That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. The title is not deceiving you. We have TWO SUNDAYS LEFT of our adventures. Where oh where did all that time go? In a week we’ll be home in Vegas for Christmas family fun time, and what happens the week after that remains to be seen. But instead of looking to the future, let’s get to living in the past!

Brian left you last week with tales of our troublesome drive to El Paso, after a day of exploring underground craziness in Carlsbad Caverns. (If you didn’t get enough of those cave pictures, don’t worry – we have more.) The rest of the evening was mostly uneventful, except for the part where I missed the turn to the rest area and we had to double back and try again. Did I mention yet how much our extra phone’s GPS freakin’ SUCKCKKS sometimes and sends us all kinds of weird ways? Anyway, we awoke the next morning to a mostly empty rest area and lots and lots of rain. This wouldn’t be our last taste of precipitation this week either. We roused slowly and begrudgingly, dashing across several spaces to a covered picnic area to set up our stove top. This morning we felt like being exotic and eating something different than oatmeal and coffee – it was time for a can o’ soup breakfast! We ate quickly and proceeded to use nature’s sink (aka a rain puddle) to rinse out our bowls. Don’t worry, we also soaped them up and used fresh(?) rain water to rinse a final time. So economical! So water conservational!!

We were a little miffed at the weather situation as our day’s plans included walking. Outside. We checked the forecast and saw that it was only supposed to rain until 3pm, so we busied ourselves at a Marshall’s in downtown El Paso finding white elephant gifts and seasonal chocolatey treats in the meantime. We also headed into a Costco for some samples and, my goodness, we were not disappointed! Word to the wise for Costco members (or folks with an expired membership card that you can flash at the door ehehehe) – Go around Christmas. We were there on a Monday afternoon but the sample tables were out en masse. There was a table at the end of every aisle. We sampled SO MANY THINGS. Brian recently informed me from his mysterious but probably >74% true sources that Costco makes the majority of its money on membership fees. So make that membership worth your while and gorge on the freebies, y’all!

After we were all sampled out, it was time to head farther downtown toward the Paso Del Norte International Bridge, which had been at the center of a bit of a humanitarian crisis earlier this year. We found parking nearby and headed toward the bridge on foot to add the third and final country to our North America Tour. Thankfully the impromptu under-the-bridge cage of human beings was nowhere in sight by the time we made our crossing from El Paso into Juárez, Mexico.

We only had about 2 hours of daylight to work with and, being unfamiliar tourists in the area, we were hoping to get back across the bridge and to our car before nightfall. This left us just enough time to get a little taste of the surroundings, but we enjoyed what we saw. We headed down the long street to a city square with a little gazebo, a fountain, a row of shops, and some sculptures and monuments scattered around a small park. It was very picturesque and cute and there were all kinds of tasty smells wafting through the air from vendor carts lining the road. We walked through all of this toward the Ciudad Juarez Cathedral and the attached Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Indios Mansos del Paso del Norte. We looked around a little but we didn’t try to pronounce their names. There were a good number of folks both inside with bowed heads and outside reading up on the history of the buildings, presented beside photos in plaques throughout the grounds. Unfortunately neither of us could read Spanish, so most of the information was lost on us. But that’s what the internet is for! Look it up if you’re interested.

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After our wandering, we headed up through a different area of the market and I cringed at some seriously scary plastic finger models displaying different nail designs outside a salon. All of that walking made us thirsty, so it was off to the notorious (and apparently world famous) Kentucky Club for some margaritas. Legend has it they were invented at this very place. The bar is small and decorated with lots of lavish, intricate woodwork. It’s been around since the US Prohibition era and doesn’t look like it’s changed a whole lot on the inside since then…except for maybe the paper Christmas decorations that were hanging during our visit. Apparently lots of famous folks have frequented this bar over the years, including Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Liz Taylor and Bob Dylan. And now, Kate and Brian too!

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After our quick tipple it was time to head home again. When we’d crossed from the US side to the Mexico side (for 5 pesos each, or 30 cents – no passport check, no questions) there was a pretty long line of folks on the opposite side waiting in line to enter. By the time we were in their shoes, the line had gone down completely. All we had to do now was get through the turnstile – but first we needed to exchange some money. We were pointed in the direction of an exchange stop about 20 yards from the bridge entrance. Without words I handed over a dollar and got some unfamiliar coins back. We took them to the guard at the turnstile and after a brief and amusing moment of confusion of money denominations, followed by a kind fellow officer giving us a peso (we needed exact change and didn’t have it), followed by a face-off between the turnstile that DID NOT WANT TO ACCEPT THAT PESO and a guard that was even more determined than the machine, we were back on the bridge again. When we came through to the US side we had to go through a much more official looking passage, with guards sitting at computers who scanned our passports and everything. My passport was scanned about 8 times with the officer huffing and rolling his eyes after each unsuccessful scan. He waved me through eventually, though I’m not sure the problem got resolved. That white privilege in America, amirite ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

