Hour 3: Art installations, vintage theaters, and the only place in America where Route 66 crosses itself
1:41pm: After poking around the new Arrive—which I honestly wish I were staying at—I follow a couple other rubberneckers to an art installation just out front. It’s part of a touring collection of Mexican sculptures titled Alebrijes & Nahuals. This one, by Adrián Xuana (San Martín Tilcajete, Oaxaca), is a towering, spindly incarnation of a xoloitzcuintli, those hairless Mexican dogs believed to guide spirits through the underworld. It has a big, open mouth, bent down toward the sidewalk. Its ears, tall and adorned with turquoise paint, are as big as the couple standing beside me, admiring it. “Something this beautiful can’t last forever,” one of them says to the other.
All it takes is a knowing nod from me, and suddenly we are chatting. “We’re just hanging out today,” the woman tells me, sporting a Ringo Starr shirt from a concert they attended the previous night. “We recently retired, and finally learned what hanging out means,” her companion adds. I blink, and suddenly I am looking at his phone, at the photos of the classic cars he collects. A ‘57 Bel Air. A ’68 Chavell. Then he pauses to say a name I do know: The Dog House. “Did you pass it? I went to junior high behind that place, and we would jump the fence after school to go get hot dogs,” he says with a smile, turning to his partner. She has only been once before, despite being an ABQ local; he estimates he has been about 200 times. I peel off when they flag down the mailman, who appears to be a friend. Time moves differently when you’re on two feet.
2:00pm: I trod East, though I have their voices in my head. “Downtown has gotten seedy,” they said, “Not the kind of place you want to wander after dark.” But it’s fine right now. Most people I meet throughout the day are surprised that I’ve passed up, say, the Hot Air Balloon Museum, or the BioPark, or a full day in Old Town, for my one day in the city. None have even considered walking Route 66 through the city. Being on two feet, I already notice more of what’s around me. There are art deco theaters, like the 1947-built Kimo. There are nightclubs, and Flamenco music schools (big in Albuquerque!), and bars that people tell me to come back at night for, like Anodyne Pool Hall (I did return, and it was great).
2:16pm: The corner of Central Ave and 4th St. SW is easy to breeze past, but meaningful to those who know what they’re looking at: 4th used to align with the old Route 66, before the path was changed in 1937. This is the only place in America where the famous road “crosses itself”, I’m told by a man in the Route 66 Tourist Office, which has been set up on the corner for the centennial. He gives out maps and cold bottles of water, and likes to suggest period-appropriate music for road trippers (Woody Guthrie, for someone driving the original route; Buddy Holly for cruising past the neon signs at sundown). We spend longer than I realize chatting, which ends with me posing for a photo behind a cardboard cutout of a convertible. “Driving” 66!