After leaving Nashville, our first stop on the official Rt. 66 tour was a KOA buffalo ranch. Unfortunately it turned out to be rather hokey (only 1 buffalo), but we did get to eat buffalo burgers and wander through the Indian gift store.

Having seen old "wild west" type ghost towns before, I was not prepared for Glenrio. This town was simply abandoned - furniture and tvs still in the buildings, jukeboxes still in the restaurants, household furnishings just left. It was strange to think the people just left, but I guess they did. We actually ended up seeing a lot of this on our trip - buildings with everything still in them but the people.

Route 66 left the main highway in Glenrio and traveled back through 19 miles of dirt road. Having come this far, we decided to go ahead and brave the dirt road in the RV. We only got concerned a couple times when we came across bridges which were technically not big enough to support us, but with a prayer and a scream we raced across and made it to the other side!



Known as the town where many of the ideas for the movie "Cars" are from, Tucamacari was our big stop along Rt. 66 with a chance to explore a town that was actively trying to preserve the "Mother Road" history. Unfortunately, they are losing the battle. Like much of the rest of Rt. 66, Tucamacari has many abandoned and broken down remnants of the glory days of 66, and has actually restored some of the buildings, but the money is just not there. While here we saw many semi-restored hotels and restaurants, but we also saw many others that had given up and shut down. I took the opportunity of our overnight here to ride my bike along the original Rt. 66 through town and explore the downtown. The neatest thing was all of the murals in the town - each exquistely depicting scenes from the old West or the Mother Road. But even those fabulous pieces of art couldn't bring life to the town - the downtown was so quiet I could hear my footsteps while I explored old abandoned soda fountains, stores, and restaurants.

Wow!! This was awesome! But you can't see them from the highway - you have to get off at the National Park to get there. Historic Rt. 66 used to run through the park, but the pavement has since been removed in order to return it to it's natural state.