easily stop to see when you have the big tin can hooked up to the back of the truck.)

The ongoing ‘attraction’ list of old motel signs and derelict or renovated old gas stations continues to defy my ability to snap pictures as we drive by….LOL..

We scoped it out in daylight and took a trip to the mother road Market. The market got great ‘must go there’ reviews but we found it a little disappointing….there were no ‘farmers market type vendors…it was mostly a large food court and the permanent vendors inside were peddling mostly tourist oriented tchotchkes……..

The first night we drove down to Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza to snap the classic replica neon signs that have been erected there. …. I actually managed to get this one as we whizzed by….

Arriving at dusk (we thought we were so smart….LOL) we had to wait for a bit for it to actually get dark enough for the streetlights to come on….

The thing that captured our imagination to see in Tulsa was the neon along the strip. It’s a long drive along said strip in Tulsa…there were quite a few signs of old signs that were no longer signs……and many more that have been preserved…or have survived.

The Meadowgold sign (it’s a cool one) has a whole story of its construction, almost destruction and its rescue and restoration here (click)

The trip out along the strip at night was a bit nerve wracking…….it was me driving along at less than 10kmph while the intrepid blogtographer walked, skipped etc. between neon, snapping pix before leaping back into the truck and off to the next set.

The traffic was mercifully light that evening and Tulsa has lots of street side parking areas allowing me to pull on/off the main thoroughfare without being too much of a nuisance….

…..and there was just so much cool neon……

…..and just a couple more…..

After that little adventure we tracked down an ‘Andys Frozen Custard’ in Tulsa…score…!!! I’m telling you …that stuff is amazing….

Next day of scouting took us out to the other Tulsa icon…..the Golden Driller.….

Just for scale…..I am on his foot….!!!

Our lunchtime wandering became an excellent excuse to stop at a little mexican restaurant on the edge of town. Most excellent food (selected mostly by pointing at pictures on the menu……my Spanish is not great…LOL)

Tulsa was quite restful….I think we were a bit dazed by the sheer quantity of ‘stuff’ we had seen so far……and we are not even halfway yet…… and our camp spot was perfect for a little quietness.

Time to move on……our next stop …Oklahoma City, but there are a few more route 66 curiosities along the way.

Sapulpa.

This time I managed to catch the Phillips gas station, The Tee-Pee drive in sign…and of course…the worlds largest gas pump…..!!!

Stroud.

Stroud was another town that had easy pullover parking for us to make a stop and wander the main street.

We parked right by the Stroud Trading building. It’s the kind of store that is hard to imagine if you are not standing in it…..if its vintage, and has anything to do with automobiles…I suspect that it is in there somewhere…… 😁…and probably very dusty..!!

Stroud is also home to the Rock Cafe (Cars connection……Sally Carrera character is reputed to be based on the owner.)

Not a big town by any measure….but some really lovely murals…..interesting little place. We thought amazing progress along the route had been made but as you can see from the sign below, we’d made it only around a third of the way.

Last stop before Oklahoma City….Chandler

As you approach Chandler from the east on Highway 66 there is a visitor centre on the edge of town, with a BIG parking lot where people with travel trailers can park and make some lunch…!!

The centre itself is a renovated armory…..cool building. If anyone wanted to host an event in the middle of rural Oklahoma…this place has a gorgeous hall…!!!

It’s a fairly short drive from Tulsa to Oklahoma City…but it always turns into a much longer day with all the sights and stops along the way.

Oklahoma is beautiful with rolling countryside…lots and lots of trees.

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