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| New Mexico’s history of the Puebla peoples is throughout the state |
Having never spent any significant time in New Mexico, we really didn’t know what we would find there. Our first stop in Taos was brief but we visited a Historic Cultural Site that was truly very interesting. (Ok, actually first we stopped for a pizza lunch as I started having a craving for it. Then, we headed over to the historic site) 
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| Our guide Summer’s family has owned their family adobe home for many many generations in Taos Pueblo |
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| The church in the village is central |
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| Beautifully carved church doors |
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| The original site of the village church which was destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt |
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| A typical village adobe home |
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| Adobe wood ovens |
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| What might look like a “car port” is actually where the homeowners would dry their crops |
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| This village also has hunting and gathering rights to this mountain. The river from the mountain runs right through the middle of the village. |
Next, we boogied down the road to Santa Fe. We had a few days here so we were able to explore a little more. We enjoyed a nice dinner at The Shed where we put our names in for a table and they called us 2 hours later. It was worth it! We learned the difference between “red or green” chili sauce 🌶 as that is the question of New Mexican cuisine: red = hot and green = mild. We are green fans. The sauce is added to many dishes and appears to be the standard.
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| A beautiful church in Old Santa Fe |
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| This dog (rode with his owner at our Santa Fe campground) looks like our son Alex’s dog, Bleecker. So I had to take his picture |
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| Chile Rellenos with Green Sauce at The Shed |
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| Pork Tamales with Green Sauce at The Shed |
Santa Fe is home to The Georgia O’Keefe Museum. We spent several hours there and learned much about her interesting life. Also in the area was the New Mexico Historic museum. There we were exposed to the rich history of the state. Close by our campground, were some examples of ancient petroglyphs carved into the rocks of an old trade route. We hiked up those rocks and scrambled along them to see these special markings. We also visited a hilltop military post Fort Marcy where during the Mexican-American War the military kept the Santa Fe locals reminded that they were now part of the US territory. Besides the dark history, the view of the city was spectacular from way up there.
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| Some of the petroglyphs we saw in Santa Fe |
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| Climbing the rocks |
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| A lovely lunch on the Plaza of Santa Fe at the oldest cafe there |
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| Huge dog sculpture near the Georgia O’Keefe museum |
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| Fort Marcy |
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| View of Santa Fe from Fort Marcy |
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| We found a local brewery and sampled some of their wares |
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| Dogs are very welcome in almost all Santa Fe establishments. Not sure they meant “all dogs”, (Agi and Bodi are more comfortable in their own digs) |
Just an hour south of Santa Fe lies the big city of Albuquerque. It was here that I was reacquainted with my Uncle Terry who I haven’t seen in 44 years! We also met his lovely special lady friend Sue. They shared with us their love of hiking the beautiful mountains that surround this valley city. As we were preoccupied with a certain Fiesta, we never had time to go explore those beautiful trails.
The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta celebrated its 50th Anniversary during our visit there. We camped on the fairgrounds of the festival with 970 other campers and had front row seats for the daily aerial events. Vic ticked off one of his big bucket list items with a ride up in one of those beautiful balloons. We got to experience the opening ceremonies of the 9 day Fiesta that left us breathless. The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta is a “Must See” event that we are thrilled we got to experience. They expected to have over 600 balloons go up that first morning, with 80,000 people meandering around the field as they get ready to launch. As each balloon would fill successfully the crowd that had gathered to watch that balloons team would cheer and clap as they began to lift and float away. It was really fun! Pictures tell the best story:
It was when we were in Albuquerque that we made the painful decision to end our trip early as Hurricane Ian was tearing our home state apart. It was very difficult, scary, and stressful to be orchestrating the evacuation of my dad Larry and son Burke. The news media and our county officials were keeping us very well informed of the predictions of the storm and our home address was right in the bullseye. There was a mandatory evacuation of our zone, so they had to leave quickly. The storm took a sharp east turn just 60 miles south of us, sparing our home and neighbors. Our hearts are very saddened of the great loss of life caused by this massive storm. With all that was going on, we felt very strongly that hat we needed to get home.
So, instead of heading west to Tucson to visit Rich and Shelby (of also Coeur d’Alene), my cousin Peter and many wonderful experiences, we kept our path going southward. We made two quick stops at White Sands National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Both were unique experiences and probably needed more time to truly explore, but our hearts were set to get home as quickly as possible.
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| Sunrise at our boondocking campsite near Carlsbad Caverns NP |
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| It was eerie to be driving through what looked like snow, but it was 80 degrees |
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| Vic on top of one the sand hills |
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| The caves are HUGE!! |
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| This is where the 300,000 or so bats emerged from their caves. No electronics during the bay flight as it would disturb their process. Just imagine hundreds and hundreds flitting out of the hole and swirling up into the evening sky… |
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| Stalagmites and Stalactites |
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| A ladder down a huge hole from probably 150 years ago |
I’m writing this as we are beginning our crossing of the Great, Huge, Expansive, Big State of Texas. It’s really big, if I wasn’t very clear….
