Artesia, New Mexico

Artesia, New Mexico is a different town. It is 1,696 miles from Seattle, Washington, and it is in the southwestern part of New Mexico. It is halfway between Roswell and Carlsbad. We planned it that way.

Artesia has a population of almost 11,000 people so it is not very big. The first thing you notice about it is the Navajo Refinery. It is the state's largest refineries that processes 85,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The second thing you will notice is amazing statues.

Artesia is not suffering much from the recession. Housing continues to climb....It also has a Speedway. The owner of the Artesia RV Resort where we are staying races dragsters. If you want to see a huge trailer, come look at his trailer. It must be 60 feet long all by itself.

It is warm in this area. Today it is over 90.

I discovered some different Yucca in this area. Or, maybe they were just HUGE!!!!

Oh, there is one other thing you might notice in Artesia -- when the wind is really blowing there is dust....

Goodbye Albuquerque, Hello Artesia

This is San Filipe de Neri Church in Old Town Albuquerque. Yet, another beautiful structure.

Albuquerque has rabbits and snakes decorating their highways. Highways 25 and 40 intersect almost in the downtown area.

Two beautiful totem poles (I think that is what you would call them even though they are not wood) create a gateway to Albuquerque on Highway 40. This is one of them.

Going from Albuquerque to Artesia was a long, long, long road with only three towns between the Highway 285 junction and Artesia which is about 140 miles. This is how those 140 miles looked. There was only one rest stop along the way and only a few places to even pull off. Whoa!

This is Vaughn, New Mexico which was about a quarter of the way south of the Highway 285 junction. This town was almost dead -- abandoned businesses and homes all along the highway.

There were about two trees between Vaughn and Roswell which is just before Artesia. This was one of them.

We were tired and happy to finally reach Artesia.