Travel Blog

We have only stayed at the Route 66 casino hotel in New Mexico once and I wanted to take more pictures, however the security guards warned me not to take pictures of the actual casino. They were continuously watching me whenever I had my camera in my hand. All I could do is take a picture of the restaurant area. The highway decoration in the foreground of the picture is supposed to be route 66 with a restaurant in the background.

We stayed over night. However were only there for a few hours. We arrived very late at night. We had to leave early the next morning to make our previous reservations at another location.

Route 66 Casino

The restaurant was great and we enjoyed the meal very much. The quality for breakfast was great. The size of the meals allowed us to split the meal between my wife and I. We have found that it is better for us to split meals since we often cannot finish a meal on our own. It saves us money as well.  The meal portions are just so large. It does not make sense to waste all of the food. We do have to compromise sometimes on what we eat. But it is definitely worth it to split and not gain weight.

Just West of Albuquerque, New Mexico

The route 66 casino and hotel is about 15 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is a good place to stop if your are looking for a place to stop for the night. There are several restaurants to choose from and there is discount gas as well for cars and trucks. It is easy to reach off of I40 and there is a large surface parking lot.

We have stayed in the city, however, you have to deal with rush hour and traffic the next morning, so we prefer to stop at the route 66 hotel to avoid traffic congestion in Albuquerque next morning if we are heading west.

There is not much else around this particular area, so it really is a stop over place and a place to try your hand at some of the slots or table games that are in the casino.

Route 66 Nostalgia

Basically I think this Route 66 thing is a bit over rated. yes this was the route of the wagon trains to the west and yes there is a great deal of history associated with Route 66. However we have driven various sections of route 66 in Arizona and New Mexico and found it long and not that interesting. There are a few interesting tourist stops along the way, which either serve meals or sell various route 66 trinkets, but that seems to be about it.

I would recommend that you drive part of it, stop in some desolate location and take a moment or two to think about how harsh the surroundings are and how difficult it must have been to travel that route by horse or wagon train many years ago. It was a pretty tough environment and you can only really appreciate how hard it was for them by getting out of your air conditioned car and think about what it was like

Oatmen Arizona

Another Route 66 location is Oatmen Arizona. This is a little town that used to be a mining town on the Route 66 road. It is still operating, now as a tourist location. The big attraction of Oatmen is the donkeys that roam wild throughout the streets looking for food from the tourists. These donkeys are descendents of the original donkeys that were abandoned when the minors left after the mines ran out. Somehow these donkeys survived in the desert and continue to exist in the desert around Oatmen.

The other main attraction about Oatmen on Route 66 is the local bar. When the minors got paid they would pin their money to the wall with the bar tender removing money as the minor ate or drank his way through his paycheck. Today there is roughly $80,000 in one dollar bills that are pinned to the walls. They cover every square inch of the walls and even on the ceiling. The ceilings by the way are 15 feet at least and this is a really large room, so it is quite a site to see all of this money pinned to the wall. All of it in $1 bills.

Well that is enough about the Route 66 Casino Hotel and Oatmen, two route 66 locations we have visited in two different states. Hope you enjoyed reading them.

For more posts about casinos around the country, click here.

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