Roswell to Holbrook

"The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky in all directions for what seemed like eternity" - Stephen King


From a truck stop outside Vaughn, NM

We had a long road ahead of us, so we got started as early as we could.

This was the first day with a full breakfast too - eggs, and leftover fajita meat from last night's dinner. 

Having learned from previous pit stops, we opted to take a few moments to grill an expedient lunch (hot dogs) on our little portable barbecue and wrap it in aluminum foil before we left. 

Departing mid-morning, we left Roswell on US 285, headed north toward interstate 40.

Small-town Roswell, replete with rolling irrigated farmland quickly dissolved into vast, open New Mexico desert. 

It's impossible to overstate how desolate the New Mexico plains are on this stretch of road.

In West Texas the desert landscapes could be described as barren, but are at least punctuated by little sprigs of life; tall shrub and the occasional juniper or mesquite sipping the water and life hidden deep within the soil. Mountains and hills dot the landscape, closer than the horizon and at least they appear reachable by foot. 

Here, the landscape is utterly dominated by flat, low, white dirt. Flora consists of little more than desiccated dry grass shyly peeking its head above the surface. Save for where men have introduced water, the few sad looking dry scrub-brush plants that grow here are scarcely taller than a child. 

They grow low to the ground - crooked, arched, dry, and cracked, as if the scorching midday sun was punishing them for having the hubris to try to squeeze some form of life from the desert. 

Every seventy miles or so, a windmill stands off in the distance, steadily turning, pumping water from the parched ground for bovine immigrants. 

It makes one marvel, and wonder how desperate the earliest settlers and ranchers here must have been to consider their chances of squeezing life and prosperity from this desolate land as a favorable alternative to staying put where they were. 

Even the mountains are sparse here. They stand in a seemingly unreachable position, so far off in the horizon as to be almost invisible against the mirage. They are low, capped by wide, flat mesas, giving an almost unfinished appearance. 

It has a unique beauty all it's own: so wide, and so empty, that it conveys an almost bare canvas. It is as if some grand artist had just set the stage for a miraculous landscape and suddenly abandoned it in favor of other projects. 

At lunch, we stopped in Vaughn, opened the slide-out and ate lunch in the trailer - now a balmy 92 degrees - but it's a dry heat. 

Creaks, groans, and snaps from the now well-traveled hitch had other travelers gawking, trying to figure out what on our trailer was falling apart.

Back on the road, our travels brought us to Interstate 40 West - a busy and straight, but mountainous highway. 

Climbs here were reminiscent of the Guadalupe mountains in elevation, but instead of climbing only once, we would rise and fall, rise and fall, as the highway brought us closer to Albuquerque.

The Titan never protested, and it pulled steady and straight - if a bit slow. Slow, methodical right lane uphill travel at 50-55 miles per hour and 3000-4500RPM, both four and 16 wheel traffic whizzed past us. Just part of towing. 

One high wind gust caused a brief white knuckle moment - pushing the trailer around on the highway before we righted ourselves.

Right outside Albuquerque we made a pit stop due to what felt like a tire delaminating (rough, methodical road bounce). It turned out to be just a poorly graded and paved stretch of New Mexico highway, we used the stop as an excuse to refuel. 

It was about here that the children finally fell asleep in the car - it had been a long ride already and we still had nearly two hours to go.

Ian decided to pretend he was a "ghost" - then, like a parakeet, quickly lapsed into deep slumber. We decided to leave the blanket there and let him sleep. 

Refueling again in Gallup, Katherine managed to convince me that the only operable restroom to take Aria into was in a jewelry store. 

Not sure how I fell for that one...

We got back on the road and headed west to the Arizona border, rising again into the canyon-land border.

The resplendent views here were our reward for the long, arduous, uphill journey today - and what a reward they were. 

If the New Mexico plains were an artist's blank canvas - this was his completed masterpiece. 

The color, the magnificent splendor here must be seen first hand to be believed or appreciated. No photograph, no painting, or gaudy collection of words strung together could ever do it justice. 

I love the desert - any of it and all of it anywhere.
But this is what I love the most.  

Before long, the sun had just begun to set over the western mountain range, finishing the day with a gorgeous desert sunset. 



Exhausted, and excited, we finished the penultimate day of our outward journey with a simple meal of grilled chicken and vegetables and turned in early.

As the sun sank over the western horizon, the temperature mirrored - falling scorching triple digits to a comfortable cool - we turned off the AC and opened the windows, and at night it was cold enough we had to break out the blankets. 

Tomorrow, we would be in Las Vegas with family. 



Today's Statistics

Distance Traveled : 434 miles (whew!)

Fueling Stops : 3


Longest Distance Between Fueling: 154 miles

Today's Song(s): 

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