Route 66 and Tucumcari

Taking a long distance trek provides opportunities and requires decisions. We decided to travel to Tucson using both U.S. Highways and the Interstate system. Of course, if one is going to travel the U.S. Highways from Chicago in a south-westerly direction, one should consider Route 66, and we did!

As the sign above implies, there is the current iteration of Route 66, and then there is the "Historic" Pre-1937 route. We traveled portions of both.

Travelling Route 66 took us to Tucumcari, NM and we stayed in a campground nearby so we could see the town and its famous murals in the morning. At this time of year, there aren't a lot of vacationers, and so we had a quiet stay. We arose in the morning, had breakfast and then prepared to see the murals and continue our trek.

We were not disappointed and enjoyed the murals. Of course, this being winter many tourist establishments were not open, but no matter. Our Roadtrek is very self-sufficient with the larger 5 cu. ft. refrigerator, generator for power and bath facilities. And, there are any number of eating establishments nearby. So we toured the town and weren't disappointed. The murals were everything we expected.

I had presciently purchased a Route 66 hat so I could do this in the appropriate style.

Here is a sampling of the murals, I suggest the interested traveler schedule some time in Tucumcari, NM so all can be seen.

There were a few surprises in Tucumcari, but I leave these for the traveler to discover. I don't want to give it all away and the trek was worth our while. I was impressed by the pride of the local establishments and a school. Definitely a lot of home town pride.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

During any long distance trek in the winter months winter will do what it does. As should be expected, travelers need to deal with the weather.

In this trek we experienced snow, ice, frigid weather, rain and also abundant sunshine. While we experienced an unusual rainstorm, back home in Wheaton there was an unusual 20 inch snowfall!

I can say we enjoyed the rainfall more than we would have "enjoyed" the snow.

Tucson - The Desert Museum

This is another in a continuing series. The mornings are cool but as the day progresses the temperature increases. Layering is the standard approach, and we peel clothes as the morning progresses and then put on the vest, etc. in the evening.

There is a lot of wildlife in and around the museum. We spent an entire day there.

Pima Air & Space Museum

Our Tucson area trek included a visit to the Pima Air & Space Museum.

It's my understanding that Pima is the largest privately-funded, nongovernmental air & space museum. In the U.S. only the Smithsonian and The National Museum of the Air Force at Wright-Patterson are larger. Pima has a variety of military and civilian/commercial aircraft on display numbering  300+. It has several indoor hangars, plus outside walking tours (on your own or even via a tram).

We did the tram ride and it was most informative. It takes about an hour and I recommend it to get a wonderful overview of the outside exhibits. Our guide was a former Air Force pilot who described the aircraft and provided some very interesting anecdotal information. This allowed us to decide which to later walk to in order to get a better and more detailed view. Far too many aircraft inside and outside to post here, so here is a sampling.

We ran the lunar lander simulator and got scores of 13 and 15. We ended our tour with a walk on the moon!

There's ample parking and we were in the "overflow" lot which is also for RVs. We could have fit within the normal lot, but the walking distance was slight and so we decided to park with the Class A's.

After the tram ride we took a short walking tour on our own:

The museum includes exhibits of both fixed wing and rotating aircraft, and interactive stuff.

Original material:  https://roadtrek210.blogspot.com/

More Tucson Outdoor Photos

More photos from our Tucson area trek:

There's a busy bee in this photo:

Tucson Raptors

The Arizona-Sonoma Desert Museum has a wonderful raptors in flight exhibit. No cages, just free-flying birds and amazed onlookers. The raptors include a variety of owls and hawks:

This hawk flew just above my head; I was standing about three feet behind the handler. The photo was taken with a wide-angle lens and so this bird was much closer than it appears in the photo. She settled on a saguaro directly behind me.

One of the hawks took a treat to a nearby saguaro before returning soaring. At one time there were four hawks pirouetting and dazzling the crowd. On the day we attended the museum there were two raptor in flight shows. One in the morning and another in the afternoon. The morning had several owls and a red-tailed hawk. The afternoon had four hawks.