Crossing New Mexico on Route 66. This first set will take us from the ghost town of San Jon at the border with Texas to the outskirts of Albuquerque on the post-1937 alignment of Route 66. We will skip Tucumcari, however; that gem of a Route 66 stop gets its own post to follow.
Much of post ’37 Route 66 in New Mexico has been obliterated by the interstate. That’s I-40 at the beginning of the set and most of the drive was on it. One can get off the interstate now and then and get on surviving portions of the original highway – typically, it is bypassed towns and cities where it still exists, although here and there other portions also survive (as in Oklahoma and other states, often as a frontage road parallel to the interstate).
The first nine in this set are all in San Jon. When the interstate bypassed the city, the long, slow fade away started…and continues…
Next, Santa Rosa. It has many roadside relics but is not as faded as San Jon. It also has a fine little Route 66 museum. That is the owner in the pic. Normally I would say at this point that we had a nice chat or something like that but we didn’t. He wasn’t unfriendly; he is just is not a man of many words. He did volunteer that his name is Jim but he said everyone calls him Bozo. 30 years of collecting. He operates Bozo’s Towing Service, too.
The Santa Rosa downtown was truly lost in time. Putting to one side the 66 relics Santa Rosa is not a ghost town. That is what is so astounding about it. Another world. Everyone seems to be Latino. Many have been here a long time. This was Mexican and before that Spanish imperial territory. The conquistadors were here in mail clad kit.
In New Mexico (and elsewhere on the western stretches on Route 66) they have these “travel centers” – Clines Corner is one of the better known ones. Many have been around for years but now they seem to be modernized in a drab sort of way. Endless billboards announcing them. Fireworks! 99 cent coffee! Mexican blankets!
As you can see the landscape has really changed from what we saw in prior Route 66 states like Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma. The Texas Panhandle was the transition; in the eastern plains of New Mexico it is also very dry and more sparsely populated. This was part of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. It is pretty desolate (and wholly unlike the high desert in my earlier New Mexico posts) but has its own unique beauty.
