It was sad to part company and leave Santa Fe, as I mentioned, but at least we had a little bit of fun left in the trip, which was the trip back home west across New Mexico and eastern Arizona. We'd covered much of this ground in recent years going to and from Colorado on our summer trips, so we wanted to find roads that would be novel to us. We both agreed that the best choice would be to drive west on I-40 then cut down along the El Malpais National Monument, which is a massive long remnant of a volcanic flow--very stunning to behold. We drove up on the limestone cliffs to see the black flow below, like huge black lake of frozen lava.
Malpais means Badlands, which was a nice tough, as my podcast is on the Badlands Network channel on Rumble. It's fun when life gives you these little ironies.
The scenery beyond that was breathtaking. So little people live in that part of New Mexico. We thought we had discovered one of the most beautiful parts of North America. It was easy to want to make this route part of our regular wanderings.
We spent the night in Springerville, Arizona, near where John Wayne once owned a ranch. We'd been to Springerville before, but had not stayed the night. Jessica, as she is so good at doing, found a restored vintage motel, which is our favorite type of place to stay. As we dined on steaks at a local cowboy bar, in aged booths that could use a good renovation themselves, the local regulars were watching the Phoenix news channels.
"If you lived here, why would you ever want to go live in Phoenix?" I said to Jessica. She agreed with the sentiment. Of course the answer to that question is easy: Costco.
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