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It's funny how others find this eerie or spooky....is it the landscape, the isolation or what? Would you feel the same if the country were rolling hills and trees instead of desert/arid landscape?
This is about 70 miles from where I grew up, not far from Midland. I drove this road home and to other places for 35 years....and it would never occur to me that it is scary...
Exactly Cathy....there are places in North Florida frpm Pensacola to Jacksonville off I-10 that if you travel on these deserted two lane roads in the middle of the Swamps (Okefenokee) as i'd hate to break down along those swamp roads at nite or day so hearing about someone scared to travel heavely traveled U.S.54 from El Paso to Alamogordo is not a scare at all to me at least....
My friend. As someone who for a brief time lived in Illinois, if you want to talk about desolation I think the same argument could be made for Kankakee/Rantoul and other Dairy Queen metropolises. At least out here it isn't corn fields for as far as the eye can see.
That reminds me of the time I was driving home in Ohio in August
down the 'cornfield tunnels:' I passed a car stopped by the side
of the road where a guy was sitting in the front seat of his car with
his head back - miles from anywhere.
I stopped and asked him if he was OK and did he need some help?
He sleepily rolled his head to the left and said to me: "No. We're OK."
and rolled his smiling-faced head back to face the roof of his car.
Exactly Cathy....there are places in North Florida frpm Pensacola to Jacksonville off I-10 that if you travel on these deserted two lane roads in the middle of the Swamps (Okefenokee) as i'd hate to break down along those swamp roads at nite or day so hearing about someone scared to travel heavely traveled U.S.54 from El Paso to Alamogordo is not a scare at all to me at least....
Swamps? Eww.
By the same token, those of us who grew up in the isolated, wide-open spaces tend to have a feeling of claustrophobia when we drive down 2-lane roads with no shoulders and trees lining the road on both sides.
Brrrr. I felt SO closed-in......I also got lost looking for someone's house in the east (VA) at 9pm. I stopped to make a call on my cell for directions, and cut my headlights. There was a canopy of trees overhead as well...such PITCH (yes, stygian!!) blackness...
'Corn fields as far as the eye can see' at least are evidence of human interaction. The kind of desolation one finds in parts of NM can make one feel as though no one else has ever been there and never will be, like being on another planet. It's a different feeling to me.
But that is a spooky story about the smiling-faced guy in his car! That would have creeped me out.
> But that is a spooky story about the smiling-faced guy in his car!
Well, he *could* have been schizophrenic, but I'm assuming that he wasn't
actually alone in that car and that the other person was below the window
line. I'm assuming. (his expression and all ...... )
My first experience in Arizona and New Mexico introduced me to the concept of desolation. Not in a negative way, but as a shock!!!!!!!
For someone like me from Illinois, my first experience was driving outside the Phoenix area in Arizona. Later on a trip to New Mexico , I experienced the same thing.
There is really nothing between towns and cities in either state. Here in Illinois no matter where you go there will be farms and small settlements between towns and cities. So at night there will always be lights in the distance at least to tell you that civilization is close at hand. So help on the way in case of emergency. Just use your cell these days.
But in the SW, it truly is different. I was spooked to say the least driving at night in the absolute darkness. No lights of a farm or whatever to signal that there were people out there in the wilderness. Just darkness.
So for me it was an adjustment to get used to this sort of thing. Someone from the eastern part of the country can experience real shock at the openness and yes desolation of the country.
But for me it is now something I look forward to. Am hoping to see these sights again soon. But I just wanted to share this experience with others who are thinking of moving to NM. You will feel OK in the cities or towns, but be prepared for the nothingness in between.
Jim
I'm from Chicago and will be moving permanently to Las Cruces soon, I also had that feeling of desolation when I first visited New Mexico and Arizona, but I like it now. It's funny people from NM say when they go to Chicago that they feel claustrophobic, being surrounded by tall buildings, lots of cars and huge crowds..
After growing up out here from 13 on, it was the lack of horizon more than anything else that made me feel claustrophobic in when I moved back east to Jersey. But I still remember as a kid when we originally moved out here telling my folks that everything was empty. :P
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