R and J in the USA

New Mexico is a land that inspires art. As a landscape it carries a kind of beauty that is different from what we had yet known on this trip. We have seen beauty that is born of tremendous spectacle and awe – whether from the size, scope or uniqueness of shapes that a landscape has to bear. We come from a place where the beauty is more of a humble kind, but is born of a kind of lushness that its diversity and vibrance is so commonplace that it becomes just the background for daily life – but is nearly unending in its greenery and the colors that it blooms in and out of throughout varied seasons. We have seen beauty that is born of a lushness that is so abundant that green is literally dripping from the trees and creeping up on the buildings. None of these types of beauty are what we found in New Mexico. In some places, the ground simply looks like dry dirt. The colors consist mostly of splashes of dark green fighting for their place among the expansive brown scenery. There are places of spectacle, where the jagged and unique shapes of rock and mountain jut up into the air with striking beauty and where the browns of the ground turn into a bright white oceanless beach in the desert. But the spectacular is not the main feature in New Mexico. And, not that spectacular features need be compared with each other, but New Mexico’s entries, while beautiful and striking in their own right, are every so much more modest then those to the west and northwest. Even though we didn’t have a context for this new-to-us New Mexico kind of beauty, there was no question that beauty is the right word for it. There is something about the beauty in the landscape of New Mexico that is stirring to the soul. You don’t have to spend long in the state to understand why artists have been drawn to it for so long. And if you are looking for color, you need look no further than the sunsets that blaze above the New Mexico horizons. Or take in the nearly endless art and sculpture that is peppered throughout its towns and cities. Or look to the skies in Albuquerque to see the colorful balloons floating through the air. New Mexico is a land of beauty indeed, but not one that shouts it. It is a beauty that is found in the still moments that are relentless in their consistency and profound in their depth. Before you know it, you may end up being intoxicated by it and wanting to stay immersed in it while it works whatever quiet magic it has upon you, slowly making an artist out of you too.

We entered into New Mexico in an adrenaline-infused, going-nowhere-fast kind of rush. We had lingered too long in Arizona. We had grown cocky about our ability to pull of our 5Ks in 50 States so effortlessly thus far and at how adept we had come to be at bringing our state by state itineraries to life with a blend of sticking to the plan and following the inspirations and opportunities that the moments and the landscapes presented us. We knew we had a 5:30 PM 5K in New Mexico, 3 hours away from where we were in Arizona. That leaves PLENTY of time to get there with plenty of time to be there before the race. We had decided to pack in every last little bit of Arizona we could get and would get on the road by 1:30, with more than enough time to pick up our packets and show up at the starting line, assuming all went to plan. 

All did no go to plan.

We didn’t actually pull out of our gas station stop until close to 2PM, which meant, just by our own hand, we were now officially cutting it very close. Then google informed us that an accident on I-40 would be causing delays. It turns out those delays added up to over an hour and a half of extra drive time. As we sat in bumper to bumper traffic, it seemed to be clear that we would miss our New Mexico 5K. And, we shouldn’t have been so cavalier about it, especially since New Mexico had been one of the states that it had been hardest to find 5Ks in, especially since December is not the most popular 5K season. The next New Mexico 5K wouldn’t be until mid-January. On the drive there, Julie went back and forth between getting in touch with the race director to try and finagle a way to still run this race despite the fact that we would be arriving somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes late, and looking at our itinerary and starting to consider how to insert a jaunt back to New Mexico in mid-January from our planned spot in Oklahoma City. The outcome of this pickle we had gotten ourselves into turned out to be a highlight of our trip and you can read about it in our 5K section. 

After we left our most wonderful welcome to New Mexico that was the Farolito Trail of Lights 5K in Albuquerque, we were so wrapped up in the wildness of our evening that Julie completely forgot that we had purchased tickets ahead of time for the Sandia Tramway. The tickets remain good for a year, so we’ll see if that adventure will be in our future.

