I got an early-ish start in Amarillo. Side note – don’t stay at the “Yellow City Suites” in Amarillo… well.. unless you don’t mind stairs (the elevator was broke and I was on the third floor), or don’t mind heat (the A/C unit in the main room didn’t work at all, and the standalone middle-of-the-room unit in the bedroom only kept the part of the room closest to the bed cool). Breakfast was OK, and the staff was friendly enough.
I got on the road, and headed towards Albuquerque. After picking up some flat pennies from Buc-ee’s, and visiting the “Bug Ranch” (a bunch of VW bugs buried along the interstate, like the Caddies), I headed towards Adrian, TX. When I got there, I wasn’t sure what was going on, as part of the road was blocked off – turns out Adrian is where the 1/2 way point between Chicago and LA occurs… another photo op. That warranted some photos. And, who should all be there, but the corvette club again! Nice people. still following the dress code.
After that, I took off for parts west. Outside of Tucumcari, I found a cool car shop (“Danny’s”), where they had a TON of Studebakers and other classic cars outside. They had a no trespassing sign outside, so I started taking photos from the road, when a man inside began waving me in. I pulled into the yard and chatted with him for the better part of a half hour or so. After capturing some photos of a beautiful ’56 he was working on, I went out and grabbed a few photos in the yard. As I came back to my car, I heard a hissing noise… this was not good. Passenger side rear tire was making noise. I got in to see if I could limp down the road the rest of the way to Tucumcari – nope. 11 PSI. I went back in, and the gentlemen at Danny’s had me pull around back, where they had a floor jack and impact. We swapped the tire with the spare. Turns out, I picked up a bolt or screw right in the center of the tread.
Off to Tucumcari on the spare, in search of a tire repair place. I grabbed a few photos as I drove. I found a tire repair shop right on Route 66… only to find out that it was 1205, and he closed at noon. No dice. Finally, after about an hour I found a truck and tire repair shop – $27 and another half hour later, I was on my way. Time to find lunch.
I stopped at Del’s in Tucumcari – great food. Then it was off to Albuquerque to visit my friend Jon!
I thought I was going to get in super late… turns out the app I was using wanted to route me through Santa Fe (The pre-1937 alignment)… I opted for the 1940’s alignment, which saved me a couple hours, and got me to the ABQ at right around 5. I met Jon at the intersection of 4th and Central, which is the “Crossroads of Route 66”. We were actually standing at the intersection of Route 66 and Route 66. (pre-1937 alignment went north-south through this intersection, and the later alignment ran east-west through this intersection).
I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque!
That was the end of traveling for the day, as it was time to catch up on old college stories to see if they had changed any in the past 20 years!