Route 66 Part 2: New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma & Kansas
It's 5:30 in the morning in Arizona, the sky is still doing that pale, undecided thing it does before sunrise, and we are already in the car with coffee. That's how day three of our Route 66 Centennial road trip started — early, because we had a full day of driving across Arizona and into New Mexico ahead of us, and because when you're covering all 2,500 miles of the Mother Road, you learn quickly that the good stuff doesn't wait for you to sleep in.
The Only National Park on Route 66
Our first stop of the day was Petrified National Forest, and here's a fact we love: it is the only national park in the entire country with Route 66 running straight through it. Not near it. Through it.
The park includes the Painted Desert, which is one of those places where you pull over, get out of the car, and just stop talking for a minute. The colors do not photograph the way they look in person — we tried. When the park was established in 1962 it covered roughly 93,000 acres; a later expansion more than doubled that. We've been here many times over the years, and it never gets old.
New Mexico picked up right where Arizona left off, welcoming us with some of the most
beautiful landscapes and vivid skies we've ever seen.
Gallup: Movie Stars, Muffler Men, and the Best Huevos Rancheros
If you find yourself in Gallup, New Mexico, go to the El Rancho Hotel. It calls itself the "Home of the Movie Stars," and it has earned it — this 1936 hotel hosted Clark Gable, John Wayne, Claudette Colbert, and half of golden-age Hollywood while they were shooting Westerns in the area. The memorabilia on the walls are worth the stop all by itself. Grandpa Scott stood on the mezzanine wondering whether Katharine Hepburn ever sat up there reviewing script notes while she was filming The Sea of Grass nearby.
The hotel restaurant has been feeding movie stars for years, and it is where we had their huevos rancheros. Look — we live in Tucson. We have eaten a lot of huevos in our lives. These were among the best either of us has ever had, and the portions were big enough to hold us most of the day.
Out on the street we met the Texaco Cowboy, one of those giant fiberglass fellows standing guard over the roadside. He may not be a Hollywood movie star, but he's a star in his own right.
Gallup is rustic. It's western. It has an edge to it, and honestly, it has seen some better days — but then again, haven't we all? We gave it six and eight kicks, and the higher score was entirely about the huevos.
The Continental Divide, a Motel That Didn't Make It, and the Uranium Capital of the World
Between Gallup and Albuquerque, Route 66 runs parallel to Interstate 40 — until it doesn't. Sometimes it becomes I-40. Sometimes it's an unmarked state road with no sign telling you what it used to be. You have to be a bit of a detective to find all of Route 66, and honestly, that's half the fun.
We stopped at the Continental Divide, where every drop of rain that falls has a decision to make: west toward the Pacific, or east toward the Atlantic.
Just up the road is the Bluewater Motel, a classic modern motel built in 1957 at the absolute peak of Route 66's heyday. When Interstate 40 rolled through and the traffic disappeared, the Bluewater closed its doors in the 1980s. It's still standing there, and it's a quiet and rather sad reminder of what the interstate cost these towns.
Then Grants, New Mexico — once known as the uranium capital of the world (who knew?), with a railroad history that made it all possible. We drove through one of the Centennial arches you'll find all along the route. This was one of the rare occasions with Grandpa Bobby behind the wheel, and we're pleased to report the sign survived.
Albuquerque's KiMo Theatre and the Longest Main Street in America
The KiMo Theatre opened in 1927 and is a spectacular example of Pueblo Deco — a style you basically only find in the Southwest, and one that makes an architect's heart go pitter-pat. It's on the National Register of Historic Places, and deservedly so.
It also sits on Central Avenue, which is Route 66 all the way through Albuquerque and is billed as the longest main street in America at 18 miles. Three kicks from us — beautiful building, but we were passing through fast.
Santa Fe: The Town Route 66 Tried to Erase
Yes, Santa Fe was part of Route 66 — and there's a wonderfully petty story about how it stopped being part of Route 66.
In 1926, Governor Arthur T. Hannett lost his re-election bid and decided the politicians in Santa Fe were to blame. So on his way out the door, he ordered crews to start cutting a brand-new road that would bypass the city entirely. It began as a dirt road, and by the time Route 66 was officially realigned in 1937, Santa Fe was off the Mother Road for good.
We weren't about to let Santa Fe be neglected, so we drove the old alignment anyway. It's worth it. Santa Fe was founded in 1610, making it the oldest state capital in the country, and at over 7,000 feet it's also the highest — more than 1,700 feet above Denver. It's a UNESCO Creative City, the first in the United States to earn that designation, and the historic core is protected as a National Historic Landmark district.
We come here a lot. It means a lot to us. And the drive itself is some of the most beautiful landscape on all of Route 66, which is why it earned nine kicks.
