traveler who loves big skies, lonely roads, and infinite spaces will find all this and more on the Dry Cimarron Scenic Byway. Early travelers on the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail must have felt a sense of awe these limitless prairies. The byway spreads across northeastern New Mexico like a web, starting east of Raton on NM 72 and crossing into Colorado and Oklahoma. At 215 miles in New Mexico alone, this is one of the longer scenic byways in the state and takes several days to explore completely.

Three and a half miles east of Raton, NM 526 travels north from NM 72 through Sugarite Canyon State Park (Visitors' Center, 505-445-5607). Old buildings and foundations near the entrance to the park are the remains of Sugarite Coal Camp,countryation between 1910 and 1941. Camping, fishing, and boating are available at two small lakes Alice and Lake Maloya. The best time to make this drive is in the fall, when the leaves of the Gambel's oak are turning every color of the fall spectrum - green to yellow to orange to flame. The leaves shivering in the wind make the hillsides vibrate with warm color.

Driving east on NM 72 across Johnson Mesa, some of the most beautiful views in New Mexico unfold before you. To the north of the mesa loom the Colorado Rockies. The shadows cast by clouds drifting across the limitless sky darken the grasslands.