Several of you have asked, "Why are you stopping in Tucumcari and where is it"? Good question! What started off as a good stopping place on our way home between Albuquerque and Amarillo has ended up being a great stop! Initially, for our trip back east from the Grand Canyon, we tried to schedule stops that would not require Glenn to drive so far each day that he would be exhausted! After all, this is supposed to be a fun trip! We started looking at cities we haven't been to on I-40 (the most direct route) where we might want to stop and spend a couple of days (Albuquerque, Amarillo, and Oklahoma City) and cities we have been to and want to spend a couple of days (Hot Springs, Memphis, and Nashville). Then, when we started routing miles, we realized that the distance between some of the cities was too far to drive in one day (and not be exhausted!).
Enter Tucumcari! And, lo and behold, they have a KOA (too easy to make reservations online, and we haven't stopped at a bad one yet!)!
For starters, Route 66, the "Mother Road" completed in 1926 connecting Chicago to Los Angeles and probably the most well known highway in the world, runs right through Tucumcari, the county seat of Quay County. That would be it's "claim to fame"! Sounds fun! Most of us remember the TV show "Route 66" from the 60's and "get your kicks on Route 66". We have already been on Route 66 in Flagstaff and on the way to Santa Fe and have loved the feelings of nostalgia when visiting the mom and pop cafes and the tourists traps that make trips more memorable! Need I say more! Tucumcari, maybe it's the name (it sort of rolls off the tongue), or maybe it's the strategic location on Route 66, is also mentioned in a number of songs and movies. Sounds good!
And...yes, there's more...Tucumcari was once a wild-west railroad town known (though not officially) as Six Shooter Siding where "men carried a roll of bills in one pocket and a
six-shooter in the other", and was known to have had a more colorful frontier life and more gun fights than any other town in the southwest, rivaling Dodge City, Kansas.
Also, according to the Tucumcari Historical Museum, Tucumcari Mountain (which, by the way, is behind us at our campsite...yes, I took pictures!), serves as a landmark historically as well as visually, having served as a hunting ground for ancient tribes as well as a lookout point for later tribes.
So...even though we only got here this afternoon and are leaving for Amarillo tomorrow, we did a little exploring by cruising through town on Route 66, visiting the Tucumcari Historical Museum (Linda and Joy were such fun and a wealth of information), shopping at Tepee Curios, and having dinner at Del's Restaurant (Paul McCartney and his girlfriend, Nancy Shevell) ate there in August, 2008, and Morgan Freeman has eaten there 3 times in the last several years!).
Now, aren't you glad you asked? What a learning experience this trip has been, and there's a lot more history to this area than we have come close to exploring! When we made our reservations here, we had no idea that our "overnight" stop would be so much fun!
Click on the two links below to see today's pictures.
https://picasaweb.google.com/104959812223133937279/September132011TucumcariNM?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNXwq4mJ1er1bQ&feat=directlink
https://picasaweb.google.com/104959812223133937279/September132011TucumcariNMGlenn?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIH0_bPSy5PriwE&feat=directlink
No comments:
Post a Comment