One Dusty Track: Route 66 - High Heeled Shoe Tree

Cline's Corners

For almost 80 years, Cline's Corners has been pumping gas, selling souvenirs and feeding travelers. But where its at now isn't where its always been. Roy Cline first opened in Lucy, New Mexico, but soon picked up the building and moved it to the junction of Highway 6 and Highway 2 along the original layout of Route 66. Then in 1937. Route 66 was realigned north of his business so Roy simply picked up his building again and moved it to it's current location. It sat way out in the middle of nowhere and did a brisk business because of it. In the early years, Cline's Corners sold gasoline for 10 cents a gallon and water for $1 a gallon because water was much harder to come by than gasoline. It is still in the middle of nowhere with no above ground water to be seen for miles, but somebody had a sense of humor when they named the road in front of Cline's Corners "Yacht Club Dr."

Youngest-daughter shopping at Cline's Corners - she had fun.

High-heel Shoe Tree

Sometimes things you come across on little side roads can add to the pleasure of a good road trip. After making our way west beyond Cline's Corners, past a number of ghost towns and near ghosts, we came to the city of Albuquerque. After gassing up and grabbing a meal at one of the local Mexican food places (and no, it wasn't the same thing!), we drove a few blocks off Route 66 to see one of those interesting, odd little things - The High Heeled Shoe Tree. Located at 299 Gallup Ave, the "shoe tree" is in front of a private residence, the home of an artist and the creator of the shoe tree. The piece consists solely of dozens of pairs of lady's high heeled shoes nailed from bottom to top of a telephone pole. The whole outside of the well-kept home is covered in strange things, such as flower beds enclosed by bowling balls (some with railroad spikes embedded in them, others with no spikes) or half-buried bottles of different colors; a huge ball of colored cloth strips, a home-made telescope made of cast-off wood and various other objects; bleached animal skulls and sculpted wire figures.

While we were there, we were fortunate enough to have the lady of the house drive up after getting groceries. I spoke to her for a couple of minutes and found her to be very nice and charming. She said she didn't mind at all if I took pictures - "If we didn't want people to stop and see, we wouldn't have put all of this outside!" When I asked her where the idea's come from, she just smiled and said, "From the mind!" "Sorry, but I gotta get these groceries in. Take your time and enjoy!" And with that, she bounded up the steps and disappeared inside.

High-heel shoe tree

That type of stuff doesn't flow from MY mind, but I sure do find it interesting. It took a while before we were able to pull ourselves away from this weird, but engaging display. Eventually though, we made our way back to Route 66 and continued our journey west toward a sad story in Budville and a really interesting mystery stone in Rio Puerco.