HWY70 Portales to Roswell

My home will always be in the mountains of southern New Mexico, but after 15 years of living in Oklahoma, the plains are seeping into my heart. The vast openness makes the land feel flat and empty, yet it is filled with increasingly powerful storms, blowing ferociously across the landscape, propelling dirt and tumbleweeds across the highway as you journey west.

Beneath the surface are also metaphorical storms. Probing a little deeper reveals the often-conflicting interests of those who want to extract fossil fuels, those who want to invest in alternative energy like wind power, those providing food from farms and ranches, and those interested in preserving the rich native plains ecosystem.