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Question: As a roadtripper, are you a magpie who delights in stopping at any shiny roadside attraction that catches your eye? Or do you aspire toward the travel patterns of the Bar-tailed Godwit1, intent on reaching your destination with as few delays as possible? I’d like to think I’m more of a magpie, but in truth, our family’s road trips are usually on the Godwit express line.
However, a stormy weather report at the end of our most recent trek to Santa Fe prompted us to take a return route we hadn’t traveled before, south to I-40 and east across the Texas panhandle and Oklahoma. A portion of that road runs either parallel to or over historic Route 66, and something about the kitschy nostalgia of that had me doing more than a cursory scan of the places we might pass through, the attractions we might see along the way. And this time we actually stopped at a few.
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Like a moth to a porch light, I was drawn to the neon sign for Tee Pee Curios in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Never mind that the neon wasn’t actually lit, that’s beside the point. Established in the ’40s, with its stuccoed partial-cone entrance, Tee Pee was once among a slew of such shops vying for travelers who rolled on down that storied road. As the commemorative postcard reads:
“Built in the early 1940’s when Rt. 66 was only two lanes, the Tee Pee started out selling Gulf gas & groceries, with a sideline of curios. As 66 grew, the store lost its gas pumps to the widening road. In its heyday it was but one of many curio stores bidding for business from the thousands of cars that were passing by daily. But in 1981 Tucumcari was bypassed by I-40 & it spelled the end of an era. Now the Tee Pee is known for being the last of the old Rt. 66 curio shops left not only in Tucumcari, but in eastern New Mexico.”
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Today, it stands somewhat alone, next to a dispensary and catty-corner across the street from a small donut shop (according to the Yelp reviews, we really should have stopped at Donut Pro, though I don’t know for sure that it’s still open). Stepping inside felt at least a little bit like that stucco teepee doorway is some kind of time portal. The racks were stuffed with t-shirts and hoodies, shelves packed with all manner of trinkets—old license plates and commemorative tiles, stone figurines and tiny cloth worry dolls, ball caps and shot glasses—some tacky, yes, others fetching and oddly authentic. The front jewelry case’s displays revolved like a wide Ferris wheel showcasing what I (rightly or not) judged to be cheap, possibly faux turquoise pieces. But the side cases. The side cases were stacked with velvet-lined trays filled with heavy rings, clearly vintage and finely worked in silver and turquoise and orange spiny oyster. If I had a couple hundred dollars to spare, I would have snapped one up.
Instead, I gravitated to a row of tiny, brightly painted carved wooden animals from Oaxaca, Mexico. While in Santa Fe we had stopped into Good Folk, a little gem of a shop that specializes in beautiful, whimsical art made locally and in Oaxaca, including larger examples of hand-carved and painted animals. I wasn’t in the market for those bigger pieces right then, but these little guys in Tucumcari reminded me of the experience and so felt like an apt memento not only of the drive but also of the destination we’d just left. So I picked up the spiky red and white porcupine who seemed to be whispering to me, or at least smiling enigmatically.
I may not need another object to sit on a shelf at home, but I think I absolutely need its physical reminder that turning the wheels off the usual track and experiencing some thing or some place new is life-affirming. If you too need a little bump to ease you out of a comfortable rut, consider this a light hand on your back, prompting you to take the detour, make the stop, let yourself embrace the kitsch or the corny, or just the unexpected. How else are you going to find your porcupine?
The Bar-tailed Godwit holds the record for the longest nonstop flight by a bird, a nine-day, 7,000+ journey from Alaska to New Zealand with zero stops for water, food, or rest. Don’t lean too far into their example when cruising the highways and byways out there.