Gadling

Road Trip: El Paso to Carlsbad Caverns...What Went Wrong? {Gadling}

Apr 2nd 2007 8:44PM Wow, your story is pretty close to mine. Last March, I drove from Minneapolis for a vacation to NM. I spent my first night in Oklahoma City and the 2nd in Carlsbad. The next day, I spent nearly the entire day at Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns were awesome and I love caving. Anyway, my next stop was Alamogordo but the most direct route had a bridge under construction, so I had to find an alternative route. My GPS rerouted me through TX to El Paso. I'm certain I took same route as you on US-180. I was truly amazed and completely scared out of my wits when I realized that there was no trace of civilization for over a hundred miles. All the while, I was thinking that I'd find a mom-pop Texas Chainsaw Massacre type station where the locals are out to get me. Thankfully, I drive an economy car which gets excellent mileage or I'm sure I would've been pushing my car. At the same boarder check you stopped at, I too asked where the next service station was and they honestly said El Paso. Yeah, that was a long way to go. You see, where I'm from, when you get on the Interstate, you can't go more than 15 miles without seeing a sign for a service station. Because of my experience driving in NM & TX, I cancelled my trip from Las Cruces to the Gila Cliff Dwelling (well past Silver City). My mapping software lists all service stations along a route and after doing some calculations, I determined that the margin was too high to risk running out of gas and missing my connections. I've done a lot of driving but I've never seen such a barren landscape devoid of anyone. I imagine that people in those salt bed areas keep a spare gas can in the trunk. I never gave it a thought. My road trip to AK will surely be even worse.