178: Cooling our heels in Tucumcari

You might not choose Tucumcari for a vacation spot, but when you are touring on a bike, you stay along your route and you take an extra day if you need one wherever you happen to be.

Roger and I could not bear the thought of trying to battle the winds that were projected for today. Tomorrow's forecast is much gentler, and so we took a rest day here in hopes of easing our travel to Santa Rosa.

In fact, it was darn windy here at the hotel. The video above just shows how the trees (in the protected courtyard) were blowing all day. I did laundry and used our clothes line to hang them up afterwards because I figured everything would dry very quickly. And it did! Some of the things I put on the line were dry even before I got the rest of the stuff hung.

Tucumcari has a nice collection of old motor hotels along the old Route 66. Many of them are still open for business, and so we rode out after dinner to catch some of the fantastic neon signs. I hate to create a big build up for this, because my photos aren't very good, but they were fun to see and I did the best I could (moving on the bike, in the dark!)

If you are driving across the country on Interstate 40, I highly recommend getting off at the small towns like Tucumcari, and taking the business route through town to view these aging treasures. If you can stay at one, and help it survive, even better! They are not cookie cutter places - they are odd and quirky and one-of-a-kind - which makes it even more fun.

I've included shots from our next morning, when we rode out of town in the daylight.

Curio Shop

Americana Inn

Motel Safari

Curio Shop by day

Palomino Motel

Love the space needle tower

Note the roadrunner in the martini glass

The Blue Swallow had moving wings

You can see the camel in the daylight

Another arrow with that kinetic sense