The Land of Enchantment – Day 6 and 7

I’ve been blogging about our 10 day excursion to New Mexico. If you would like to start at day one, click here. Lots of great stuff!

Day six in New Mexico was pretty uneventful… other than the fact that Meagan left!  We took her to the airport really early, and I nearly cried after we drove away.  I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to have her there with me.  It is truly spectacular to have a friend to share a place like New Mexico with.

Meagan’s flight was connecting in Denver, and there was apparently some terrible weather in Denver that had caused her flight to be delayed by SEVERAL hours.  So Scott and I decided to stay close by just in case we needed to go back and pick her up at the airport.  Bless her heart… she was so ready to get home to her husband!

Scott and I didn’t really do much.  We ate lunch in Old Towne Albuquerque, and we hung out at the hotel most of the day.  We had been on the go so much since our arrival to New Mexico, we needed the down time.  But here are a few pics from Old Towne again.  I thought the Indian was cute.  He was an authentic Indian, but he stood out in the street with his stereo playing background music.  Give a tip?  He performed!  It actually was quite fabulous!  And of course I found more chili peppers and fascinating windows to photograph!  I finally found out that hanging chili peppers outside your door is a sign of good luck!

After we spent a relaxing day in Albuquerque, we headed back to the hotel early so that we could watch some television, edit a few pictures, and plan our day for day 7.  Scott had been such a trooper the whole week, and drove me and Meagan around wherever we wanted to go.  So I made him pick what we were going to do next.  He decided that he wanted to go to Roswell to see if we could see any aliens and spaceships.  So we got up dark and early and headed south to Roswell.  We didn’t see any real live aliens or space ships, but we saw a really cheezy museum.  Even Scott hated it.  If you ever get the idea that you want to visit the museum in Roswell… DONT!  Instead… just drive around and get lost in the desert like we ended up doing after the museum.  I swear to you this was probably one of the most fun days I had while in New Mexico.  Scott and I just drove down every back road we could find between Roswell and Albuquerque until it got dark!  We decided we would keep driving north toward Albuquerque, but we wouldn’t officially head back until it was dark, then we would tell the gps to take us back to the hotel!  Here are a few things that we saw along the way!  I’m telling you… the more deserted the road looked, the better!

OH!  And is it me?  Or does it look like the alien in the second photograph is shooting me the bird?  He should be ashamed!

One of my favorite things about New Mexico is the history and culture, and how the spirituality of this land is so enchanting.  There is no wonder why this state is called the Land of Enchantment.  So you can only imagine the excitement that rose up through the pit of my stomach when we ACCIDENTALLY stumbled upon the ABO Ruins at the Salinas Pueble Missions!  It was getting dark quickly, but I managed to pull off a tiny bit of the sunset as we pulled up.  I think I actually took the sunset shot out of my car window.  The funny thing is… when we drove up, we heard wolves howling very close by.  We almost didn’t walk around this place because it was getting dark and we had no idea what the wolves would do to us… and nobody knew where we were.  But this place was so captivating.  We decided to brave the wolves, and walk around to see what we could get along the trail.  It was gorgeous!

By the time we left this place, it was pitch black!  So we headed back to Albuquerque after telling Laura Lou (my gps) to take us back to the hotel!  And once again… I had to listen to N2Deep playing “Back to the Hotel.”  I’m such and 80′s geek!  But day 7 was one of my faves.  It was way too fun just getting lost in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico!  Scott and I needed this time together to ourselves.  We barely even left the car the majority of the day.  We just rode around, got lost, held hands, and talked all day long!