Julie had told Ryan weeks earlier that she had planned a surprise for our first morning in New Mexico and we woke up in a Cracker Barrel parking lot the next morning with Julie nearly giddy with excitement to see Ryan’s face when we showed up at our destination. Usually 6AM would not be an early morning for us, but neither of us had slept well after all of the days excitement, so we had to pull ourselves out of bed for our adventure.

When we pulled into the parking lot and Ryan saw the name of the business, the Rainbow Ryders, and the massive, human sized wicker baskets being loaded onto the back of some flatbeds, he knew what our morning itinerary held in store. If you want to read about our hot air balloon adventure, you can read about it in our People Along the Way section. 

While in the van on the way back from soaring through the Albuquerque skies, we were both exhausted and nap-ready, but also had a few hours in the itinerary available for getting to know Albuquerque a bit. We didn’t know how we’d use the time but, luckily, our new friend, Imelda told us about an event called a “cookie crawl” going on in Old Town Albuquerque. This was a no-brainer and one of the fun parts of traveling and leaving open slots in the itinerary to just see what pops up. Julie knew she would not be able to eat the cookies, but she also knows that her husband loves cookies and Julie loves seeing her husband happy and, even without being able to eat them, just the idea of a cookie crawl sounded marvelous. Well, it was. If we could decree cookie crawls a required event in every town in America, we would make it so. 

We headed to Old Town and found a public parking lot where we pulled in and promptly passed out fast asleep for a good 45 minutes. Our next stop was the diner across the street. We don’t know what it is about hot air ballooning that makes it feel like the perfect morning to hit a diner, but it did.

By that time, it was finally time for the cookie crawl to be open and we headed into Old Town where the sprawling city of Albuquerque revealed its village roots. We left the bustling 4 lane pavement into an old town square with a gorgeous old church at its center and the energy of a bustling small town filling its nooks and crannies. The cookie crawl was a fundraiser meant to bring attention to all of the wonderful local shops in Old Town that could use to get some more exposure and to do it in a way that makes everyone happy. Cause – cookies. You went and bought your hand painted (by a craftsperson whose shop was right there in Old Town) cookie tin for $10 and then went store by store to the participating establishments, grabbing one of their homemade cookies as you, hopefully, looked around the shop. We noticed more than a few folks that were mercenary in their cookie retrieval – not looking around, not shopping, just there to get their cookie and go. And that was fine. Actually, eventually, that became Ryan when he realized that if he stuck to Julie’s shopping and meandering pace in each store, he would leave the day with a tin full of cookie, singular. He intended to get $10 worth of cookies, so we parted ways, with Ryan on his cookie mission while Julie meandered into the shops filled with gorgeous native jewelry and hand-crafted everythings. She did a bit more holiday shopping and even ran into our new friend, Imelda with her cookie tin in hand. We absolutely loved our time in Old Town Albuquerque.

We hadn’t been in New Mexico 24 hours and already felt that we had been given the opportunity to have some classic New Mexico experiences. From the faralitos and posole we had been greeted with at our 5K the night before, to the classic Albuquerque hot air balloon adventuring to the buildings, churches and curios of our Old Town journey, we were steeped in New Mexico and loving it.

Our next stop was to head north and take in a few of the National Monuments located only a couple of hours from New Mexico’s biggest metropolis. Our first stop was one that our planning would not allow us to visit. Tent Rocks, located on native land, was closed for the season. And, even if not, it required reservations made in advance to get into it – which we had not done. Still, a drive up towards it put us straight into the New Mexico landscape and the peace that comes with it. Just driving through the area, Julie found her ode to New Mexico naturally taking shape – the first lines to the song being, “What is this feeling? This New Mexico feeling.” – which is exactly what she was pondering as she felt something stir inside of her driving through this beautiful place.

