Boasting one of the most interesting names of any city in the United States, Tucumcari is located in the high plains country of east central New Mexico. It's a former railroad town that began life as "Six-Shooter Siding", and was home to several railroads in the 19th century. Route 66 brought neon motels and mother road culture in the 20th century. Today Tucumcari still preserves much of its Route 66 heritage.
Depending on who you ask, the name is either from a very cheezy-sounding "Apache" legend about two lovers, Tocum and Kari (ask the locals about it), or it's a mangling of a Comanche word meaning "lookout hill" — a reference to Tucumcari Mountain, the flat-topped mesa dominating the southern horizon. Blazing hot in the summer, and freezing cold in the winter, Tucumcari suffers, er, enjoys a diverse climate. Plenty of Route 66 classic motels await the highway traveler, including the legendary Blue Swallow Motel.
There's more to a stop here than the motel: the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum is the best collection of bronze-cast fossils in the country, the Odeon Theater is a 1936 cinema still showing films, and the town's thirty-plus murals reward a slow walk along Tucumcari Boulevard at sunset.