A friendly elderly gentleman at a petrol station in Lubbock had warned us of the police once we got to New Mexico. We don't drive over the limit anyway but we soon saw what he meant. After Clovis, which I randomly recall was the name of the policeman's cat in one Steven King tale, a Scion xB was trailing us. He then sped past and 5 seconds later a cop did a U-turn and put on his lights. In fairness the Scion immediately pulled over, even though he was in front of us. The reassuring thing is that the police haven't been unfair to us at all. Being paranoid one would think that two bright sports cars would be picked out over other vehicles, but we are going the speed limit and have not been unfairly singled out (fingers crossed).
New Mexico is a stunning state. We weren't tempted to stop anywhere but the scenery in itself is a joy to experience. Unlike the north westerly Texas drive where we occasionally went through towns (well, enlarged crossroads), today was almost all highway driving. I really like the light green colour of the grass and the hills are spectacular.
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| From 2007 USA Elises |
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| From 2007 USA Elises |
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| From 2007 USA Elises |
Later at dinner Jared and I were discussing what kind of local economy New Mexico has. I know how some people get by: we paid $3.20 a gallon for 90 octane fuel at one point.
The many roadside billboards kept me quite amused for much of New Mexico, especially when approaching an exit. By approaching I mean 50 miles before an exit they start, hyping up apparent wonders of the world that simply can't be missed. The excitement builds and builds with the promise of everything man, woman and child could ever wish for, and then finally a small run down shack with a 40 year old paint job anticlimactically goes by.
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| From 2007 USA Elises |
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| From 2007 USA Elises |
One sign did catch my eye, which exclaimed "LET'S FAT!". It turned out to be another one of those poorly designed ones where smaller writing had in fact obscured the lower portion of second E, although my interpretation was probably closer to the truth.
We had considered stopping at Albuquerque, but it was just a big blob of roadworks. All it took to decide whether to stop was a quick glance over to Jared, a mutual shake of heads and a slight depression of the accelerator. I had gone to all the trouble of finally learning how to spell the bloody place without looking it up and we ended up bypassing it. So, like 99.99% of the world my only experience of Albuquerque remains with that terrible Prefab Sprout song from 20 or so years ago.
We had some interesting things to negotiate on the road. A random hail storm that lasted about 20 seconds was one. A little further on we had to swerve past a coyote that was dragging a carcass off the road, totally oblivious to the 80 mile an hour traffic. We also got some slalom practice in when a large number of tumbleweeds crossed the road. They can get pretty big, and although I am unsure what they would do to the car we instinctively dodged around them. It's worth praising Lotus here; flicking the Elise left and right at high speed is totally undramatic and rewardingly fun.
Towards the end of the day I passed 4,000 miles driven since Philadelphia. This should be approximately half way distance wise for the whole trip based on our rough estimates. Jared should be at around 3,500. The cars are running brilliantly.
Tomorrow we have the drive to Las Vegas and then three whole days of not driving an inch. Not that I am bored with driving, far from it; in fact only someone who loved driving could undertake such a trip in such a car and not go insane, but it will be nice to have some drinks, late nights and let our hair down. We will also be accompanied by Steve off EliseTalk for the section between Holbrook and Flagstaff.
As usual there are more pictures in the gallery than I have linked here.
