Tucumcari is a town of about five thousand people on the high plains of eastern New Mexico, and it is one of the best-preserved fragments of Route 66 in the Southwest. At roughly 1,250 metres, with the flat-topped Tucumcari Mountain standing over the town, it was a natural stopping place for travellers heading west, and in the heyday of the road it had thousands of motel rooms. A string of billboards, stretching for hundreds of miles in both directions, used to advertise it with a simple slogan about stopping for the night, and the motto stuck.
What survives is the neon. Along the old road, which runs through town as Tucumcari Boulevard, a procession of mid-century motel signs, some restored and some fading, still glows after dark. The Blue Swallow Motel, which opened in the late 1930s and is still run as a motel, is the best known, with its garages for each room and its neon bird. Murals on the walls of old buildings record the road's history, and a couple of diners and cafes keep the roadside tradition alive. It is a place to be photographed as much as to sleep, and in the early evening, when the light turns warm and the signs flicker on, it is gorgeous.
Riding here is easy but exposed. The surrounding country is open range, mesa and arroyo, with the wind often blowing from the southwest and the horizon far away. Interstate 40 runs alongside the old road, so traffic on the historic alignment is light, and sections of Route 66 outside town are quiet, with long straight stretches and old bridges. In summer the heat is dry and the afternoon thunderstorms can be sudden. In winter a cold wind and the occasional snow can make it a hard place to ride, so spring and autumn are the best seasons.
Fuel and food are readily available, and this is the sort of town where it makes sense to top up before heading on, whether you are riding toward Santa Rosa and Santa Fe or back toward the Texas line. The name is often explained as a Comanche word meaning to lie in wait, though like many such stories the origin is disputed. A few kilometres away, Ute Lake offers a surprise patch of water in a dry country, and a small museum in town displays dinosaur finds from the region. Spend a night here if you can, because the neon is better after dark.