By Larry Azevedo (with photos by Mark Wing, Tom Miles, Joe Fellin, Paul Duncan, and the author).

Note: Originally printed in the September/October 2016 Vintage Ford magazine (Volume 51, Number 5).

The Tin Lizzies of Albuquerque hosted this year’s MTFCA National Tour with a variety of routes in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The tour activities started on Sunday, June 26 (although we had some early arrivals on Friday and Saturday) shoehorning 80+ trailers and tow vehicles behind the Elegante Hotel in Albuquerque. Festivities started with a welcome fiesta with New Mexican goodies on Sunday evening. We had participants as far east as Florida and as far west as California with northern participants from Wisconsin and Montana. We had 86 cars in attendance.

On Sunday evening (or optional early Monday morning) the participants had a short meeting outlining Monday’s route noting details about safety, touring instructions, lunch locations, etc. Each evening and following morning there were short presentations on the upcoming day’s tour. On Monday morning everyone took off and drove south of Albuquerque, stopping at Brad Francis Ford Dealership in Los Lunas to display their cars and pick up a box lunch.

From there we drove south and east and stopped the ancient Indian Ruins of Abo for lunch and a visit.

Then it was uphill through the Manzano Mountains to the small town on Mountainair and then north on the east side of the mountain range through several small villages and finally back to Albuquerque on old route 66.

Total mileage for Monday was 157 miles (if you made no wrong turns). Throughout the week the trouble truck crews (4 or 5 trailers each day) helped to direct traffic at critical turns for those who were not reading driving directions. Monday evening everyone enjoyed pizza at the hotel.

We got everyone ‘warmed up’ with some flat driving for the first 50 miles and then there were plenty of ups and downs all week!

Here’s an example of the route directions for Monday (turns highlighted in yellow):

Tuesday morning had everyone checking out of the hotel (leaving trailers and vehicles at the hotel), dropping baggage at the Tin Lizzies enclosed trailer, and driving east through the Sandia Mountains and then north on the Turquoise Trail through the mining towns of Madrid and Cerrillos.

Lunch stop was in Santa Fe where everyone parked their cars in a lot next to the plaza and then enjoyed authentic New Mexican cuisine, went shopping and visited museums.

We had a couple of our members that own depot hacks transporting the Model T’ers from the parking lot to the plaza. After visiting Santa Fe everyone took a short 15 miles drive north of Santa Fe through a back road to the Buffalo Thunder hotel. About 20 Model T’s got hit with a short but intense thunderstorm on the way to the hotel from Santa Fe which provided good fodder for talk in the evening. Total mileage for Tuesday was 90 miles.

Wednesday morning included a drive up to White Rock (town near Los Alamos) and then a drop down a steep road to Bandelier National Monument where we had obtained permission to drive to the Monument.

This pueblo was abandoned in about 1400 AD and has some really interesting ruins. Leaving Bandelier the drive went up the mountain from about 6000 ft elevation to 7500 ft and then down into Los Alamos at an altitude of 7000. Everyone had lunch at the Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos and spent the afternoon visiting the town including the Bradbury Science Museum.

Finally we drove down the mountain back to the Buffalo Thunder hotel. Wednesday night included car games in the parking lot for those who were interested. Total mileage today was about 65 miles.

Each day instructions included details of any ups and downs, for example the climb up to Valles Caldera looked like this:

Everyone got up early on Thursday, checked out of the hotel, dropped off their luggage and started with a scenic drive through the small village of El Rancho, then drove up to Los Alamos on another route, through the Los Alamos National Laboratory outer perimeter and then up a steep but short (3.5 miles) 8% grade up to 9100 ft. altitude. At the top we stopped for car pictures and spectacular scenery of an ancient volcano caldera.

Then it was down the hill for lunch and entertainment at Jemez Pueblo where we were served Indian Tacos, watching dancers and gave rides to the residents.

Finally on the way back into Albuquerque through the village of Corrales we stopped at the Azevedo’s home for root beer floats and a tour of the shop and cars. Everyone checked back into the Elegante Hotel on Thursday evening. Total mileage today was 122 miles.

Friday’s tour was ‘on your own’. Everyone had 7 different options of either ½ day or full day tours to interesting locations around Albuquerque including Indian pueblo sites, Old Town, Antique stores, the Balloon Museum, car museums, National Nuclear Museum and the Tram to the top of the Sandia Mountains.

We had some bad news on Friday; Don and Nancy Houseman from Watsonville, CA were planning on leaving early Friday morning because of a family death. They had moved their enclosed trailer, truck and speedster to a lot that we had reserved for overflow parked adjacent to the hotel. They discovered early in the morning of July 1^st that everything had been stolen. This was in spite of the tour hiring overnight security for both parking lots. The pickup truck was recovered later the same day with damage to the ignition and door lock but Don and Nancy were able to drive it back home on the following day. The trailer and car remained missing for the next couple of weeks. Everyone flooded social media, local news outlets, car club communication networks, and the MTFCA forum with the details and announcement of a reward for information leading to the recovery of the trailer and/or speedster. The speedster was located South of Albuquerque on July 18^th intact and in good shape by an individual who had heard about the loss. He was presented with a reward recently and the speedster is now back to Don and Nancy. The trailer remains missing.

We rounded out the week with a banquet, and entertainment by Henry Ford’s switchboard operator from the Model T era.

As you are probably aware, it takes a lot of volunteers to realize a tour with nearly 100 cars and over 200 people. Our Tin Lizzie club volunteers were fantastic, there were dozens of folks behind the scenes months in advance doing planning, hotel arrangements, route preparation, meals, and trouble trucks.

Thanks to everyone that helped out to make this a successful tour!