Along highway 64, forty miles southwest of Raton, is the sleepy town of Cimarron located on the banks of the eponymous river and the Santa Fe Trail. Cimarron is the gateway to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a much more interesting place to spend the night than either Raton, Clayton, or Tucumcari.

Of the local hostelries, choose the St James Hotel. Built in the livelier time of 1880, the hotel has given hospitality of many famous and infamous persons as the bullet holes in the pressed tin ceiling attest. After a long drive, preprandial beers and margaritas in the hotel bar are a singular pleasure enhanced by a remove to the dining room where a very decent three-course dinner can be washed down with a couple of bottles of wine. After dinner, the weary traveller is quite ready to stagger off and collapse into bed for instant sleep.