In December, French fashion photographer Thierry Le Goues, model Katelyn Pascavis, and a large crew from Dodge Burn Foto descended on the Route 66 town of Tucumcari, N.M., and its landmark Blue Swallow Motel for several days for a photo shoot for Marie Claire magazine.
Le Goues and his crew shot all over Route 66 in the area. The Blue Swallow’s owners, Kevin and Nancy Mueller, recently received a copy of the photo spread, which will appear in the Spring / Summer issue of Marie Claire, on stands March 1.
You can see all 30 of the pages on the motel’s Facebook page, but here are the most Route 66-relevant images.
(Photos by Thierry Le Goués, courtesy of the Blue Swallow Motel)
Beautiful !! I grew up in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Our family moved there in 1945, the town was on Route 66 , Route 54 and a major railroad stop and was the county seat. After World War 2, people did a lot of traveling by car so they could show their family the country they had fought for. Movie stars also traveled by car. Tucumcari was in between Amarillo, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. In those days, travel took a long time, and Tucumcari’s Route 66 had miles of motels and Hotels. My mother, “Libby” Connor, was a night manager for almost all the motels, such as the Blue Swallow and the Palamino,when the owners would take a few nights off. I got to stay with my Mom, and as a result, got to meet the wonderful tourists and Movie Stars. It was a most exciting town. The Beauty of the area was a natural for the Western Movies….. Rawhide, with Clint Eastwood, was filmed just West of town. All the cast and crew stayed in the hotels and motels, and the people got to meet and “hang out” with stars like Clint Eastwood, who played “Rowdy” Yates, in the weekly TV series, RAWHIDE.