I wonder what M would have said if I'd told her her surprise trip would be to Los Angeles and West Texas? I guess its a good thing I didn't tell her where we were going ahead of time.
Carlsbad was the farthest point on our big 48-hour loop southeast from Albuquerque. But in order to complete our clockwise loop, we needed to head west towards Las Cruces before heading north again. And that meant Texas for a few hours. And El Paso. I had long since decided against the side trip into Juarez!
This drive is pretty desolate, but there's a neat section that skirts the south end of the Guadalupe Mountains and El Capitan. The part of me that collects obscure state high points would have loved to hike up Guadalupe Peak (the highest point in Texas), but this was not the trip for it. Maybe the next time I'm passing through!
