Road Trip: New Mexico

After exploring the Petrified Forest in Arizona we crossed the border into New Mexico! Talk about beautiful landscape. Once we were in the Native American territories I was completely in awe. What a beautiful place!

We had originally planned to turn around after this stop which you will hear more about later. We planned our trip so that we would be in Albuquerque for Dan's birthday.

We were excited because we were going to stay with a very close family friend, Dan. Since we first found ourselves in Arizona, he insisted that we needed to come to New Mexico to visit him.

Our awesome photographers: dKweddings

In fact, Uncle Dan married us. I call him Uncle Dan since I've known him my entire life and he pretty much is an uncle to me. As a quick shout out, check out his weekly music radio shows on Fridays here: KSFR The Beat Goes On.

We got to Albuquerque in the early evening and got into town just in time to go out to dinner before everything closed down. Dan was nice enough to take us to a vegan friendly/hippie restaurant. It was just what we needed after a long drive through the desert.

Uncle Dan needed to go to Santa Fe on Dan's birthday, the next day, for that very show, so Dan and I hung around Albuquerque. We went to the main downtown area and enjoyed a few good brews in the sun. It was lovely being able to sit outside comfortably in the sun. Not too hot, definitely not too cold. Apparently, New Mexico is more like Colorado, high desert, where as Arizona is low desert, which makes it a ton hotter.

After we were done baking a bit, we went for lunch and enjoyed some AMAZING vegan sushi at Loving Vegan, a few local brews, and the amazing, not incredibly hot weather.

We ended the day by going out to dinner with Uncle Dan when he got back and had some good giggles and a cigar.

On Saturday, Uncle Dan had to head back up to Santa Fe for a radio meeting and thought we should meet him up there by taking the train. I absolutely LOVE trains, so I said yes without even considering my husband's opinion. Luckily for him, I already know that he enjoys train rides as well, so it worked out perfectly.

We hopped on and headed north. We passed through the Santo Domingo Pueblo and were asked by the conductor to not take pictures for the natives' privacy. Of course I abided and therefore only have one awesome picture of Dan on the train as we got into Santa Fe.

Once there Uncle Dan picked us up and showed us around the downtown area. Santa Fe is much different from Albuquerque.

First off it is a much shorter word and easier to spell whereas it took me forever to figure out how to spell Albuquerque just to discover... ALBQ. Ah much better. Also, ALBQ feels like a big city whereas Santa Fe felt more like a large town. Granted we only really hung around the old town square, but that was my impression. Lots of small shops and native art.

We walked around and window shopped a bit and saw some great architecture. We then got a beer on a balcony bar and people watched. We even got to see a wedding percession walk through the downtown square.

We also saw some hilarious motorcyclists that were on three wheelers that would drive basically in circles around downtown showing off their rides. It was funny, because their motorcycles looked more like dune buggies.

After enjoying the view, we thought it was time to enjoy some food. We had a delicious dinner in town and tried an array of homemade meads. Wow is that stuff sweet.

That evening after we made it back to ALBQ I noticed that there was a bird making a nest in the tree above the guest house door. It was fun watching it bring sticks over and then sit in it flapping its wings to force the sticks into place.

The next morning we were up and ready to hit the road. Next stop, Roswell!

I pretty much had to force this one on Dan, he thought it was going to lame. It wasn't Disneyland by any means, well a bit, but I am pleased we went. We drove into town, hit up the International UFO Museum and Research Center, and left. If you're going to be near the area at all, I'd go. Especially if you enjoy science fiction or anything to do with aliens. But the town looked pretty barren otherwise, so it's not quite a destination vacation spot.

While visiting in New Mexico, we decided to keep going into Texas. The plan was to stop in at the Caverns of Sonora, camp there for the night and then head into Austin. From there we would go north through Dallas and Oklahoma City, to head back through to the Grand Canyon.