Heading East: Day One of Four

 

 

 

Alpine to Albuquerque.  795 miles.  11.5 hours.

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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:
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Past the factory farms of the Imperial Valley, elevation -95 feet,
just south of the Salton Sea:
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**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:
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Across the Colorado river into Yuma, Arizona:_MG_9926
The farms give way to feedlots.
Then Gila (Monster) Bend, AZ.
Turn left and head north on 85.
Thousands of proud tall Saguaro cacti:
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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:
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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:
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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

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