Near Espanola, U.S. Highway 64 splits off to the northeast; this is the high road of north-central New Mexico. Paralleling the canyon of the Rio Grande to Pilar, the highway climbs up onto the Taos plateau to Taos, turns eastward to cut through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains over Palo Flechado Pass, down into the grassy Moreno Valley to Eagle Nest and Eagle Nest Lake, then eastward again following the narrow canyon of the Cimarron River to Cimarron and Raton. A loop trip northward from Eagle Nest on State 38 goes through ghost town Elizabethtown, over Red River Pass, and down the varicolored canyon of Red River to Questa, before turning southward toward Taos. [Illustration: (_U.S. Park Service_) Subdivision living, pueblo style—at Aztec National Monument] And there is the northwest, the Four Corners region, land of Navajos and gas wells, presided over by magnificent Shiprock. State Highway 44 leaves Interstate 25 at Bernalillo, follows Rio Salado to San Ysidro, which nestles at the south tip of the Nacimiento Mountains below White Mesa, thence northwestward past Cabezon Peak and coaly La Ventana to Cuba in the valley of Rio Puerco. Then, up and down, the winding highway cuts transversely across the San Juan Basin, through pine groves at the Continental Divide, past the side road to Chaco Canyon National Monument at Blanco Trading Post, and among the multicolored Tertiary beds carved into badlands. At Bloomfield, oil and gas wells lie all about, and the mesa-and-canyon country gives way to the valley of the San Juan River. At Aztec, State Road 44 joins U.S. Highway 550 in the narrow valley of the Animas River—a clear cold stream sent rushing down from the icy lakes of the San Juan Mountains to the north. Eastward a few miles lies Navajo Lake along the San Juan River; northward, U. S. 550 winds up the Animas Valley toward Durango, high Silverton, and Mesa Verde National Park. Aztec Ruins National Monument is just to the northwest of Aztec. Westward from Aztec, U.S. Highway 550 follows the Animas River to its junction with the San Juan River, then past the huge Navajo coal mine, a long open cut near Fruitland, to junction with U.S. Highway 666 at Shiprock. Shiprock! A buttressed needle, towering 1450 vertical feet above Navajo-land, with walls of black igneous rock radiating from its feet like spokes on a wheel. This dark-colored spire once filled the throat of a volcano. Where are piles of rocks, hundreds of feet thick, that once surrounded it? Down the river they went, down the San Juan to the Colorado River, and thence to the ocean. To the west, as a background, are the forested Carrizo, Lukachukai, and Chuska mountains. Off to the east lies Hogback Mountain, an upturned ridge of sedimentary rocks producing oil—the petroleum geologist’s favorite haunt, an anticline.