The Route 66 Musical Highway in Tijeras, New Mexico
Few roads are more iconic than Route 66 – free and open highway, beautiful scenery and of course, plenty of kitschy stops and tourist attractions. As we planned our 2,000+ mile trek from Chicago to Los Angeles, one of those places caught our eye: the Musical Highway in Tijeras, New Mexico. A road that plays “America the Beautiful” on our road trip across said beautiful country? We were intrigued and quickly added it to our “Route 66 Must Do” list to make sure we checked it out.
Installed in 2014 as a partnership between the National Geographic Channel and the New Mexico Department of Transportation, the Musical Highway is closest to Albuquerque, New Mexico. To find it, take I-40 exit 170 and then drive east for about 3.5 miles on Highway 333/Route 66. We saw the musical road signs between mile markers 4 and 5. Keep an eye out for these.
The part of the road that actually plays music is short (it’s only about a quarter mile long). To hear “America the Beautiful” the car must be driven over a thin rumble strip near the white line on the right side of the road. This rumble strip is easy to miss. To us Midwesterners, it looked like a long, narrow patch of asphalt covering those dreaded winter potholes. Lo and behold, this little strip is the key to hearing the music. The individual rumble strips are placed at specific intervals in order to produce each note in the song. As the car drives over these rumble strips, the vibration creates an audible rumble from the wheels throughout the car thus generating the “music.” Pretty neat!
We had to be sure to get the car up to speed first. Drivers must be doing exactly 45 miles per hour, not any more and not any less. Once at 45 mph, we had to align and hold the right tires over the strip the whole way through in order to hear the song. Move the steering wheel a little to the left or a little to the right and you’ll miss it – it’s almost that quick. Once we hit that sweet spot, we heard the chorus loud and clear… and had huge, cheesy grins throughout the whole thing.
We drove over the grooves and listened to the song a couple times. Surprisingly we were the only people to turn around and do it over and over while we were there. Maybe the other cars were full of people who live locally?
For a free roadside attraction as unique as this, it’s worth checking out. We dare you not to have a cheesy grin plastered on your face as the road serenades you.
