New Mexico Road Trip - El Paso to Artesia (Day 1)

New Mexico has a wide range of ecosystems, but throughout a good portion of the state you find this sort of stark beauty.

UPDATED: 2/5/2023

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Day 1: Drive from El Paso, Texas to Artesia, New Mexico

For purposes of time efficiency, we started our week in New Mexico in neighboring Texas with a flight in to El Paso. El Paso is in a tiny corner of Texas, a veritable island between Mexico and New Mexico. We arrived in El Paso mid-day, grabbed a quick bite to eat at the airport (Mexican food, of course), picked up our rental car and got on the road. Destination: Artesia, New Mexico, about three and a half hours in a north easterly direction. About half of the drive was due east across isolated portions of west Texas until Interstate 62 veered north near the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. (Interesting fact: Interstate 62 runs all the way from El Paso to Niagara Falls in New York at a northeasterly angle.)

Cactus growing over a rock wall at the Living Desert State Park.

the guadalupe mountains and their formation

The Guadalupe Mountains stand as a big, bulky mass rising out of the otherwise endlessly flat landscape of west Texas. They are startling and unexpected. The mountain range is also enormous, home to the highest peak in all of Texas, Guadalupe Peak, which measures 8,751 feet. For anyone who has ever been in a desert, grassland, or anywhere else that is very, very flat, you have likely experienced the inability to understand size and distance. Without any reference points, a mountain can appear close, and you can still spend an hour or more driving towards it. This was definitely our experience of these particular mountains!

In addition to housing the highest peak in Texas, the Guadalupe Mountains are home to the world's most extensive Permian fossil reef. The Permian Period lasted from 299 to 251 million years ago, was the era of Pangaea (where most of the continents were connected in a large land mass), and ended in mass extinction. During the Permian Period, the land that is now in northern Mexico and American Southwest were located near the equator and were on the perimeter of Pangaea. A reef, known today as the Capital Reef, formed in an inland sea, connected to the ocean by a narrow channel. Over a long period of time, the water over the reef evaporated as the channel was cut off from the ocean and then the land was buried until tectonic movement pushed it upward - thousands of feet upright! - into what now are the Guadalupe Mountains. (For purposes of brevity, I’ve shortened a complex process into some of the key highlights, but you can certainly read more in depth on this area here.) So, what used to be below the ocean’s surface now towers thousands of feet above the surface and has exposed valuable fossils.

Usually when we’re traveling, I focus on the amazing sights from an aesthetic perspective, and Dustin is the one to wonder about the type of rock or the cause behind the formation of a geological feature such as this one. I have to say that I have learned how to appreciate scenery more holistically for both the visual beauty and the geological formation. Looking at a stark mountain range rising above the desert and knowing that it used to be part of a reef, subsumed by the ocean’s currents makes it so much more!

The interstate gradually drifted east, further away from the mountain range, but it continued to be visible for a substantial chunk of our drive.

By the time we pulled into the sleepy town of Artesia, we had just enough evening left to check-in to our hotel, Heritage Inn, and run to the grocery store for some supplies, including dinner that we could heat in the in-room kitchen of our suite.

Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge seemed to be drying out just before the summer rainy season.

the city of artesia, new mexico

Long before it was called Artesia, this portion of New Mexico was home to the Comanche and Apache tribes of Native Americans and back even further, their ancestors, about which little is known. In fact, Eddy County, in which Artesia sits, has uncovered artifacts dating to the Archaic Period (8,000-500 BCE).

American homesteaders began arriving in the area in the 1880s as part of the western expansion. The railroad arrived in 1890, connecting the area to the much broader network of rails extending around the rapidly-growing country. The first artesian well was tapped in 1905, the same year that the town was officially incorporated and named after the well. (If you’re not familiar, an artesian well is simply tapping into an underground aquifer that has enough pressure that the water rises up on its own without a pump, though it may not rise all the way to the surface.) Given the importance of water in the desert, it is no wonder that the town adopted its natural resource as its name.

Later on, oil was found in the region, and Artesia became part of Texas’ oil empire. Oil and gas are significant industries in the area today. One thing we noticed immediately upon arriving in Artesia was the strong smell. (Note: Dustin is very sensitive to smells in general, but I have a poor sense of smell so when I notice something, it is really strong!) The smell - which I recall being sulfur-like in nature - comes from a local oil refinery, The Navajo Refinery, owned by a company called Holly Frontier. Because environmental matters are important to us (both for nature’s sake and our own health), we think it’s important to mention that in the last couple of years, this oil refinery has been flagged as one of the worst polluters of benzene by the Environmental Protection Agency. This local article from February 2020 provides more details on this situation, which hopefully the refinery is actively resolving.

Artesia is home to about 11,000 people, a small town by the standards of many American cities, but New Mexico has a lot of very small cities given that it is a predominantly rural state. Artesia has established a reputation in the state for the arts; Artesia was designated a New Mexico Arts and Cultural District in 2013. There are a number of colorful murals and bronze sculptures dotting the town. While we didn’t spend much time exploring the town ourselves, you can check out this article with more information on and pictures of the sculptures, which are quite impressive for such a small place!

review of the heritage inn in artesia, new mexico

Our two-night stay in Artesia was at The Heritage Inn, which is in a building that dates to 1905, the year of the town’s founding. The hotel is centrally located and provides breakfast and classifies itself as a bed and breakfast, though it doesn’t match what we expect from a bed and breakfast. It is consistently high ranked and rated in the town on various review sites.

The individuals who checked us in and manned the breakfast station were all very friendly. Our room, the king suite, was housed on the ground floor. We had the convenience of an in-room kitchenette and a very large space, which was great to use as a place to hang out in the evening with our traveling companions. The room lacked natural light, which we didn’t love. As in, there was no window in the room at all, which wouldn’t be legal in many states due to fire laws. I believe this king suite on the ground floor is the only room with that downside. It’s worth noting that due to the age of The Heritage Inn, there is no elevator, so visitors with mobility concerns should be aware of this. Overall, our stay was perfectly fine, though not noteworthy, and we appreciated the central location of Artesia for our day trip destinations.

For a hypothetical future trip to the area, we probably would not stay in Artesia due to the smell from the oil refinery, which is really off-putting (and potentially unhealthy), but I would take the time to stop in Artesia and explore the art around the town.

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