Alpine to Albuquerque. 795 miles. 11.5 hours.
Up the green Laguna Mountains into the Cleveland National Forest.
Down the other side over piles and piles of rocks
into the brown Colorado Desert:
Past the factory farms of the Imperial Valley, elevation -95 feet,
just south of the Salton Sea:
**If you’ve not yet seen ransriggs’s eerie short film,
watch it now:
Through the Imperial Sand Dunes,
crossing the All-American Canal,
the largest irrigation canal on the planet:
Across the Colorado river into Yuma, Arizona:
The farms give way to feedlots.
Then Gila (Monster) Bend, AZ.
Turn left and head north on 85.
Thousands of proud tall Saguaro cacti:
Turn right onto I-10 and go through Phoenix,
a pleasant 75 deg F in the winter.
Heading north out of Phoenix, I-17 climbs steadily
and the cacti disappear, replaced by Piñon and then
the taller (Ponderosa?) pines:
Humphrey’s Peak, 12,637 ft high and snowcapped.
Turn right onto I-40.
Soft magic-hour sunlight at your back,
painting the high desert brush
an even warmer shade of golden tan:
Past Winona and Winslow.
Eventually into New Mexico, and across the Rio Grande.
Soundtrack:
“Take It Easy” the Eagles
“The Ballad of Billy the Kid” Billy Joel