New Mexico: Ghost Cars

Here is the first post of my New-to-New Mexico series!

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to New Mexico was that wherever you were driving, be it a highway, or a tiny street in the middle of nowhere, you could always see random cars stopped on the side of the road. The strange thing is that they are standing in areas with no buildings, or parks, or anything. At first I would try to figure out reasons for this: Maybe the cops arrested the driver! Maybe they were murdered! Maybe they went for a pee in the desert and a mountain lion ate them! But nothing made sense. These cars were everywhere, and none of the people I asked knew why.

We made sure to park right after the speed sign, just in case. 

It wasn't until a trip to Abiquiu with Lilo that it all finally made sense.

See, anywhere in New Mexico if you turn your head you will see the most amazing landscape. On our way to Lake Abiquiu we were breathless by how beautiful everything was, and had to stop and go explore off of the side of the road. It all clicked when I told Lilo to stop so that we could hike around, and we asked ourselves whether we could just leave the car there. Of course we could! everyone does it!

There was a giant dead-looking tree

And then we got here after walking for ten minutes

When walking back to the car we saw a cop drive by, and he didn't seem to even notice our car!

We got back to the car without getting eaten by snakes or mountain lions!

This is what one side of the road looked like. The other one was a small cliff

So this is why people leave their cars everywhere. Sometimes everything is so beautiful that you can't focus on the road, and the safest thing to do is to stop and walk around.