Gettin our kicks on Route 66 - Tucumcari, NM

Day 3 of the journey to the Guzzi National in Malibu,CA was a long one. We started out at 4:30 a.m. from Springfield, MO and finally made it Tucumcari, NM at 5:00. A long day and we covered just shy of 700 miles.

Luckily weather was favorable and even crossing the all of Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle temperaures never exceeded 85 degrees.

Oklahoma was rather boring to ride but its saving grace was that there are miles and miles of the original Route 66 running parallel to I-40. It's amazing how narrow Route 66 was....from what we saw in most places just one narrow lane in each direction. Luckily there are numerous places where you can hop off I-40 and onto Route 66 and have it all to yourself.....just 50 yards from the interstate for much of the way.

We rode chunks of Route 66 and stopped in at a couple of the towns whose names were made by this great road. The Guzzis were a constant source of conversation, eliciting a lot of questions and compliments from folks. So far they have hummed along nicely, hour after hour, town after town.

We are staying at the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, an original Route 66 motel from 1937. Tucumcari was once a thriving haven for road weary travelers when Route 66 was THE way to get from Chicago to LA by vehicle. It once boasted 2000 motel rooms. Now, the shells of many of those motels litter Route 66 running down e middle of Tucumcari....yet some of those original motels survive and I am happy to say some of these old wrecks have been resurrected since my last visit here 3 years ago.