Not that there’s any shortage of wacky roadside Americana along what’s left of Route 66, but one of the most endearing of them all, Tinkertown (daily; $3; 505/281-5233), is a quick 10-minute drive north of the old road. Like an old-fashioned penny arcade run riot, Tinkertown is a marvelous assembly of over a thousand delicately carved miniature wooden figures, arranged in tiny stage sets to act out animated scenes—a circus Big Top complete with side show, a Wild West town with dance-hall girls and a squawking vulture—all housed in a ramshackle building made in part out of glass bottles and bicycle wheels, created over the past 50-odd years by Ross and Carla Ward and family. It’s impossible to describe the many odds and ends on show here—one display case holds over 100 plastic figures taken from the tops of wedding cakes, for example—especially since the whole thing is always being improved and “tinkered” with, but the spirit of the place is aptly summed up in the Tinkertown motto: “We Did All This While You Were Watching TV.” The Dalai Lama loved it, and so will you.
To get to Tinkertown, turn off I-40 at exit 175, six miles east of Albuquerque, and follow Hwy-14 for six miles, toward Sandia Crest. Tinkertown is on Hwy-536, 1.5 miles west of the Hwy-14 junction, hidden off the highway among the juniper trees.
Sandia Crest itself is another 12 miles uphill at the end of Hwy-536 National Scenic Byway; the ridge offers a phenomenal panorama from an elevation of 10,678 feet. Back on Hwy-14, south of Tinkertown some four miles north of I-40, the Sandia Mountain Hostel (12234 N. Hwy-14 in Tijeras; 505/281-4117) offers clean bunks in a ski- and bike-friendly environment.
