New Mexico

---

New Mexico was enchanted—just like the sign said it would be. The scenery here is just astonishing. It feels and looks like a different planet. Jagged hills and rock formations and barren landscape stretched on forever. All throughout New Mexico it seemed like same barren, dry, unforgiving landscape over and over. The transition from west Texas into New Mexico was very interesting and intense. As we got further west the world felt it like it just kept getting bigger. Every state continued to amaze me.

I noticed how parts of the landscape would be covered in small valleys, and canyons that met at random points. There were rocks EVERYWHERE. We stopped several times along the road to get out and run up a big hill or to climb a rock we saw from the road. We would pull over on the side of the road and just run into the desert and explore. We were viewing the world as nothing more than something to explore and we took every opportunity to do so. I remember one spot where Nate pulled over and we walked down a long, steep hill over some boulders and onto a cliff that looked out over a huge valley below us. With the sun beginning to go down, we had just walked maybe a couple miles off the road into the desert and found this gorgeous view just sitting there for us. We took of our gear and reclined back on a rock to watch my first New Mexican sunset.

This was the first time I had ever been in a desert and I was truly amazed by what I was seeing. I couldn’t believe that so much of our country is made up of this landscape. After spending our daylight hours frolicking around the desert in New Mexico, we pulled over at the Painted Hills rest stop directly inside of the Arizona border to sleep. I didn’t realize how cold it gets in the desert at night… the same desert that had me going shirtless in the day in 100 degree weather now had me bundled up in sweatshirts and blankets.

“I slept for maybe a total of 20 minutes last night. It was an eerie feeling being all alone in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night. The rock formations around me were so grand I could see their outlines and shadows in the moonlight.” I walked around by myself in the cold as the sun came up and it was strange to think that just a few days ago I was in Elk City. Being alone out here makes you feel like you’re the only person in the world. There are places I could climb a rock and look in all directions for as far as my eye can see and all I would see is open desert.

---