At 12:43 PM 2/28/2005, you wrote:
>The main complaint was that it was flat, not terribly
>scenic, and any little town they stopped in was small
>and without charm.  Keep in mind they are from Alaska
>where small charmless towns are the norm, but at least
>they have scenery.  They were talking about whatever
>part of NM is nearest to Phoenix, AZ.

Well there's the problem, then. Presumably they drove in from AZ on  I10,
which is nothing but straight stretches carefully laid out to avoid the few
scattered terrain features. Living in a city like I do, I personally find
those wide-open spaces of nothing quite enjoyable, but I suppose to AK
dwellers used to wide open spaces full of forests and mountains it might
very well look like, well... nothing. The nature of the interstate highway
program was such that through Arizona and New Mexico they were built
through the flattest and least obstructed parts of those states. In order
to see the Really Cool Stuff you have to get pretty far off the interstates.