Farmington, NM to Wichita, KS (Days 9 & 10)

Northern New Mexico is an interesting mix of dirty desert towns and cute little alpine towns. Farmington is the former. But just east of the town is a number of Anasazi ruins, the most accessible of which is the Salmon Ruins. There's a huge complex of rooms here, the outline and footprint of a large building that housed hundreds of people.


Steaming east toward Taos, NM, i started climbing into the Rockies, the southern extent of which almost reach Santa Fe. i crossed the continental divide twice, once going west and again coming east.


But i was completely unprepared for the day i was about to have. i just kept going up, up, up into the mountains. The land became exceptionally green, the air cool, and the trees just barely budding to an early spring.


As i rounded some curves near the crest of the mountains, i started seeing white patches. At first i thought it must be sand. It wasn't. It was snow. i later found that my elevation here had been slightly higher than 10,000 feet.



This was the most beautiful view i encountered the whole trip. The rocks of the Brazos Cliffs are over 1.7 billion (1,700 million) years old. It was spectacular. i could have stayed here all day. i could have cut down a tree, built a hut, and stayed here forever.



Alas, i eventually had to descend. As i did, i drove through Carson National Forest. There were a lot of beautiful scenes here, sprawling, lush fields nestled between peaks. Lots of cows. i imagined they were pretty happy cows. i would be a cow here...



i pointed the car toward Raton, and my last night in a motel. i followed US 64 through the town of Cimarron, "where the mountains meet the plains." And on my way north to Raton was disappointed to find that i had to merge onto Interstate 25 for 4.1 miles before catching the rest of 64 on the other side. After nine days and not a single mile on the interstate, i was crushed.

i stayed that night in a Motel 6. Let me just take a moment to sing the praises of this chain... it's dependably clean, cheap, and accessible. It feels safe, the water is hot and the A/C works. As much as it is possible to love a motel chain, i love Motel 6.


Day ten was really just supposed to be a travel day, and i got up and continued east on US 64 with that intention. There was one stop along the way, but i didn't figure it to take very long. In the town of Capulin, New Mexico, i took this photo, because i thought it was so representative of the desolation of this part of the country...



The stop was Capulin Volcano National Monument. There was a trail along the rim of the volcano and i wanted to hike it. It was a short one, only about a mile and a half, and as it followed the volcano's rim, i assumed it would be an easy one. Boy, was i pleasantly surprised!! Capulin kicked by hiking boots. It was fantastic. Here is the photo from near the top of the trail, looking into the crater. If you click the photo, you can see the parking lot on the far side of the rim.



In Clayton, New Mexico, i turned onto US 56 and managed to drive right past the last attraction i wanted to hit: the common point of New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Unfortunately, there was a massive amount of construction at the border and i couldn't easily turn around to go find it. Oh well.

I followed 56 through Boise City, Oklahoma, which, like Guymon on the way in is just another forgotten panhandle town. And this one didn't even support the now famous (in my mind) Oklahoma Panhandle State University. i did drive back through Greensburg, Kansas, and managed to take one unobtrusive picture. So here it is... Greensburg, Kansas, one year after the EF-5 tornado turned it into rubble...



So that was it... it's taken me most of the summer to complete the review of the Great Southwest Safari. Not much else has happened this summer that i care to blog about at present. i did go home to Pittsburgh for a month, and visited Emily and her little sister and parents. That's worth talking about, i guess, but i'm pretty much spent at the moment.

School starts in a few days and though i love vacation, i am ready to have something to occupy my mind.

i will post again before my Labor Day Mini-Adventure, but probably not much.

Could it be....?

Louisiana and the completion of the Lower 48? Who knows!!