Take a desert-bound ride into the lonely heart of New Mexico as we follow U.S. Route 285 from Clines Corners to Encino—a 27-mile journey through stark, wide-open landscapes steeped in quiet solitude and Southwestern lore. Beginning at the well-known junction of Interstate 40 and U.S. 285 in Clines Corners, this southbound route heads away from the busy hum of the Mother Road into the whispering silence of the high plains. Clines Corners itself, founded in 1934, is a long-standing roadside stop that has served travelers for nearly a century. It’s one of those classic Route 66 pit stops—part trading post, part fuel station, part memory bank of cross-country Americana. As we pull away from the neon signs and souvenir racks, the road narrows to a two-lane ribbon slicing through open space.
The landscape here is all about vastness. Rolling grasslands stretch to the horizon in every direction, occasionally punctuated by grazing cattle or the remnants of an old windmill. The air feels thinner up here—after all, we’re traveling at elevations exceeding 6,500 feet. The road follows a remarkably straight path south, and there’s little in the way of human settlement to interrupt the views. What buildings we do pass are often abandoned homesteads or crumbling gas stations, silent witnesses to a time when this route was more heavily traveled. US-285 served for decades as a critical north-south corridor through the central part of New Mexico before modern interstates like I-25 and I-40 pulled most of the traffic away.
Around the halfway point, we encounter a faint shift in topography. The land starts to undulate ever so slightly, and distant mesas begin to appear, their red and brown hues softening under the haze of the high desert sun. Fence posts lean with the wind and time, and occasional clusters of scrub brush signal the resilience of life in this arid environment. There’s a rhythmic simplicity to the drive—no sharp curves or elevation changes, just the hum of tires on pavement and the gentle rise and fall of the plains. Cell service is spotty, radio stations fade, and we begin to feel the road the way earlier travelers must have: raw, personal, and uninterrupted.
As we approach Encino, the end of our journey, signs of settlement reemerge. The town itself is a small and quiet place—a far cry from the heyday of the railroad and Route 60 that once gave it life. Today, Encino feels more like a whisper of the past than a bustling community, with weathered buildings and a handful of homes clinging to the edges of history. We meet U.S. Route 60 at a T-intersection just north of the village center, the convergence of two historic highways in the middle of the desert. From here, travelers can head west toward Mountainair and the Salinas Pueblo Missions, or east toward Vaughn and the rolling ranchlands beyond.
In the end, this stretch of U.S. 285 isn’t about bustling destinations or roadside attractions—it’s about the journey itself. It’s the kind of road that strips away distraction, leaving only the sky, the land, and the steady pull of the horizon. For those willing to slow down and take it all in, the drive from Clines Corners to Encino offers a meditative glimpse into the raw, open soul of the Southwest.
🎵 Music:
Piano March by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/
🗺️ Route Map
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