It’s time to hit the road again and move on to our last stop in New Mexico. We are headed to Grants on I-40, completing our loop of New Mexico.
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| Today we'll be doing Scenic Drives 20 and 14 as we travel to Grants, New Mexico. |
When we woke up this morning the sky was dark and it was snowing outside, not heavy, but it was snowing. We had done most of our packing last night so after getting ready and having breakfast we were on the road just after nine. The snow had turned into light rain, but it was still very cold in the mid-thirties.
The first
part of our route today will be the same as we took to go to Mogollon on
Saturday. We’ll be taking US 180 out of
Silver City up through Glenwood, but instead of turning off and going to
Mogollon, we’ll be continuing north on 180. We
thought there might be snow, but evidently any snow that fell had already
melted and the rain had stopped, and the clouds were breaking up.
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| We started out under dark skies with a light rain falling, ... |
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| ... but the clouds started breaking up and we had blue skies ahead. |
Just past the turnoff for Mogollon we passed through the very small town of Alma that was the start of Scenic Byway #20 that continued up 180 through some very desolate country. This area is part of the huge, sparsely populated Catron County that I talked about before. We had the Gila National Forest and the Mogollon Range to the east and the Apache National Forest and Arizona to the west of us. Even though the land was barren and stark, it was quite scenic to drive through.
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| We leave Highway 180 and turn off onto 12. |
As we continued to drive north, we started to see snow in the mountains ahead. We turned northeast on Utah 12 and went through the larger town (relatively for the area) of Reserve and then through the barely there town of Apache Creek. When we visited the Very Large Array, if we had continued west on that road (Scenic Byway #19) we would have ended up in Apache Creek.
After Apache Creek we started to see snow on the ground, and the further north we drove the thicker it got, but the roads were clear. From Apache Creek, the drive was pretty much unpopulated until we reached the town of Quemado where we stopped for lunch. Very few of the towns we have driven through today have gas stations let alone a place to eat, so when we saw the Largo Café, we decided we’d better eat while we had the chance. Quemado is the end of Scenic Byway #20 and the start of Scenic Byway #14.
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| Time for lunch at the Largo Cafe as we enter Quemado. |
It was very cold outside, and we could see a wood stove blazing through the door, so we expected a warm and cozy café, but when we walked in it was pretty cold. The tables around the stove were all taken and the rest of the restaurant was very cold. After we were seated, we saw a table open up close to the stove, so we moved there, but it still wasn’t very warm so we quickly had our lunch and returned to the warmth of the car heater. There is very little traffic and not many outsiders in this area, so the restaurants and cafes are very basic and mostly serving the locals, but the people are friendly, and the food is generally good. I just wish the Largo Café had been warmer.
We tuned north on Utah 36 in Quemado and the elevation began to rise to over 7000 feet and the snow became quite heavy along the road. This road all the way to Grants is Scenic Byway #14, our second of the day and second to last of the trip. The road was still clear, but as we neared an 8000-foot pass there was a little ice and snow in the road, so we switched to high range 4-wheel drive just to be safe. The temperature was down to 27 and we felt like we were really in winter. The snow in the mountains and trees was very beautiful, but there was no shoulder to stop and take pictures, so I took a lot of pictures through the windows, so we’ll see how that goes plus I was taking a lot of video with my GoPro on the roof of the car.
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| We turn onto Highway 117 that will take the rest of the way to Grants. |
As we progressed further north, we turned northwest on Utah 117 and the altitude started to drop a bit, but there was still quite a bit of accumulated snow along the road. We entered the El Malpais National Monument that is part of the larger El Malpais National Conservation Area that turned out to be very interesting and beautiful. It was an ancient volcanic area with cliffs and rock formations to the east and a rugged, almost impassable area of volcanic rock to the west. One section of the drive was called The Narrows that had cliffs right beside the road on the east side and a plain of volcanic rock rubble to the west. This was a real treat, as I had seen this area on the map, but had no idea what it was. It was made all the more scenic with the snow.
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| The Ventana Arch is ahead. |
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| We pull into the parking area of the Ventana Arch. |
We stopped at a Ventana Arch and took a short hike to view the arch. To be honest, it looked more like a large hollowed out place in the side of the cliff, but then you realize there is an actual arch there. We didn’t walk all the way to the arch as it was very cold and had started to spit snow. The arch and the surrounding area was all the more interesting because of the snow on the rocks and trees in the area. The only thing missing was the sun shining on the cliffs to accentuate the color, but we couldn’t have everything.
As we left the El Malpais area, the snow began to become sparser and eventually disappeared as we neared Grants, NM, our destination for the night. Grants is basically just an overnight stop on I-40, but we will spend an extra day here to drive our last scenic byway from the book and hopefully, visit a couple of pueblos in the area.
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| We're back on I-40 for the short 5 mile drive to Grants. |
Grants is at 6500 altitude so it was very cold and rainy when we arrived. I should have known, but it has surprised me that almost everywhere we have visited in New Mexico is around 6000 feet or higher. We got checked into our hotel and settled in and as has happened so many times on the trip, we had a late lunch today and are not hungry for dinner. We had some lunch supplies left over that we hadn’t used so we ate those tonight in the hotel room. I did my usual thing of writing the blog for the day and downloading our pictures and then relaxed for the rest of the night. We are not quite sure what we are going to do tomorrow as we have several options, so we’ll decide in the morning.
Scenic Drives Completed: 30 of 35
Scenic Drives Missed: 3
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