On the other side of the border is an adorable historic downtown area of El Paso with lots of open-front stores selling all kinds of stuff, from candles to fruit and veggies to handbags. We decided we wanted to avoid temptation and cut back through a side street to get to our car. El Paso and Juarez, you were such fun to visit. Maybe next time we’ll be able to spend a little longer. Keep that border open, would ya? The remainder of the evening was pretty calm – a late-night Starbucks session for some tea and free wifi, then we split a bowl from Chipotle before heading out to our campsite for the night.

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We awoke at the Baylor Pass trailhead in Las Cruces, NM with very full bladders. There were no facilities here so we decided we’d have to hop outside and find a bush or a tree. Unfortunately, the trailhead/campground that had been nearly empty the night before was now full of people, with more vehicles arriving all the time. Apparently, this is the place to go for hiking in Las Cruces! We made some oats and coffee and I set up a makeshift privacy tent out of an oversized blanket. Gosh, I’ll really miss these little details of on-the-road life when I have a reliable toilet to use every morning. We packed up the car after breakfast and were off to the next place.

Our original route had taken us a little farther east to Roswell for some alien type tourist stuff, but we soon changed our plans when we saw that a more direct route to Albuquerque would instead take us through towns named Truth or Consequences and Elephant Butte (teeheehee). Plus, we live right by Area 51 and can get our extraterrestrial jollies there whenever we like!

(While writing this blog I google “Roswell” and exclaim “aw, man!” when I find that Roswell has the International UFO Museum and Research Center. AWWW, MAN! Well, at least we have the Little A’Le’Inn… and this guy)

We were oh so excited for these silly towns with their silly names, but when we arrived we had all of the excitement sucked out of us. Aside from the names, these places were BO-RING! In fact, I imagine they had to come up with fun names to entice tourists into visiting because otherwise nobody would come. More appropriate names would be Bare White Toast and Sunday Service. I’m falling asleep from this blandness! We stopped for gas and nothing else.

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Finally we arrived in Albuquerque. We had little in the way of expectations for this place, other than what we’d learned from loved ones who’ve visited and AMC super smash TV hit series Breaking Bad. Some parts of our expectations were more accurate than others. Our first stop was the Pueblo Cultural Center for dinner at the Pueblo Harvest Cafe. They focus on modernizing lots of traditional southwestern cuisine and one thing that had been recommended to us in the region was Indian tacos (shout out to Alison for knowing what’s up, as always). They’re similar to the tacos you know and love, but served on fluffy fry bread! This place didn’t have full tacos on the menu, just “taco bites”, but we got the idea. And we liked it.

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Our home for the evening was Torrance Country campground in Edgewood, New Mexico. We arrived late and it was already dark. We saw one other car parked near the entrance to the dispersed camping area with his lights on. We paid him no mind and drove by, finding a spot on a little side loop that wasn’t visible from the main road, tucked behind some juniper trees (we love a good juni, we do). A few moments later we saw that same car driving by the main road…and then saw him driving back the opposite way. I briefly wondered if he was lost, or perhaps a murderer, but those thoughts soon faded as we drifted off to sleep.

I woke up the next morning with a yucky migraine. I took a pill and went back to sleep while Brian read in bed. When we were finally ready to greet the day, we had a chance to get a better view of this place we’d pulled into in the darkness. The thing we noticed the most was the mud. We didn’t notice it before we got out of the car, however, so I stepped out in my moccasins and almost had them sucked off my feet when I tried to take a step. Oopsie! Brian cooked us some pasta for breakfast, which was really more like lunch because it was almost 1pm by the time we ate it. We quickly washed up and got back on the road, with only a momentary lapse of traction in the mud while Lloyd found his footing. Back into ABQ!

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We headed to a store that I won’t mention specifically, because our reason for visiting was to look for secret santa gifts. Some of the people included in this exchange might read the blog, so no clues for you! We left and contemplated getting pie in a cafe down the street, but contemplation ended after we saw the price tag on these slices. $6.95 for a slice of pie!? What is this, The Ritz? Instead we moved on to the Bow & Arrow Brewery to try some of the beers that we were teased with at Pueblo Harvest the night before (both of our first choices were Bow & Arrow beers and both were no longer available ☹️). The brewery was a pretty typical open plan taproom space with long tables and a brewhouse visible through window walls. They were setting up a gingerbread decorating class when we arrived which was ADORABLE but apparently only for children. We drank a couple of beers – fringe jacket saison and juicy skies hazy IPA for me, and savage times sour IPA for Brian – and soaked in the ambiance. Soon it was time to move on to another bar for a very special event.