That was the end of day, and we were two tired puppies.
The Blue Hole and a Steinbeck Pilgrimage
Our day started in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, at the Blue Hole — an 80-foot-wide, 80-foot-deep natural pool of water so clear it looks fake. The stream feeding it recycles the water constantly, which is why it stays that impossible blue. It's become the diving capital of the Southwest, and divers come from all over the world to train here.
Back in the early days, families driving west to California would pull over and call it the swimming hole. Today people still use the rock as a jumping platform. The water sits at about 61 degrees year-round, which is a touch brisk for your Grandpas, so we left the diving to the young people and filmed instead.
Here's what we loved most: they don't charge you to see it, and they don't charge for parking either. Six and seven kicks.
Then came the stop that got our first perfect score of the day. We are major fans of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and John Ford's film adaptation, so we had to see the railroad trestle over the Pecos River — the one Tom Joad watches a train cross in the movie. Standing under it, thinking about the book, the movie, the author, all of it at once — ten kicks from Granpa Scott, and eight from Grandpa Bobby, because he never saw the movie.
Tucumcari Tonight — Except We Came in the Morning
Every billboard for a hundred miles tells you to spend the night in Tucumcari, because it's the last big town in New Mexico. We showed up in the morning. We regret nothing.
The Blue Swallow Motel was built in the 1940s, right before the war, and it's said to be the most photographed motel on all of Route 66. It also inspired the Cozy Cone Motel in Cars — which, fair warning, is a sentence we're going to end up saying a lot on this trip. What we loved most were the individual garages, one beside each room, exactly the way roadside travel used to work.
Best of all, it's still continuously operated and in genuinely lovely condition. Five and seven kicks.
Texas: A Ghost Town, the Exact Middle, and Our First Zero
Not every historic stretch of Route 66 has weathered well. Glenrio, Texas, sits right on the New Mexico line, and it used to be the last-stop hotel and cafe in Texas if you were driving west — or the first stop if you were driving east. Now it's a ghost town, and a genuinely haunting one.
Then Adrian, Texas, and the stop we'd been waiting for since we crossed the state line: the Midpoint Cafe. Built in 1928 and in continuous operation ever since, it's called the Midpoint because it sits exactly halfway between Chicago and Santa Monica. It inspired Flo's V8 Cafe in Cars — told you. The cafe is famous for its pies, but we went for the cherry cobbler, and it was so good we stopped again on the way home for a second helping. Ten kicks. Best cobbler on the planet.
And then Cadillac Ranch. We'd heard about it for years, and we were genuinely excited to finally see this 1974 art installation in a field outside Amarillo. What we found was a site that had been trashed — the spray painting has taken over completely, to the point where there's a booth on-site selling paint cans. That wasn't the artists' original intention, so we didn't spray anything. We couldn't get past how much litter was left behind.
Zero kicks. The only real disappointment we've had on Route 66 so far. Agree or disagree?
We recovered at Buc-ee's, which is not iconic and not historic but is on Route 66 and is, as advertised, enormous. All those Europeans who came over for the soccer matches were right about it. Five kicks for sheer spectacle.
Shamrock, Texas, was the cherry on top of the sundae for us. The U-Drop Inn started life as a Conoco station in 1936 and has been fully restored as a museum and cafe. It is Art Deco at its most joyful and walking into a restored soda shop like that takes you straight back to being a kid. Ten kicks.
Oklahoma: Pops, the Round Barn, and the Land of the Giants
Our first Oklahoma stop was Pops, just outside Oklahoma City — a modern diner built in 2007 that's designed to talk back to the golden age of Route 66. Inside, the windows are lined with hundreds and hundreds of bottles of soda pop in every color, and the candy selection is a straight shot of childhood. Moon pies. Black cherry soda. If you've never had a moon pie, you've never lived. At night the whole thing puts on a light show. Not original to Route 66, but it absolutely embodies the spirit. Nine kicks.
Just up the road in Arcadia is the famous Round Barn. Ask why it's round and Grandpa Scott will tell you it's because that's the way the wood came. Not! The actual reason is better: the farmer who built it thought a round barn would outwit tornadoes by letting the wind curve around it instead of hitting a flat wall. It's still standing in Tornado Alley, so we'd call that a win. Four and five kicks.
In Tulsa, the Meadow Gold sign — built in 1930 for a building that got demolished, then moved here to save it — is one of the most photographed signs on the whole route. Around it is the Land of the Giants, a stretch of original Route 66 lined with fiberglass muffler men and women. There's Meadow Gold Mac and his gift shop. There's Buck Adams, built in 2019 from one of the original molds. There's Cowboy Bob. And there's Rosie the Riveter, who commemorates the real Rosie who lived in Tulsa and worked at the Boeing plant — and, through her, every woman who did that work during the war. You just drive the strip and enjoy them all. Nine kicks.
