Flashback Friday - Tucumcari, NM

Tucumcari is the largest city between Amarillo, TX and Albuquerque, NM. This little hole-in-the wall town was once a booming place when Route 66 was popular, since it runs right down the main street. Unfortunately now the town seemed pretty run down.

The town's slogan "TUCUMCARI TONITE!" is seen all over town and along I-40 for many miles to the east and west of the town inviting motorists to stay the night in one of Tucumcari's "1200" motel rooms.

At night the streets light up like the Vegas strip with cheap motels and gift shops.

This is a roadside sculpture to commemorate Route 66.

This is a souvenir shop. I didn't get a chance to browse in it, though, because it was closed when we were in town.

This restaurant is another throw-back from the old Route 66 -

There wasn't much to do in town. We found out that there were many murals throughout the town, so we grabbed the list with the map and went exploring. These are most of the murals.

The Legendary Road



Route 66

Welcome to Tucumcari

Where's my horse?

Horse - hee, hee

Even the local hair shop had a mural!

There are several stories how Tucumcari got it's name, but the most romantic one is as follows.

Apache Chief Wautonomah was dying and was troubled by who would succeed him as ruler of his tribe. He had two great braves, Tonopah and Tocom. They were not only rivals but both were vying for the hand of the Chief's daughter, Kari. Kari loved Tocom. Chief Wautonomah called the two braves to his death bed and said, "Soon I must die and one of you must succeed me as chief. Tonight you must take your long knives and meet in combat to settle the matter between you. He who survives shall be the Chief and have for his squaw, Kari, my daughter."

The braves fought while unbeknown to them, Kari hid nearby. When Tonopah killed Tocom, Kari rushed out and plunged her knife into Tonopah, then killed herself. When Chief Wautonomah saw this tragedy, he grabbed his daughter's knife and buried it deep within his heart, crying "Tocom-Kari", today a slight variation of the town's name - Tucumcari.

(Information from Wikipedia)

I bet this was a happening place back in the day, but now? Not so much.

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Things in a Row - Part One

I got such a great response from my post entitled, "Things that are Round", that I thought I'd switch it up a bit with "Things in a Row". I hope you enjoy it!

You'd be surprised how many things are in a row....if you'd just look!

For instance, "Aprons",

and arrows,

balloons,

and bar stools.

Birds on a wire,

and bottles,

 

bottle caps

 

and cable spools.

Canadian geese,

and cans.

 

Chalk

 

and Clydesdale horses.

Fallen logs

and farm equipment.

Fir trees

 

and hops fields.

Horses

 

and irrigation systems.

 

Stay tuned for Part Two of Things in a Row in the weeks to come!

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Home Sweet Winter Home

I am  happy to report that we made it to Mesa, Arizona in one piece.

The wind died down by morning when we left Holbrook. Instead of taking Rt. 40 west to Route 17 south, two major highways, and therefore a safer, but longer, drive; we opted for a shorter, steep, through the mountains, albeit beautiful scenery, but scare-the-pants-off-you two lane highway, 'cause that's the way we roll!

Holbrook is near the Petrified National Forest, so there were many tourist shops in town selling petrified rocks. Petrified meaning a LONG time ago, so of course, we're talking dinosaurs. Lot's of dinosaurs.

 

The drive started out flat just to fool me. Wide open spaces - yellow against blue sky. Actually quite beautiful, I think, because yellow and blue are my favorite colors!

I saw this sign,

and found out that for the last 52 years, there has been an actual Pony Express that takes place every January . It is 200 miles long and runs from Holbrook to Payson, AZ. Each cowboy rides one mile at full steam. That's a LOT of riders. They start from both towns. You could actually purchase an envelope ($1), write a letter, and then have it HAND STAMPED that it was delivered via Pony Express! Isn't that cool? Jim and I are definitely going to look into this! Oh, and in March all the riders are in the "Prada del Sol", Parade of the Sun, held in Scottsdale. We're talking lots of horses. Last time we attended there was over 1,000 horses!

Another sign I saw -

Notice the longer horns? That's elk. I kept my eyes peeled on the landscape, but didn't see a one. I did spy a herd of mule deer as we sped by, but no elk.


Doesn't this look like a mirage in the middle of the desert?

The scenery started to change as we entered the Sitgreaves National Forest.

I was enjoying the scenery and the road was going up and down just a little. Then the hills started getting steeper. And what goes up MUST COME DOWN.

We started seeing signs like this:

and my favorite

Danger - curves ahead!

You like that? How about this one?

See? I told you. Dangerous. Looks like a roll-over.

Look at the tall pines on top of these red rocks!

Pretty soon we were out of the forest and into the desert area. We were getting closer to our winter home. I was surprised to see some yellow wildflowers still out on the mountainside. Didn't they know that it was just about November?

Nature's artwork

I spot my first saguaro cactus and know that we are almost home!

More saguaros can't be too far behind. Yep. They number in the thousands!

My favorite mountain in the area - Red Mountain

Pretty soon we're tooling down the highway towards our exit.

And finally, I see the palm trees that line our resort and the HUGE American flag.

We are home. For the winter, anyway!

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