Thursday, May 9: Santa Fe, NM > Tucumcari, NM > Amarillo, TX > Elk City, OK

Soundtrack: “Route 66” Nat King Cole

We wake up in a foggy, misty, snowy rain. It’s not worth hanging around and making breakfast, so we pack up and drive down to a lower elevation. After fueling up on PB&J English muffins and gas station coffee, we are on our way back East for the return leg of our trip.

Since we booked it out to New Mexico so quickly at the start of our trip, we’re taking our time on our way home and stopping at all of the Route 66 sights and landmarks. Right around lunchtime, we arrive in Tucumcari, a city noted for its devotion to preserving the vintage aesthetic of Route 66. As we drive down the main drag, I recognize iconic kitschy images like the sombrero above the entrance of La Cita Restaurant, the sculpted concrete entrance of Tee Pee Curios, and the neon sign of the Blue Swallow Motel. Every building has some sort of reference to Route 66 painted in eye-catching splashy murals. “Get your kicks!”, the signs tells us.

We  eat sopaipillas swimming in green sauce for lunch and take tons of pictures of all of the 50’s era shops and motels.

The ghost town of Glenrio straddles the border of New Mexico and Texas. It’s considered a casualty of I-40, the interstate that replaced Route 66 as the main American byway, swerving tourism away. It feels eerie and haunting to peek into the ruins of rundown gas stations and motels, long abandoned and semi-reabsorbed into the landscape as weeds run rampant. Having visited sacred ancient places like Chaco Canyon so recently, it’s interesting to view neglected, modern day ruins like Glenrio and think about what chapter they add to the story of American history. Parts of the film The Grape of Wrath were filmed here, and I think about the waves of migration that have moved through these places over centuries–who was running towards something vs. away from something, by force or by choice, for adventure or for survival. And then at one point, we started retracing it all in wood-paneled station wagons, then RVs and conversion vans. What a wild, weird world.

We continue along, jumping on and off the historic route and I-40 alternately, putting New Mexico in our review mirror. Just west of Amarillo, we stop at Cadillac Ranch. The sky is gray, rainclouds swirling threateningly yet holding back. We walk around the art installation that is 10 Cadillacs buried nose first into the dirt. It’s definitely an inventive way to draw people to a place. The bodies of the cars are thick with layers upon layers of spray paint, and several aerosol cans lay in the mud, inviting us to leave our own mark on this roadside attraction.

“I was here”

The sun is starting to get low in the sky right around the time we reach the vintage gas stations of Shamrock, Texas, and do another driver switch. We decide to make Elk City, Oklahoma, our final stop. I call ahead to the Flamingo Inn, one of many motels listed as an historic Route 66 stop, and confirm they have a vacancy. By the time we get checked in, it’s nearly 9 p.m., just a few hours away from our 5-year wedding anniversary. We celebrate properly and order from Pizza Hut. Kurt tried to surprise me with a heart-shaped pizza, but the teenagers on shift didn’t know how to make one, so we get regular pan plus a tray of gooey brownies instead. In our room, we lay on the bed eating pizza and brownies and drinking boxed wine while watching a Steve Carrell movie on cable, and it’s a pretty perfect night.