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I just drove through a big chunk of NM on a road trip from Ohio to Arizona. I drove almost the entire length of US Highway 54 in the southwest bound direction as it cuts a diagonal across the state.
I entered NM from Dalhart TX and continued on US 54 to Alamogordo, then took US 70 west to Las Cruces. You can see a lot of rural, wide-open terrain across the eastern side of the state on US 54. A busy rail line parallels the highway, carrying freight trains from El Paso TX towards Wichita KS and Kansas City. A short stretch of the highway runs on I-40 between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa - wow, what happened to Santa Rosa with all the stores and businesses closed down? My guess is most of the I-40 traffic passes it by.
I just drove through a big chunk of NM on a road trip from Ohio to Arizona. I drove almost the entire length of US Highway 54 in the southwest bound direction as it cuts a diagonal across the state.
I entered NM from Dalhart TX and continued on US 54 to Alamogordo, then took US 70 west to Las Cruces. You can see a lot of rural, wide-open terrain across the eastern side of the state on US 54. A busy rail line parallels the highway, carrying freight trains from El Paso TX towards Wichita KS and Kansas City. A short stretch of the highway runs on I-40 between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa - wow, what happened to Santa Rosa with all the stores and businesses closed down? My guess is most of the I-40 traffic passes it by.
Anyone else ever driven highway 54 in New Mexico?
I've driven most of that route but at different times, not all in one go. Yep, wide-open is right.
I haven't been to Santa Rosa in some time, but what you're seeing is typical in much of rural New Mexico. Santa Rosa grew up first around the railroad (which brought smallpox to the town), then Rt 66, but after the interstate was built it experienced a rapid decline. It attracts swimmers and divers to its Blue Hole, a natural lake.
I just drove through a big chunk of NM on a road trip from Ohio to Arizona. I drove almost the entire length of US Highway 54 in the southwest bound direction as it cuts a diagonal across the state.
I entered NM from Dalhart TX and continued on US 54 to Alamogordo, then took US 70 west to Las Cruces. You can see a lot of rural, wide-open terrain across the eastern side of the state on US 54. A busy rail line parallels the highway, carrying freight trains from El Paso TX towards Wichita KS and Kansas City. A short stretch of the highway runs on I-40 between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa - wow, what happened to Santa Rosa with all the stores and businesses closed down? My guess is most of the I-40 traffic passes it by.
Anyone else ever driven highway 54 in New Mexico?
I've driven that entire stretch. Beautiful physical geography, and ugly human geography at the same time.
At one time New Mexico had more PhD's per capita than any other state because of Los Alamos and Sandia labs. Not saying they are all or even most of them from New Mexico, but people in New Mexico are not less educated, unless maybe you are considering the plethora of midwestern transplants we have gotten over the last 30 years.
The labs attracted those workers from NYC, California, and elsewhere. NM in the past has been the Mississippi of the West, in terms of poverty and education. That's been changing, however. First, the state started a lottery, the proceeds of which were used to grant college scholarships to low-income college-bound students. Then more recently, it did away with the lottery system, and simply made higher ed in the state FREE. That's revolutionary, and it's going to change NM for the better, IMO. It probably already is, but I don't have stats to post.
But I notice the difference compared to other parts of the SW, in the Native population; there are more Native people with higher ed in NM (definitely more with PhD's) than in CO, which is considered a relatively wealthy state, for example, and probably also more (per percentage of population) than in TX. I'm curious how AZ stacks up in that regard. And that's a significant change for NM, in view of the fact that 11% of the population is Native. And of course, non-Native people, Hispanics in particular, are benefiting from that as well.
I read through the first several pages and didn't see reference but apologize if it did show up later.
The average American has some serious geography shortcomings and if aware of New Mexico may assume it's not even an American state, versus in relation to Mexico. Ridiculous, sad and true all at once but there you have a primary reason why New Mexico doesn't get the attention seen in Arizona, Texas, Colorado and California.
I read through the first several pages and didn't see reference but apologize if it did show up later.
The average American has some serious geography shortcomings and if aware of New Mexico may assume it's not even an American state, versus in relation to Mexico. Ridiculous, sad and true all at once but there you have a primary reason why New Mexico doesn't get the attention seen in Arizona, Texas, Colorado and California.
Every month the New Mexico magazine has a feature entitlted "One of Our 50 is Missing," highlighting real life examples of what you said.
I bet New Mexico is getting attention now that Hannah Gutierez has been sentenced for involuntary manslaugher and Alec Baldwin will stand trial in June for the same incident.
I just drove through a big chunk of NM on a road trip from Ohio to Arizona. I drove almost the entire length of US Highway 54 in the southwest bound direction as it cuts a diagonal across the state.
I entered NM from Dalhart TX and continued on US 54 to Alamogordo, then took US 70 west to Las Cruces. You can see a lot of rural, wide-open terrain across the eastern side of the state on US 54. A busy rail line parallels the highway, carrying freight trains from El Paso TX towards Wichita KS and Kansas City. A short stretch of the highway runs on I-40 between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa - wow, what happened to Santa Rosa with all the stores and businesses closed down? My guess is most of the I-40 traffic passes it by.
Anyone else ever driven highway 54 in New Mexico?
Yep!
NM is an absolutely terrific state for long drives on old non-interstate highways. To this I would add US 60 across the entire state, US 380 heading west from Roswell (which meets Highway 54 at Carrizozo), and the remaining fragmented pieces of old Route 66, which towns in NM (such as Santa Rosa) have made efforts to make their own again.
California and Arizona and Texas offer the non-interstate options too, but NM's byways are really interesting and downright charming.
I read through the first several pages and didn't see reference but apologize if it did show up later.
The average American has some serious geography shortcomings and if aware of New Mexico may assume it's not even an American state, versus in relation to Mexico. Ridiculous, sad and true all at once but there you have a primary reason why New Mexico doesn't get the attention seen in Arizona, Texas, Colorado and California.
Yup. I even witnessed a TSA employee (not a sworn agent) try to require a New Mexican resident to go thru Immigration & Customs! Things might have gotten really ugly if the person hadn't thought to bring his US passport along....
I just drove through a big chunk of NM on a road trip from Ohio to Arizona. I drove almost the entire length of US Highway 54 in the southwest bound direction as it cuts a diagonal across the state.
I entered NM from Dalhart TX and continued on US 54 to Alamogordo, then took US 70 west to Las Cruces. You can see a lot of rural, wide-open terrain across the eastern side of the state on US 54. A busy rail line parallels the highway, carrying freight trains from El Paso TX towards Wichita KS and Kansas City. A short stretch of the highway runs on I-40 between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa - wow, what happened to Santa Rosa with all the stores and businesses closed down? My guess is most of the I-40 traffic passes it by.
Anyone else ever driven highway 54 in New Mexico?
Covid is what happened to Santa Rosa. Tourism is still not what it was in 2019.
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