We made it through New Mexico without any incident on a cold and rainy day. The topography changed yet again from what we experienced in Texas with what I envisioned the desert to be like with more sand and the odd large, TV western type cacti. There were a few places we passed where the rail line ran parallel with the road and there were literally miles of train cars just sitting out in the middle of nowhere. I guess it's cheap to store them there or maybe they're just junk now. One spot there was well over a mile of locomotives just sitting there, again in the middle of the dessert.

As we crossed into Arizona the landscape changed again and we saw some very dramatic, if not improbable balancing rocks along the roadway. These are the result of the softer sandstone eroding, leaving the harder rocks on top balanced in some precarious positions. We also passed a field that contained hundreds of parabolic mirrors facing south west. I checked the odometer and the field actually was just longer than a mile, full of these mirrors. A later check on the internet revealed that this was the largest solar mirror field in the world with 1900 acres of mirrors which use the sun's concentrated rays to heat oil that, in turn, creates steam to generate electricity. I'm not so sure sunscreen would save you here!

Link: http://www.quietsolarenergy.com/who-needs-sunlight-in-arizona-solar-power-never-sleeps

We headed through Arizona and caught a spot in a casino parking lot for the night. They had close to 60 spots in the RV lot, which was full, for the price of $10 for 3 nights. There weren't any amenities aside from water and the rest rooms in The casino, but it was safe enough and we tested our our Honda 2000 watt generator for powering up our rig for TV and electric heaters.