India’s most holy river is called “Mother Ganga.” America’s most holy highway is called “The Mother Road.” Route 66 is the highway equivalent of Old Glory and the American equivalent of the Silk Road. Between 1926 and 1985, it linked Chicago and Santa Monica for vacationers and every kind of itinerant during a period of westward migration. It’s been a symbol of American freedom and hope in some of our best literature, like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.
Since leaving Berkeley, I’ve been traveling Route 66 at times — now mostly along Interstate 40. Yesterday, I left Albuquerque on the path of Route 66 toward Louisiana, and stopped for a sleepover in the little town of Tucumcari.
I wanted to visit Tucumcari after reading that it’s Ground Zero for Route 66 aficionados. Tucumcari (population 4,919) has a Route 66 museum, historic “motor hotels,” dozens of murals, and a lot of old-fashioned neon. (Historians believe “Tucumcari” might be a derivative of the Comanche word “tukamukaru,” which means a lookout point.) It’s not really a tourist destination but it is an important site of quirky American history.
I was lucky enough to get a room at the Blue Swallow Motel, perhaps the most iconic of Route 66 lodgings and written up by the Smithsonian as “the best, and friendliest of the old-time motels.” Staying there was like stepping back in time to 1950. Although parts of the property have been updated, the motel still has the original bathroom fixtures, refrigerators, and neon signs. Each room has its own garage and a table outside with a big glass ashtray, just like the ones my parents had. The owners are enthusiasts and eager to share the history of the motel.
So that’s about all of it in Tucumcari during a pandemic for a vegetarian who doesn’t like fried foods. Next stop, somewhere east.
Camino Milagro 
In 1958, my family drove from Indianapolis to Los Angeles following route 66 most of the way. Can’t say I remember this motel as I was five. The trip was quite an adventure though. Thanks for the reminder.
Nice to have that memory of a road trip. It seems to have had an effect! 🙂
Initially upon reading this all ll I could think about was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oidIMILnjH8, Jimmy Rodgers’ valiant attempt to sing the #1 worst song in American folklore.
I have a faint memory of stopping over in Tucumcari on my trip “out west” when migrating to California in ’67 for the Summer of Love. Very faint. I think we slept in the car.
The Blue Swallow Motel looks like something out of a ’50’s movie. If fact, the whole town does.
You did a nice job in portraying the town. You showed the town definitely merits a better song.
🙂
“Willing” by Linda Ronstadt and Little Feat!
Much better! This is a really good song.
160x thankyou
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Tukamukaru means to lie in wait; an ambush. I’m blown away in that the Holy Spirit has been sending me messages; one where out of the blue I heard someone say “quay”. Well that’s the county here for Tucumcari, but never heard it as a word so I looked it up and it’s defined as “a built structure, usually on a waterway, known as a LANDING PLACE! Maybe not a shocker but it sure has significance to me, and then I looked up Quay County…it was named after a Pennsylvania Senator! Something’s coming up I believe.
Eons ago this area where Tucumcari is, was swampland and had “pleiosaurs”, some sort of dinosaur flying creatures. There’s a dinosaur museum here showing them as they were.
I’m not from here and where my testimony has taken me in thought, is that I’ve 100% been placed here..I even have a timeline given out of thin air.
This is about “History repeats itself”, and as scripture says, ” What happened once will happen again.”