Our next stop was Bandelier National Monument. We have come to understand throughout our trip that “National Monument” is indeed, simply a designation that has more to do with politics and communities and stakeholders than anything to do with the degree to which a place is worth visiting in comparison to a National Park. Before starting this trip, Julie thought a National Monument was a statue of some kind or a historical marker. Nope. It is a place that is gorgeous, and typically, every bit as gorgeous as a National Park, it just doesn’t have congresses approval to shift it to that status, for any number of reasons. Bandelier National Monument is one such place. We grabbed a spot at the Juniper Campground for $20 and basked in the blazing sunset. In the morning, we went to see the “ruins” of the Pueblo cliff dwellings. We put “ruins” in quotes because, while that is what they look like to the naked and non-native eye, we learned that, to the natives themselves, they are very much in tact as the current homes to the spirits of their ancestors that lived there and that the native people and cultures whose history they communicate are also very much alive, thriving and still here, as is the case throughout the country. It certainly felt like a special place to visit. It was super fun to climb the ladders into the dwellings that they carved into the soft pumice stone of the pock-marked mountains. 

We were only 10 minutes away from Los Alamos and we called another itinerary audible and decided to trade our time visiting the Rio Grande National Monument for visiting this epically historic location. If you want to hear more about our Los Alamos experience, you can read about it in our People Along the Way Section. Julie bought a book called “Nuclear Nuevo Mexico: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos” to understand more about the story of Los Alamos from the perspective of the voices less often consulted when it comes to this massively impactful town.

Our next stop was Taos, New Mexico. Ryan and had never been to Taos and Julie was sure she had been – that is until we rolled into town. Julie had a very clear and distinct image in her mind of the main drag of the Taos that she imagined that she had been to a decade or two before. She was excited to revisit and roam the streets of this beautiful town that had taken up residence in her memory. For hours, Julie was absolutely confounded when we arrived in the town of Taos and it was NOTHING like the winding street of artists shops that she had emblazoned in her mind. Taos did have streets filled with artists shops, but none of them on streets that matched her memory. It was still a lovely visit and we had delicious and surprisingly expensive Mexican food, but none of it matched the scene in Julie’s recall. 

Our next stop was Santa Fe to take in the atmosphere, the art, the architecture and the history. Julie went to the New Mexico History Museum while Ryan took the opportunity to rest and catch up on a few things in the van. If you want to hear a bit more about Julie’s experience at the New Mexico History Museum, check out our People Along the Way section. Our next stop was the New Mexico State Capitol which was quite unlike any other we’d seen and in the most New Mexico of ways. Of course, its architecture matched the type seen throughout Santa Fe and the rest of New Mexico. It had a rotunda with a beautiful circular ceiling, but no dome. And the entire structure was floors of circular hallways around that rotunda. Most notable was the art. The capitol was every bit as much an art museum as a center of governance. 

We were both quite taken by Santa Fe and wanted to wander in and through its beautiful nooks and crannies. The stores held stunning art and curios and prices to match. 

Surprisingly, we ran into one of the couples from our hot air balloon ride – the couple from Kentucky. We got the update on how their post balloon-ride hike had gone (it had been a harrowing adventure, but they were happy and healthy, living to tell the tale) and gave them the recommendation to visit Bandalier if they had the time. We walked away happy to have run into them and stunned that out of the 10 other folks in that little wicker basket with us, we had run into 3 of them out in the wilds of New Mexico’s streets. What are the odds?!

That evening, we stayed in the driveway of one of the people that had owned the summer camp Julie had gone to throughout her childhood, Hal, that had welcomed us to do laundry and take hot showers. Unfortunately, having just gotten back from traveling, he had come down with some kind of illness that had him completely down for the count. We brought him some soup and some nyquil and were glad for his hospitality and the chance to leave cleaner than we had arrived.

