True, once you get up there, that’s starting to get into Utah-style desert. But be careful you’re not intruding on Navajo land.
You mentioned Ruidoso and Cloudcroft which means you mom was familiar with the Alamogordo area, another 80 miles or so south of Socorro. Turn right and drive past the White Sands and view the slope going up to the Organ Mountains. They’re desert mountains. In late May the Yuccas might be blooming their beautiful white flowers. Sunset or sunrise you will have the most beautiful New Mexico desert vista imaginable. Damn, I just finally realized where I want to be. Thanks buddy.
The Organ mountains would be a fantastic place. You are looking at about 3 hours south of Albuquerque, but once you get there you’ll understand.
I know, that’s part of what made it seem so long.
The longest-ever day in my life was driving across TX on I-10. Here is that story. Back in the days of the Double Nickel – the 55 MPH speed limit (1974 to 1987), I drove with my brother across the country from St. Petersburg FL to Santa Barbara CA, driving non-stop (except for gas & bathrooms).
<back story; apologies for the tangent; trip locations bolded>
My brother and I were returning home at the end of an epic road trip, a road trip of a lifetime, from San Francisco to Colorado Springs (brother at USAFA) to Chicago (family relatives there) to Niagara Falls ON & NY to Latham NY (hometown) to West Hartford CT (high school and JHS days) to Boston (sister’s friend Patrice J at Wellesley College) to Cape Cod to Teaneck NJ (old girlfriend Andrea W at Fairleigh Dickinson U) to Washington DC (family relatives there) onto the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel to Kitty Hawk and the Outer Banks of NC to Columbia SC (brother’s friend Mike V at U of SC) to St. Petersburg FL (cousin Nanette T there) to Miami Beach to Key West and back to St. Petersburg, and then really hustle back, through Ozona TX(!), Santa Barbara (UCSB friends, old girlfriend Deborah R), ran into my old girlfriend the beautiful blonde Lisa L in Goleta CA, and then back home to San Francisco. Yes that was one sentence. The car was great fun, a metallic blue 1979 Fiat X1/9 (picture from the web) – a beautiful car, and mechanically sound).
</back story; apologies for the tangent; trip locations bolded>
Well, 900 non-stop miles after leaving St. Petersburg, we hit the Texas state border at Orange TX at 0200 hours. About an hour later, around 0300 and Stowell TX, the worst rain deluge I’ve ever seen (even to now) hit. Drops so big and heavy and fast came down on a biblical scale. I’m talking Old Testament shit, real wrath of God stuff. We could only do 10 MPH because that’s as far as I could see in my headlights.
I will always remember the town of Ozona TX. After over 12 hours of driving in the heat of Texas in a convertible with the top down while driving nonstop on the interstate, we were still wholly trapped in Texas. After a few hours of the drabness that is west Texas (which really does have a stark beauty all its own, but not on that day) we needed gas, and in that parched afternoon heat we stopped in Ozona. We felt like we’d crossed the Sahara on a camel and with no water. Ozona. Its name was surreal.
Six hours later, at 2100 and the sun almost set, we got through El Paso. The Longest-Ever Day In My Life – was over! We’d escaped from Texas!! That was back in 1983, 34 years ago, and I vividly remember it. I was 21 then, my brother was 19.
I-10 across Texas is the longest stretch of single interstate within one state, not just in CONUS but in all of the USA. (ref 1, ref 2). Here is a map, all 856 miles of it in Texas.