We also stopped at the 1924 Blue Dome service station. It's not the most photographed thing in Tulsa, but here's the story: that blue dome up top is where the attendant actually lived, so he could fuel up a car at any hour of the night. We thought that was very cool.
The Blue Whale of Catoosa
The Blue Whale in Catoosa is our favorite kind of roadside attraction — the kind with a love story attached. Hugh Davis, a retired director of the Tulsa zoo, built it as a gift for his wife, who collected whale figurines. Their family used it for generations, from grandchildren down to great-grandchildren, and it was eventually donated and fully restored in time for Route 66's 100th anniversary. It's a visitor center now.
Have you ever walked into the mouth of a whale? Well, we did and we survived to tell the tale, or the tail, as the case may be!
We should be honest about the conditions: dear Lord, the humidity. It was hotter than heck and we were absolutely schvitzing. Worth every second. Eight kicks, because it's really a story about love.
Don't Call It Miami
It's Miami, Oklahoma — pronounced My-am-uh, and the locals will tell you so. We came to see the Coleman Theatre, a 1929 Spanish Revival beauty they called the Palace on the Prairie. Will Rogers played here. Bing Crosby. Bob Hope.
What we didn't plan on was stumbling into Rigs on the Route, a charity event benefiting the local child advocacy center, with the most incredible 18-wheelers you've ever seen lined up and truckers donating to the cause. That's the thing about Route 66 that no guidebook can promise you: you just come across great people doing great things. Grandpa Scott developed a serious crush on a bright red 18-wheeler. Seven and eight kicks, and the sense of community and hospitality is what pushed it up.
Kansas in the Blink of an Eye
Route 66 runs through Kansas for only about thirteen miles. Blink and you'll miss the whole state. But we drove all that way on purpose, because Kansas has something no other state on the route can claim.
The Rainbow Bridge in Cherokee County, built in 1923, is the last remaining arch bridge on all of Route 66. There used to be several. Now, there's just one. It's beautiful, it's tranquil, and it's only one lane wide — which is why they eventually had to build a second bridge alongside it. Either cars were narrower back then or people simply took turns. We're not going to speculate about whether people were narrower back then.
We came here specifically so Kansas wouldn't get left out of the loop, and it was worth every mile. Nine kicks, and for once we agreed on the number without any negotiating.
Where We're Headed Next
We spent the night at the famous Rockwood Motor Court in Springfield, Missouri. It’s
the oldest continuously operating motor court on Route 66. Somewhere in there we ate the best cherry cobbler on the planet, gave out our first zero, met Rosie the Riveter, and walked into the mouth of a whale.
Here's what keeps hitting us: this road is only as alive as the people who choose to keep it alive. Every restored motel, every repainted sign, every muffler man someone bolted back upright is somebody's decision that this history was worth the trouble. The Mother Road turns 100 this year, and it's still standing because people love it.
Have you driven any of Route 66? Which stop would you give ten kicks — and did we get Cadillac Ranch wrong? Tell us in the comments!
The Kicks Scoreboard — Part 2
Stop | Kicks |
Gallup, NM (El Rancho + huevos rancheros) | 6 / 8 |
KiMo Theatre, Albuquerque NM | 3 |
Santa Fe, NM | 9 |
Blue Hole, Santa Rosa NM | 6 / 7 |
Pecos River trestle, NM | 10 / 8 |
Blue Swallow Motel, Tucumcari NM | 5 / 7 |
Midpoint Cafe, Adrian TX | 10 |
Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo TX | 0 |
Buc-ee's, TX | 5 |
U-Drop Inn, Shamrock TX | 10 |
Pops, Arcadia OK | 9 |
Round Barn, Arcadia OK | 4 / 5 |
Meadow Gold + Land of the Giants, Tulsa OK | 9 |
Blue Whale, Catoosa OK | 8 |
Miami, OK (Coleman Theatre + Rigs on the Route) | 7 / 8 |
Rainbow Bridge, Cherokee County KS | 9 |
Watch the full Part 2 video on our YouTube channel — the Painted Desert, the Blue Hole, and the Blue Whale all look a whole lot better in motion than they do in our writing.
Missed the beginning? Start with Part 1: Santa Monica to Arizona and ride along from the pier.
Part 3 is coming, and it starts in Springfield, Missouri, at the oldest operating motor court on the Mother Road.
Follow along day to day on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky — and subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss the rest of the road to Chicago.
Travel Your Heart
Grandpa Bobby &
Grandpa Scott
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