In search of the Route 66 – Albuquerque ‘Musical Road’ NM‘ just outside of Albuquerque on my recent visit to my 49th state I had no idea that I might have had something in common with the carrot chomping rabbit ‘Bugs Bunny’.

I always thought that Bugs Bunny’s most known catchphrases was ‘What’s Up Doc?’ The animated rabbit was drawn by Tex Avery and made his debut in 1940 alongside Elmer Fudd. It seems one of the other well known phrases was ‘I knew I should have turned left at Albuquerque’.

Apparently the phrase ‘I should have taken a left at Albuquerque’ was first used in an anti-war short when Bugs ends up in the Black Forest where he meets Herman Goering in 1945 after the fall of the Third Reich. Titled Herr meets Hare and directed by Friz Freleng.

Have a look at the ‘Youtube’ montage of Bug’s travel disasters at the top of this post.

So back to my fleeting visit to the ‘Land of Enchantment’ that is New Mexico, in search of the ‘Musical Road’. I navigated without any problem to the Route 66 Neon sign at the crosswalk on Central Avenue on Route 66. I had picked up a handy paper map at the car rental. It was one of those cartoon type maps and the ‘Singing Highway’ was highlighted in the bottom right of the map with the city of Albuquerque to the left. I realised that I was heading towards the city so turned around. I was following Route 66 with Interstate 40 to the side of me.  A dead straight road into the high desert but I just couldn’t find it. I stopped at a ‘Loves Travel Stop’ mainly to pick up a magnet souvenir and decided that I should turn around and follow Central Avenue Route 66 back into the Old Town because I had to return the rental car in time for my flight to Houston. Albuquerque has he longest urban continuous stretch of Route 66 at 18 miles  long.

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When I returned home to the UK I had a long hard search on the internet to see where I had gone wrong and indeed it transpires that I ‘should have turned left at Albuquerque‘ after all. I had been heading out towards Arizona when I should have been heading towards the town of Tijeres.