Our next morning was the one that Julie had been looking forward to for weeks since she had put it in the itinerary. We had a full day ahead of us and got on the road by 7:30. The first stop of the day was Santa Rosa, New Mexico – a small and slightly worn town of 2700 – and the stop that Julie had been eagerly awaiting for weeks. Santa Rosa was home to something called the Blue Hole. It was an 81 foot deep, 60 foot wide watering hole connected to a vast and deep underground water system in New Mexico. Because of its geology, the water in the Blue Hole stayed at 61 degrees all year round. So, even though it was December, Julie knew she could swim in much warmer water than what she had immersed herself in for the last 3 or 4 states, each of which had been so cold, she could barely muster 5 or 10 strokes to make it count as technically swimming before she ran out of the water in mildly frozen pain. She would still wear a wetsuit, since 61 isn’t toasty, but she knew, she could easily go in without one.  When we got there, the water was so blue and staring down into its depths was terrifyingly beautiful. Julie had her fingers-crossed that Ryan would go in (even though he had no such wetsuit) because she just knew this is Ryan’s kind of fun if he can get over the hurdles of cold and inconvenience to just go for it. That he did. Before long, he was in the water with the giddiness of youth, wanting to explore. He jumped in and realized that if he didn’t actively stop his dive, his jump would just keep sending him deeper in the water. He came up to the surface enthralled – but also cold enough that the fun wouldn’t be able to last too long. Julie did not want to leave the blue hole, but, once we had our little dip in its deep waters, we were off to the next adventure. 

The next adventure would provide fun and mystery of a different sort. Our next stop was Roswell, New Mexico complete with a UFO History Museum, a virtual reality reenactment of the 1947 Roswell incident (of which we partook) and every bit as much alien and ufo infested kitch as you could imagine. We had a blast and left with our minds open to the possibilities of what may or may not be out there in the trillions of galaxies beyond.

Our final stop of the day was a parking spot just outside of White Sands National Park where we would visit the next day. From the pictures, you will see, we were parked in a beautiful wide open vista complete with a lovely lake and open desert amidst a mountainous horizon. Look a little closer and you will see that the scene is not what it seems on the surface. We are parked next to a beautiful wastewater evaporation pond somewhere in the middle of the Holloman Airforce Base. We did not partake of any swimming in the “lake” of course, but still admired the visual beauty of the setting with the sound of fighter jets overtaking the air every few hours. It was neat to see the fighter jets going through their maneuvers in the skies above and though it is not a light-hearted thing to hear bombs being tested in the not so distant lands, it was still neat to see and experience. For any mothers reading and having retroactive worry, this spot was open to the public and a common parking spot filled with other vans and RVs. The bombs were dropping close enough to hear, but not close enough to be in any danger. So, mothers, you may now exhale.

The next day, after a wonderfully relaxing and productive morning in and on the van, we headed the 5 minutes over to White Sands National Park. It is exactly what it sounds like and it is absolutely stunning. It is the type of place that proves that, while one can certainly get older, the child inside never dies. There was something about those white sand dunes that just made us want to run and play. It didn’t hurt that they sold and rented sleds at the visitor’s center and you better be sure that we rented one and were taking turns riding down the dunes. We were thousands of miles away from the white snowy hills we sledded down as kids, but we still had plenty of white hills to play in. There is something pretty special about being able to go sledding in fair-weather clothing. 

We finished our day driving up the winding road to a BLM campsite at the base of the Organ Mountains, at the Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks National Monument where we are writing this right now. We see beautiful saw-toothed mountains out one side of the van and the wide open space of the Chihuahan Desert out the other. We are, quite literally, happy campers.

Our last stop of New Mexico will be Las Cruces before we head for the border. Oh, and, lest we forget to mention, for her New Mexico movies, Julie couldn’t help but go for Oppenheimer, coming out of Los Alamos, and then dug a little deeper for some lighter New Mexico flavored fare. Though perhaps not everyone knows it as well as Julie and the Cramer family she comes from, we laughed watching Bette Midler and Shelly Long triumph in Outrageous Fortunes in the mythical Meza Azul of New Mexico. 

We’ll actually have a New Mexico coda during our second day in Texas as we swing back northward for an afternoon to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park. It is only 31 minutes away from where we will be in Guadalupe National Park, so we have to visit it.

Like any and every other state before it, we will say goodbye to New Mexico with fond memories for the adventure, a little more knowledgeable about the land, the culture, the history and the beauty of this place, but only more knowledgeable enough to have an appreciation for how little we know. We will leave most definitely infected by the beauty of the place, that created by nature and that created by man inspired by that created by nature. And, we will leave wondering if and when we will return, hoping that we do and knowing that, whether we do or don’t, there is something about New Mexico that will stay with us long after we are gone.