Drive from Phoenix to Dallas

[Arizona Mike]

Originally Posted by mhouse2001

Amarillo is too far north and out of the way if you're going on US60. If you pick US60, the drive is pretty in western New Mexico. The highest elevation is in Pie Town. Never tried a pie there, but it might be worth it. You will pass next to the VLA (very large array) facility with its large antennas that you can visit. Avoid Socorro, it's a hellhole in my opinion. At I-25, I would head south to US380 to proceed east passing near Ruidoso and continuing to Roswell NM which has a nice 'alien' vibe going, that could be fun with some exploration. I'm not familiar with further points east of there into Texas.

You could pick US70 at Globe and continue through to Lordsburg NM as a southern route alternative to I-10, but Lordsburg is another New Mexican 'modern ruin' with many abandoned businesses. However, heading north of there on NM90 to Silver City might be a good bet for food and lodging. I've camped at the City of Rocks State Park south of Bayard and found it relaxing, a rocky outcropping in a large empty landscape with walking/hiking trails, rock climbing, and star-gazing interpretive signs. You could continue on US70 (portions I-10) to Las Cruces and then explore the White Sand Dunes National Monument and then off to Roswell that way, too.

I would avoid Lordsburg (dying town), Socorro (can you say poverty?), and Carlsbad (unsafe). I've had bad experiences in all of them, especially finding decent lodging in Carlsbad. You don't want someone pounding on your hotel room door at 4AM hoping you'll open it up so they can rob you like I had to endure there on my last visit. However, the nearby Carlsbad Caverns is a nice two to three hour excursion and the Guadalupe Mountains NP is further south but isn't particularly interesting. If you feel like driving even further south, try the Davis Mountains and the McDonald Observatory in those same mountains west of Fort Davis TX and maybe even try seeing the Marfa Lights phenomenon about 9 miles east of that town after sunset. There's a nice observatory platform that was crowded at 10PM when I went through there, but, alas, no eerie lights in the distant wilderness for me to photograph.

Another odd attraction in Marfa is the Prada store located off U.S. 90, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It's actually an art piece designed to look like a Prada store:

Prada Marfa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia