Surprises in Carlsbad, New Mexico

Funny thing about a long trip like this, is that we sometimes forget to tell the kids where we are going. Not as in "Surprise!" and we pull up to a great destination, but we just decide that we'll stop along the way at a place and forget to give them any warning. Not that a national park needs warning, per se, but you know, maybe we should give the youngest a heads-up that we're headed over 750 feet underground that morning. 

Well, he wasn't too worked up about it, which was great.

After another beautiful New Mexico sunrise, we started our day at Brantley Lake State Park. This is just outside of Carlsbad, and another great New Mexico park to use as a base for adventures.

There is some elevation gain as you head into the park, but it's a rather unassuming park entrance.

We took the natural entrance, which is an easy walk but long enough that you can have it all to yourself on a fall morning. (The rest of the folks in the parking lot opted for the elevator.) It's a smooth path for the most part, but about half-way down you feel the thigh-burn from the steep descent. From this path, you pass the bat cave (yay, guano!), but also get to interact with the park rangers more as they patrol the area. 

A couple of summers ago we toured the Oregon Caves, which are similar in formations. What the Carlsbad Cavern has over that park is the sheer size once you get down the the bottom. You could fit a big dragon in there. 

It was a place of wonder.

Have I mentioned that I love the sunsets in New Mexico? 

After a great day at the caverns, we had a quick dinner, then went back into town for a drive-in movie. Not only had we seen that Carlsbad had a drive-in theatre, and it was open, and they were playing a movie the kids had asked to see--it was playing for free that night! It was the first time at a drive-in for 4 out of 5 Parks; being from southern Oregon I grew up with this as the main form of entertainment in the summer. It was so much fun to pack up the truck and get out the hoodies and snacks. In an improvement from the crackly speakers from the late '80s, the sound coming through the radios and amplified from the party trucks with the fancy sound systems in the back row made it actually audible. We saw the second Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, not nearly as good as the first movie, but who really cared when we were sitting out under the stars?

Hooray for the Fiesta Drive-In!

We all were up the next morning, to watch our last New Mexico sunrise before heading to Texas. (No small feat for a couple of night owls in the family.) Watching the sun rise and set is one ritual from this trip that I hope we continue once we settle down.

We spent all of yesterday driving, but did want to send out our thanks to all of the veterans. Especially my dad, who served in Vietnam. All our love to you!

Roswell Wasn't Nearly Cheesy Enough

To be honest, I'm not sure what the original draw to Roswell was for us, it just seemed like something that you should do if you are on a RV trip. I'm not a fan of UFO stories, didn't know much about the Roswell sightings, but I do love a good cheesy road trip destination. 

The drive from Las Cruces to Roswell was amazing. We passed through another border check, and the White Sands Missile Range. We had one 'movie' moment, where two black SUVs with flashing lights passed us at about 100 mph, but of course we were traveling down the road way too slow to find out what was going on. (Heck, they could have found an alien twenty miles down the road, had a tea party, and cleaned up before we would have caught up with them.)

 

We were feeling quite excited about the storefront aliens when we pulled into Roswell.

Kevin had work to do, so just the kids and I went to the downtown UFO museum. It wasn't nearly as silly as I was hoping it would be, but we still had a nice time. The documentation on the 1947 incident was actually interesting and thorough. A bit too much reading for our wee attention spans, though. 

Then, we just couldn't make a normal face when taking photos in front of any of these exhibits.

Roswell also has a city museum, which was nice to explore. Our favorite part of the visit though was the state park where we stayed. We'd read the reviews that the flies were 'of biblical proportions'; we'd have to agree that while their size wasn't all that big, their numbers were the highest we'd ever seen. We had to adopt this weird technique for getting in and out of our RV--smacking the door in a circle to get the flies off then running in. (Likewise for getting out, giving the door a vigorous tapping to shake them off before we opened up.) When new people were pulling into the park and driving past us doing our little routine I'm sure we looked like real OCD cases. (To which we said to ourselves, "Wah ha ha, you'll know soon enough!")

Somehow, that didn't distract us too much from really enjoying this park, and the stargazing at night. 

I'm glad that the park was so beautiful, and the New Mexico nights were as enchanting as ever. Roswell itself seems to be a city missing the opportunity to go full-on cheese. Our dinner conversations were funny, though, as we discussed what type of attractions we'd add. Think along the lines of tubes that suck up visitors randomly, maybe some probing. . . 

Layover in Las Cruces

After a great week in Tucson, we pointed ourselves east again, so that we could get to Roswell and Carlsbad in New Mexico. Our stopping point in between was Las Cruces, which according to the brochures has a thriving main street.

Silly brochures.

Some nice architecture, though.

That being a bust we headed to nearby village plaza of Mesilla, which was good for walking around, and some more interesting architecture. 

