Like I said, the drive out of Marfa was spectacular, but it was not without a fight. The drive was beautiful, but very windy, with armies of tumbleweeds racing across the road in front of my car, exploding into thin air upon impact. After about 45 windy, dusty and sandy minutes, I saw a state trooper in the distance blocking off the road. As it turns out, there was about a 20 car pile-up further along the road, due to the high winds kicking up so much dust and causing zero visibility! I had to wait about 45 minutes for another state trooper to come along and drive a whole group of us to safety. I eventually make it back on route, with about three hours taken away in the Texan desert. It was a beautiful detour though.
I watched Mexico outside my driver’s side window all afternoon. Sometimes the drive felt just like the Wild West, sometimes it looked like the Moon, sometimes it looked like what I imagine the Middle East to look like, and other times it looked like a few distinct levels from Mario Kart.
I loved New Mexico the second I seemed to cross the border, and it only got better from there. New Mexico is a wonderful place. I made my way to Albuquerque where Kyra, Seth, Abby, Luna, Jude, Maple and Squeaky welcomed me into their home (THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU GUYS!! And make sure to give Maple a pat for me…I never said goodbye!)
The next day Kyra and I took a day trip up to explore Santa Fe. It was so cute and quaint with lots of cute shops and little streets. We wandered around for a few hours, checking out the cathedral, the tempting jewelry vendors laid out on the plaza, the Georgia O’Keefe museum, the beautiful Nedra Matteucci Galleries (Thanks for the chat and the tour Ann!!) and just taking in the beautiful southwest sun! Luckily I found TWO pairs of earrings that I fell in love with and are now safely in the always-growing collection. We headed back to Albuquerque to make it home in time for dinner.
A day of exploring different neighborhoods of Albuquerque followed, including a yummy southwestern breakfast (who am I kidding, a yummy southwestern breakfast EVERY morning!), a great second-hand store (with many, many ALMOST finds…), lots of great shops and funky motels around the historic route 66 area. Albuquerque is super cool and I am so glad to have it on my radar!! That afternoon we made the trek up to Chaco Culture National Historic Park
CHACO. WAS. AMAZING. If EVER you have the chance to go through northern New Mexico, make a stop here–if not for camping, at least for a day of hiking! Being so early in the season, we practically had the place to ourselves. We got in that night just before sunset and had a chance to take a little bike ride to the petroglyphs and enjoy the site before darkness was upon us.
After the night of camping, a few sierra nevadas, attempted grilled cheese sandwiches over the campfire and my multiple attempts to find the constellations I’d just learned in Fort Davis, Texas–Kyra and I embarked on a 9 mile bike ride plus 5 mile hike. We stumbled upon all the incredible 1000 year structures still standing from when the Chaco culture inhabited the lands and discovered (what we later found out were) fossilized shrimp burrows from when the canyons used to be under water 80 MILLION YEARS AGO (minds=blown).
Again, we made our way back home in time for dinner and a good night’s rest before we both headed on our separate journeys–me to Arizona and Kyra having a few more days in NM with her fam before making her way up the coast to Washington where she just landed an incredible farming job. WOOHOO! New Mexico was awesome and set a great tone for more southwestern adventures…
calley drives 