New Mexico.
Very happy to leave the mess that is El Paso behind me, I took NM # 9 west across the grasslands of southern NM with small mountain ranges to the north and south. Most of the few vehicles I encountered were border patrol trucks and semis. Covering 300 miles all day into Arizona, I passed maybe ten small towns, if you can call most of them towns. And at one stop in Columbus, NM, I was only three miles from the Mexican city of Palomas, and the locals said all I needed was my D.L. to cross the border and return. Very enticing, but I continued west through more new country and into the mountains of eastern Arizona where I camped at Roper Mountain State Park east of Cactus Flat, AZ.
