Historic Route 66

Re: Where is Taylor Sirard?

I merged onto Interstate 40 just before Amarillo, Texas. The speed of passing cars pushed and pulled Bernadette left to right. We wobbled down the freeway past travel plazas the size of department stores, all shiny and bright. Fast food chains with towering signs slinked by demandingly noticed.

What took me longer to notice were the signs tacked onto some of the large emerald exit signs. The small brown markers read "Historic Route 66." Seeing how often these signs popped up, I thought there might be a slower, smaller highway paralleling the road I was on. Route 66, I knew, would still get me as far as I needed to go.

The first Historic Route 66 sign led me to an abandon mechanic garage and gas station. I parked Bernie on the dirt drive between them and climbed out to see the buildings.

[Image: A compact mobile home is parked on a dirt road. To the left are a few tires and some rubble at the road's edge. In the background is only flat, grassy desert and a mostly clear sky dotted with small clouds.]

[Image: Interior of a commercial garage. A tire leans against the wall atop a scrap piece of metal. The original wall paint is scraped and layered with graffiti. There is a hole in the wall where a window once was and a hole in the back of the room where a wall once was. The holes reveal the barren desert setting.]

[Image: Interior of an abandon commercial garage in a desert. The square holes in the garage no longer have glass. The door frame is also empty. The surface of the building has chipped paint and rust. Dirt and broken glass serve as the floor of the building.]

[Image: View from the interior of an abandon gas station. The wall-sized window frames are lined with shards of glass. The rest of the windows lie in pieces on the tile floor. Spray paint doodles are on the floor and wall. Outside, the canopy still stands. Stacks of tires are dispersed where gas pumps used to be. The background has only desert, sky, and a few far-off road signs.]

As I climbed through doorless frames and over broken glass, I wondered if this was all that was left of the legendary highway. I found a dead boar skin behind the gas station and got back in my vehicle.

There was no continuing byway, so I returned to the rumbling I-40 and continued west.

---

The next brown sign I followed brought me to Tucumcari, New Mexico. I passed the usual dressings of a small town near a large freeway: Holiday Gas Station, Super 8, mechanic shop. Farther into town, there were expected sightings of contemporary small-town-America: Napa Auto Parts, middle-class housing, Tractor Supply Company, and roads that need work.

Sprinkled throughout the familiar setting were structures that seemed unmodified by 21st-century design. Hand-painted and neon signs were not just red, blue, or highway-green, but teal, pink, yellow, orange, and all those colors combined. Buildings and signs weren't all squares, but animated icons. I passed a person riding a camel above the Motel Safari, doors that were tee-pees reaching twelve feet high, and a metal hat hanging on the corner of the Tucumcari Trading Post Sign.

Yet, among each unique marking of the past was chipped paint.

There were more parking lots than cars parked in every Tucumcari lot combined. It was unclear which establishments had no business and which were no longer in business.

---

At the west end of town was a small Route 66 monument.

Photo courtesy of plainadventure.com.
[Image: A four-layered pyramid sits atop grass. The first three layers are made from cement. The first has a design symbolizing a road, the second layer tires, and the third arrows. The top layer is the shape of a retro triangular taillight, with three taillights bulbs off the side. The front reads "ROUTE" beneath a three dimensional "66" which tops the pyramid.]

Behind this monument was the New Mexico Route 66 Museum. I decided to visit, hoping I could see what used to be there. With less than an hour from close, I was the second person to sign the guest book that day. I was the only person there besides the elderly museum employee who sat behind a merchandise counter.

The employee asked me, "How does it feel to visit a ghost town?"

I didn't have an answer.

New Mexico's Route 66 Museum is made up of classic cars, vintage signs, and a collection of photographs of the highway's sights from a single photographer. Besides the small gift shop collection, there isn't much else.

Before I left, I had a conversation with the man behind the counter. He described to me the coming and going of Tucumcari's livelihood with remorse. The people there had good and (seemingly) reliable careers until a "better" way came along, and all of a sudden, their lives were swept out from under them. Cars became faster, Interstate 40 was built, and fewer and fewer people took the time to go through Tucumcari.

The Blue Swallow Motel was shoved aside by the Holiday Inn Express. The sombrero atop the Lacita Restaurant was forgotten behind the golden arches nearer the freeway. And so, the American Train keeps chugging; gobbling up unridden track faster than it can fling old things off the caboose. Chugging and choo-ing abandoned, "cheaper, faster, cheaper, faster, cheaper, faster," is the only sound it makes anymore.

[Image: Exterior of a building. "Paradise Cafe" is painted on the front. Most windows are missing or smashed. Crude letters are tagged in black spray paint. Fallen police tape is on the ground in front of the building.]

[Image: A line of gas pumps sit in front of a metal building. On the building are the dispersed letters, "RUCK E M N L," apparently once spelling, "Truck Terminal." The pumps have been stripped of some of their shells and parts, leaving frames that allow sight all the way through the center.]

[Image: The exterior of a building has pieces of ribbed metal and plywood overlapping holes and windows in the wall. To the right of an empty door frame, the words, "STAY OUT," are spray painted along with the anarchy symbol.]

[Image: The interior of the building in the above image. Small dots of light cut through the holes in the ribbed metal on the exterior. The ground is covered in dust, rubbish, and broken glass. The room is empty except for a desk and three broken office chairs just inside the door.]

[Image: A sign reads, "Restaurant," in three-dimensional lettering hung on a brick building. A few letters are missing the red coverings on the rest. An oval sign to the right reads, " Restaurant Travel Center," but is barely legible due to the washed out paint. Near the ground on the same wall is a large graffiti work.] 

[Image: From the road is the view of a motel partially blackened and destroyed from a fire. Near the curb, police tape is tied to a telephone pole. It hangs down to the ground, no longer connected to anything at the other end.]

[Images: Two cars are parked in front of the motel in the above image. The one in the background faces away with broken windows, deflated tires, and no license plate. In the foreground is a car with a smashed windshield and headlight. Police tape is wrapped around the antenna and trails underneath the car.]

---

Thank you for reading. Thank you for taking the time to hear my stories. Thank you for not abandoning this outdated version of communication. 

I have faith we can keep this blog going. If you do too, hop on over to my Patreon for exclusive content and updates. Thanks to my current patrons, I love you dearly.