We had wondered what to do with our evening in ABQ and found lots of events listed. One stood out to us more than any of the others – The Yule Ball at Saltyard East! That is, HARRY POTTER TRIVIA NIGHT! A local bar had Harry Potter themed trivia, solely from the books and based on Christmas celebrations throughout the saga. How perfect is that? We were feeling a little apprehensive as it’s been about 5 years since Brian has last listened to the Harry Potter audiobooks and at least 8+ years since I’ve read any of the books. We consider ourselves pretty big fans, though, and we hoped that would get us through. We were wrong. The rest of these guys were SERIOUS Harry Potter nerds. They threw the most obscure questions at us and at least 3 other teams got most of them correct. Questions like “which two songs by this vaguely mentioned wizard band did this minor character like?” Crazy stuff. If we had more of our regular trivia crew with us we’re pretty sure their Potter knowledge could’ve supplemented our own, but just the two of us did pretty poorly. We got a few right, though! But…don’t worry about where we placed.

La Bajada rest area was our spot for the night. It was a nice quiet rest stop with only a handful of other travelers around at any one time. The evenings have started getting very chilly so we have to take our time tucking things here and covering things there to keep us nice and warmy. Despite the frosty air outside, we’ve been comfy cozy most nights. When we woke up we didn’t bother making breakfast, as we were heading into Santa Fe and Brian had his heart set on some tasty southwestern breakfast foods. A quick google search with some appetizing photos led us to The Pantry. We were sat immediately and started ogling all the plates around us to help us decide what to eat. In the end Brian went with huevos rancheros and I opted for a breakfast burrito with veggie sausage. Everything was delicious and there was so much of it! We sat for a while digesting and conversing, trying to figure out what to do with the day.

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We decided to go to a Starbucks to hop on some wifi first, both so that we could look up things to do and so that I could try to see what was going on with the UK election. Let’s not talk about the latter. We had wanted to visit the capitol building beforehand, but there was no parking whatsoever and the roads were all small and one-way. To avoid unnecessary amounts of road rage, we nixed this part of the plan. At Starbucks we relaxed, watched crowds flock in for happy hour, and I watched Frasier (intermittently checking election results) while Brian got a couple of hours of work done. When we’d had enough, we left for a new fun and exciting adventure.

We were off to Meow Wolf! Meow Wolf kind of vaguely describes itself as a collective that specializes in “immersive environments that are maximalist in nature and allow for audience-driven experiences.” We were intrigued by what we read online but had no real idea of what to expect when we entered the main Santa Fe project, called House of Eternal Return. I’ll copy the description from the website because I don’t know if I could find words to adequately describe this place: “The House is a 20,000 square foot art exhibit designed by the Meow Wolf collective. There are dozens of rooms, secret passages and interactive light and musical objects with which guests can play for hours or investigate the mystery of the Selig family, who disappeared one night after conducting a forbidden experiment inside their Victorian mansion. Who were the Seligs? Where did they go? and why is their home overrun by figures in white lab coats?”

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When we bought our tickets and hit the restroom before entering, we were given a vague idea of what to expect inside the main exhibit/”house.” However, it’s definitely a build up of craziness until you’re thrown into this world where you don’t really know what to make of anything all of a sudden. It was pretty cool. We entered the “house” through a back/side entrance that meant we crawled through the fireplace into a living room full of other visitors watching a video on the TV. Quite the entrance. As we explored, Brian focused a little more on solving the mystery at hand; I focused more on covering as much ground as possible and seeing all there was to see. We both did some of both, though. Brian ended up seeing things that I wasn’t able to find, and I eventually figured out the code to unlock the safe that had secrets stashed inside it. My only regret from this place was that we didn’t have more time – we arrived around 5:30 and they closed at 8, which we’d thought would be plenty of time based on the online recommendation of 90-120 minutes. That was a gross underestimation. We could’ve spent twice as long in there without getting sick of watching people walk into a fridge. We were happy to learn, however, that Meow Wolf is coming to Vegas in 2020! After being ushered out at closing time we made a quick pitstop at a local Panera and then headed out to Dunes Vehicle Recreation Area for the night.

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We woke up on the outskirts of Farmington, NM with a few hopes for the day. One was that we’d be able to find a Planet Fitness and take a shower, as it had been several days at this point and we were starting to get pretty ripe. We found no such thing in Farmington. Instead we just made our oats and coffee and departed the dunes.

Our first stop was the Four Corners monument. I’d wanted to go here for a while because I just thought it was a neat idea. It’s on native land and there’s a fee to enter the grounds, but luckily it was really quiet when we visited so we didn’t have to wait at all to take our stereotypical tourist photos on the convergence of the corners.

