Driving east through western Arizona on I-40 is a test. If you pass it, you are rewarded with New Mexico, America’s land of enchantment.
Day 2 of a 35 day road trip to find America. And Canada too. From Seligman, Arizona to Moriarity, New Mexico
On Day 1 of my road trip, I ran over a tire in Arizona on I-40. This damaged the undercarriage of my car, although thankfully, not fatally. I stopped in Seligman, AZ and attempted to get the damage fixed. No go. The presumably good folks of Seligman (mostly women I noticed) did their best to convince me with their weary eyes and voices that you just have to resign yourself to driving 80 miles to Flagstaff if you want anything good to happen.
So, reluctantly, I did. With this refrain in my head: ‘can I make it from Seligman, Arizona to Flagstaff before some horrific noise convinces me that my car is disastrously compromised? Is it a foolish idea to drive 80 miles an hour through the middle of nowhere with some unidentified piece of my car hanging from the undercarriage like a tongue sticking out?’
And so on.
Little did I know that if you drive east from the badlands of Arizona past Kingman, and Seligman and all the desert of Day 1, you exit purgatory and eventually enter Flagstaff on your way to New Mexico. Flagstaff is not exactly heaven, but kind of close after you’ve seen Kingman. This is not a slam against Kingman, but considering the blistering terrain it is located in – it’s hard to see why anyone chose to live there.
Flagstaff, on the other hand, is cool, butting up against beautiful mountain peaks, near the tallest in the state. I have a preference for living near mountains and being able to see them from my home because I grew up around mountains. So my out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere desert anxiety immediately lifted as I approached what felt like civilization.
It’s at the southern side of the Grand Canyon. Blue skies, pine trees, snow in the winter, low humidity. But those things, impressive as they seemed, were nothing compared to the friendly, pleasant vibe of the people.
I had no trouble finding someone to help me get to a car repair place open on a Saturday. And when I did, the proprietors were sweet as could be. They fixed me right up and were reluctant to even charge me. I paid them a reasonable amount anyway and heaved a hearty sigh of relief and even joy.
Entering New Mexico
As I zoomed from Flagstaff through eastern Arizona on I-40, the landscape became more and more pleasant. Some miles from the border with New Mexico, you can tell you are entering a new land.
The motto on New Mexico license plates says it’s a ‘land of enchantment.’ And it kind of is. The New Mexico roadscape is vast. There’s the rich red dirt. There are the mesas, or plateaus. Low hills and scrub brush. Brilliant blues and greens and puffy clouds.
None of the individual elements necessarily come across as wonders of the world, but you put them all together and they seem to have an indescribable kind of New Mexico magic.
I drove through Albuquerque, which I had higher hopes for. Vince Gilligan, and the meticulous directing his shows are known for (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Pluribus), mistakenly convinced me that Albuquerque must be a wonderland of visual delights round every corner.
It isn’t really. It’s a medium-sized city in the US with some distinctive features but not exactly spectacular.
So I drove past Albuquerque to a small town called Moriarity with the most wonderful little Route 66 motel: The Sunset Motel.
Shout Out to Sunset Motel in Moriarity, New Mexico
The proprietor was lovely and accommodating. And I got a delicious breakfast the next morning. The town itself is tiny and rolls up the sidewalks at, uh, sunset. The fast food joints are open later but the true local places close up early.
New Mexico is gorgeous, but the roadside billboards will tell you that it has the highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the country. And the deaths just keep climbing. Fentanyl is by far the biggest culprit.
The federal government contributed to the high death rate by pursuing a policy in 2023-2025 that let fentanyl go to users in New Mexico, so the government could concentrate on high-level dealers. A few hundred thousand fentanyl pills entered New Mexico during this period and New Mexicans died as a result.
Verdict: Thumbs up to Flagstaff, Arizona and America’s Land of Enchantment, New Mexico. Life in America can be beautiful, with its wide open spaces, impressive natural scenery and kind-hearted folks. But that doesn’t mean there’s no risk of the federal government killing ya. Cuz it might.
Next up: Thunderstorms and surprises in Oklahoma
Discover more from Get Pretty Fed Up
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.