While that's about all that we found to keep ourselves busy in between driving days, we did end our visit on a high note at Pro's Ranch Market. This was a super fun place to shop for groceries, and they had delicious tacos. We are so easy to please sometimes.

Truth or Consequences?

Heading south from Albuquerque we made it as far as Elephant Butte, New Mexico. It's a random place, to say the least. We loved the park we stayed at though, as it had big sunny spots great for sitting outside to watch the sunset, and smooth pavement for the kids to scooter around on. 

We'd had weather on the cool side in northern NM, so being a bit south we relished the warmth of this place. 

Our first day there we headed to the neighboring town of Truth or Consequences. It seems like the sort of place you accidentally end up residing in; you roll into town for a night and wake up five years later. There's a very Vonnegut/Robbins vibe going on, which felt amplified given that it was my forty-ish birthday. (As if I should have more of an internal plot and narration going on based on the randomness of the situation, but my end conclusion was that, to be cliche, life was pretty good.)

When I say it looks like people roll into town and stay, it really does look like this happens. This wasn't a trailer park, just sighted on a normal residential corner. You'd see airstreams with built-on rooms right next to posh adobe homes. 

We walked around their downtown, and only a handful of shops were open. Most were closed so their owners could dance or eat pie (that's what their signs indicated, and I'm inclined to believe them). 

The two local bookstores were open, and full of treasures. At the first one we went to the owner just let our kids pick out a book for free. 

The relaxed vibe runs deep here. Yay reading!

Our youngest found this gem, which made him feel ecstatic.

We didn't check out the hot springs here, but they seemed popular with the locals (or the transplanted-now-locals).

What I liked about this place was that the seemingly loose building codes and general randomness led to lots of unique homes that were fun to walk around and see. This isn't a town to visit if you're looking for anything in particular to see or do, but fun for observing a unique way of setting up homes.

Even the UFO signs in New Mexico are rather non-committal. Traveling here we found the frequent highway road sign "Gusty winds may exist" funny in a philosophical sort of way as well.

In Elephant Butte that night we found ourselves at Casa Taco, which was like their local Cheers. We felt right at home and ate ourselves silly, the perfect celebration and start of a new year!

 

We liked it so much we went there our second night, too. (After that night it felt like we ate salad for a week straight, to compensate for our attachment to the cuisine of New Mexico.)

Sauntering Around Santa Fe

In continuing the theme we'd started in New Mexico, we continued eating our way through Santa Fe. (I know, friends, such a surprise, right?) In what was maybe our longest day on record, we started the morning at the Balloon Fiesta (with a 4am wakeup), ate a green chili breakfast burrito and funnel cake for breakfast at the Fiesta Park, then headed north to Santa Fe. We'd heard about the Horseman's Haven Cafe before, but also recently caught Anthony Bourdain's review of it on CNN. We were there for brunch, and to the New Mexico question of "red or green?" we answered green--going for the hotness!

Someone is really excited to dig in!

And on the other side, we're more excited to eat toast. I even ordered an extra side of it. We didn't bring a toaster on this trip, and it's a serious regret!

We were full, seriously and uncomfortably full, when we finally left. It was great to get to Santa Fe by lunchtime, and have the entire day before us for exploring. We immediately declared it fabulous when we found a parking spot right away on historic route 66 by a local bookstore. We can't pass these up, and our traveling home has added more than a couple of books into its cubbies. (It's as if I've completely forgotten standing amongst piles of books to sort before we left and declaring book collecting my worst habit.) Luckily, the kids are growing out of clothes (up, not out, despite what these giant plates of food might lead you to guess), so at least we're lightening our load by donating those along the way.

The architecture, plaza, and churches in Santa Fe are unique and beautiful. We have short attention span for shopping, but happily spent most of the day wandering around and enjoying the Santa Fe vibes.

In the afternoon we checked out the Georgia O'Keefe museum. It was a nice museum, but they must only display a fraction of their collection. I think that even with serious study and time spent looking at the works, an hour is a fair amount of time to spend here. It was nice to introduce the kids to her art, and it really is so much better in person. They were able to see how her flower and landscape paintings nearly glow and reflect light, but in the gift shop the books and prints they saw didn't do the art justice. 

Later, it was great to see that they recognized this mission from one of her paintings.

Dinner time came and went, and we were all still full from brunch. Around 9pm we finally hit the last place on our agenda, which we'd pulled long ago from Sunset magazine's recommendations, and went to El Parasol for dinner. It was just a couple of tacos at this point, as we still weren't hungry but felt the need to check something off of our long standing wish list. It was a great end to the day, and after about thirty seconds in the car we had three sleeping kids. 

However, they have all declared that green chili isn't worth it (the taste is great, but the heat sticks with you all day), so we're going to be a red chili family. I hope we don't lose any friends over that declaration. =)

~Judy