You aren't planning on driving straight from NOLA to Roswell in one day, are you?

Its nearly 1100 miles, and not something that should even be considered for any multi-day trip. Its also not going to take you 16 hours - 19 hours is far more likely. Even in the extremely unlikely event you were able to safely cover that distance in one day, it becomes counter productive, as you'll need a full day just to recover before you continue on.

I can understand wanting to cover some extra miles on the first day, but 600-700 miles is a very long day on the road, anything more than that just can't be advised.

As far as ghost towns go, I don't have a lot of information, but the topic comes up pretty frequently. Try searching the forum, and you should find quite a few possibilities.