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Leaving New Mexico
Trucks and oil. This refinery sit next to one of the largest truck stops that I have seen on the entire trip. It is the Giant truck stop, and it's location, out in the middle of nowhere, makes it size that much more striking. The food is, however, terrible. They put sugar in everything (even the pork chops).
Blowing off, at the cracking plant in the refinery. The great red rock of the west stands as a background.
Huge sculpted blocks of sandstone begin to appear, quite apart from the typical mesas, buttes, and highlands.
The foreground sandstone structures shift in front of a constant background of striated mesas.
The stereotypical Southwest: dry, rocky, and colorful. 
Notches in the distant ridge show the passage of water forming a dry wash. the near sandstone structures are nearly worn away.
Reaching the end of yet another ridge line.
Though seemingly uninhabitable, some intermittent structures can be seen among the sandstone blocks.
Saddles and spires of solitary sandstone mark this particular stretch of these barren lands. 
A close up of some of the many rocky cliffs, and a view (below) further off, from the road.
A look off the road at an unearthly landscape, and a close up view of a well worn rise.
A local access road (probably the former Route 66) skirts the edge of these bedded summits. 
Even in the middle of nowhere (which this plainly is) we have to endure road construction.
A sign, above, inviting us to the trading post of Chief Yellowhorse seems almost out of place here. Much of this area hardly shows the effects of man.
The ever present trucks of the west and southwest. 
Huge sections of rock line the roads out here. 
Crossbedding is evident in this uplifted structure. 
A multicolored mesas heads of the road, making it circle around. This seems to be the story out here. Huge flat tracts of land suddenly interrupted by towering structures. 
A classic mesa, sits by the side of the road.
These extensive high cliffs areas seem to mark the approximate borders of Arizona and New mexico.
Towering rock walls amid amphitheaters surround us as we pass through the last few miles of New Mexico.

Below:
Chief Yellowhorse beckons us, but anticipation of the wonders of Arizona make us deaf to his calling. 
Leaving New Mexico. We are looking at Arizona, just a few miles away.


 
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