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Eight minutes, and 2 laps around the four states, later, we were back on the road again. We drove through miles and miles of beautiful southwestern scenery and got a feeling that we were basically home…just without all the loved ones and bright shiny lights. We made a stop at City Market in Cortez, Colorado for a few basics like bread rolls, apples and delicious Boar’s Head brand Italian Herb Coated Mozzarella. My days at the Sprouts deli counter made me fall madly and deeply in love with this cheese. When we saw some on sale, we knew it’d be coming with us. After a quick parking lot lunch we headed to Durango, CO for the afternoon.

This was a really cute, postcard perfect picturesque mountain town. The Christmas lights strung up around the businesses just added to the atmosphere. We stopped by another Starbucks (who would’ve guessed?) to find a campsite nearby, as our plans had somewhat changed from the route we had before. After soaking up some wifi and warmth, we were headed to a BLM land area near the entrance of Mesa Verde National Park. It had started snowing while we were inside and continued throughout our drive. We arrived in the dark but we couldn’t help but notice a couple of things. The first was the double animal print sports car at a spot near the front. Zebra and leopard print? Jazzy! The other thing was the mud. It was even muddier than the last muddy puddle we parked in. We set up the car, made a quick pot of soup and piled into the back. We had to wrap our boots up in trash bags to maintain the mess.

The next morning we put our muddy boots back on and assessed the damage. It was like wearing platform shoes, if the platform was comprised entirely of twigs and juniper berries and crunchy rocky mud. Brian made some PB+J rolls while I cleaned the soupy dishes from the night before and took in our beautiful snowy surroundings. When it came to leaving, Brian got behind Lloyd in case he needed a little extra push. Thankfully we didn’t get stuck here either and were on the road in no time.

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Mesa Verde National Park hadn’t been on our initial list for our tour of the region but we added it after Brian had done a little research and was eager to visit. The visitor center was our first stop, where we learned all sorts of info about the park from the park employees (who happened, on this day, to outnumber the visitors.) They told us about how the Pueblo people had lived on the mesa for 700 years, farming and developing their practices all the while. Eventually they migrated from homes on top of the mesa to communal villages in the cliff faces. Some of the villages are still in beautiful condition and can be seen from several points on the road around the park. We stopped at a museum further along the path and saw all kinds of artifacts recovered from the area over the past hundred or so years. I was blown away by all the uses they found for the yucca plant! Lock up your yuccas when I get home, ladies and gentlemen. I have some experiments to conduct.

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We could have spent more time hiking trails around the park, but it was chilly at the warmest point of the day and we had quite a way to drive after departing. We stopped by J Fargo’s family diner and micro brewery on the way to our next camping spot for some beers, onion petals and a veggie burger to split. After refueling we hit the road for a few hours on the way to the 7 Sailors BLM just outside Mexican Hat, UT. On the way we saw a little group of horses crossing the road next to Winterhorse High School, presumably headed home after the high school horse dance. This was only one of three nature documentary occurrences today! On our way up the mesa we saw a herd of deer, which I forgot to mention earlier and will just throw in now. When we arrived at our spot for the night we saw something scuttling across the floor. After watching for a second we realized it was a kangaroo mouse! Adorable!!

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That takes us all the way to Sunday. We woke up and opened the door to see snow falling all around us. Brian bundled up and braved the cold to make us some oatmeal and coffee while I bundled up and took my time organizing things inside the car. We shared the duty of cleaning our dishes as the snow started falling in a fatter and faster flurry. Our final destination for the day was New Harmony, UT where we’d be staying with Brian’s dad and his wife Tammy. On the way we had planned to pass through Monument Valley to take in all of the spectacular scenery.

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Unfortunately, there was whiteness as far as the eye could see. We were able to see some of the big chonkers up close in the village of Monument Valley, but all of the good stuff along the route was blanketed in white. We went through varying amounts of snowfall during our 5 hours of travel. The classic southwestern scenery we’ve grown used to in southern Nevada was sprinkled in what looked like powdered sugar. Eventually we wound our way through the mountains and found ourselves in New Harmony. We were greeted by the welcoming honks of two geese and a lot of love from our new canine friend Daisy. We got acquainted with Tammy and Brian’s dad Bob over some delicious spaghetti and salad – shout out to Tammy for making references to previous blog posts! We love our adoring fans. They showed us around their basement apartment, which we’ll be using as a nice warm home base to explore nearby New Harmony proper and Zion National Park over the next few days. We’re so grateful to be in their company – such generous hosts! Not to mention they have SUCH COZY MEMORY FOAM PILLOWS. Wait and hear what kind of fun we get into from Brian next week.

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Until then…❤️