Joshua and I decided to leave a few days before the rest of the clan, so we could get in some more site seeing, and for the long drive to be a little easier on Ryder. We left Wednesday after he got off work. Our original plan was to drive into Sonora, TX to stay the night and do the caves there in the morning. But, we got into town and Ryder was doing really well on the trip, so we decided to keep on driving. We ended up staying in Whites City, NM ... which is right by Carlsbad Caverns.
(Aliens outside the gift shop in Whites City)
Note to Self... never ever ever stay in another Roadway Inn! UGH! The first room we got had no AC... so they had to move us into a new room... well it was just as bad, bugs in the tub, dirty, toilet leaked, someone cut the wire to the lamps in the room.. can we say GHETTO? Not to mention the beds were rock hard and i was afraid they had bed bugs.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the local diner (the only place to eat in this town) and then headed on up to the caverns. I have never seen anything like it. This thing was HUGE!!! If i could figure out the dang settins on my camera, i would of taken better pics, but pictures dont do this place any justice. We hiked about 2 miles down into this cave. Over 700 feet under ground. It was a pretty awesome experience and I am glad our little family took the scenic route to Colorado so we could take these mini vacations on our way.
After the caverns, we had lunch and headed out to the road again. Joshua wanted to drive into Cimarron, NM to stay in a haunted hotel... but there was no way that was going to happen... so we found ourselves in Santa Fe. On our way we drove through Roswell ... I have always heard this is where there was supposively a UFO spotting, but never in a million years did i know what I was getting myself into! I have never seen a town like this in my life. It looks like it threw up aliens! haha... everywhere you looked there were aliens.
Santa Fe wasn't anything like what I thought it would be... I guess I was expecting a big city... with skyscrapers and buildings... but it was the complete opposite. Everything in this part of New Mexico is made of adobe... and every building looks exactly the same! We lucked out with the weather... typically it is pretty hot there, but they had gotten a cool front that evening and we were walking around it 65 degree weather! We stayed in a much nicer hotel this night, to make up for the night before. We stayed at the Eldorado. We took Ry swimming in the heated outdoor pool on the rooftop before dinner, and got our room upgraded due to the AC not working properly. (Seems like an ongoing thing now) We walked into to town to get dinner at this place called Cowgirls. It was super cute, patio in the front with live music, then a patio in the back called the "kiddie corral." Where do you think we sat? :) Ry had a blast playing on the playground while we ate our dinner and enjoyed the weather. For dessert we had the "ice cream potato" ...take a look. Ice cream rolled in cocoa powder... with wipped cream and nuts as the "sour cream and chives" and icing as the butter. :) It looked a lot better than it tasted. :-/
The next morning we were off to Colorado! I had forgotten what mountains looked like! :) All Ryder had been talking about the whole trip so far is how he wanted to climb a mountain. So as soon as we came to the mountains in Northern New Mexico, we got out to let him climb his first mountain!
Joshua's favorite town was Eagles Nest, NM population 250ish. Gorgeous mountain town with a little lake. We stopped by the little museum/trading post and talked to a few locals. There was a guy there carving logs with his chain saw... incredible. We took a picture of some of his work! He travels all over the US carving.
When Joshua was a kid, he and his family took a trip to Philmont which is a VERY large boyscout camp. We had to stop at the park entrance and take a picture! :) I have a feeling this picture will be framed and most likely put in his office. :) It was cool to sit and listen to all the different things they did at this camp when he was younger. The lady at the museum told us there were over 5,000 campers there while we were driving through. Just nuts! But, I am glad we got to see this. Philmont is in Cimarron, NM which just so happens to be where the haunted hotel is that he wanted me to stay in! :) That wasn't going to happen, so I atleast agreen to have lunch there. It was actually a pretty cool hotel. It was built in the 1800's and they havent really changed a whole lot about it. You can actually still stay in rooms that have no AC and no running water. (no thanks) We took a few pictures just to prove that i did in fact visit this haunted hotel. :) Cimarron was our last stop before finally making it into Colorado!
A new blog of the Colorado part of the trip...coming soon
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