New Mexico Adventure

I wrote all these entries up after the fact, as I wanted to focus my time on enjoying the vacation, and just reordered the dates so that they appear sequentially while visiting the blog. Anyway, all six New Mexico entries are now uploaded.



Lately, I've been trying to make my trips involve seeing friends while visiting a new place. I continued this trend with my trip to New Mexico. Some friends had moved out to New Mexico a while back, and I had never been there. For a small trip for Spring Break, it seemed like the perfect destination. The plan was to take a road trip and then tour a little bit of the area around Santa Fe.


My companion for this trip was Karen, a friend from college. Her and I had traveled through Italy in 2008. She moved to New Mexico several years ago to pursue a masters in Art Therapy. I hadn't seen her in a couple of years, and had been meaning to visit for a while.

I landed in Albuquerque late on Thursday night. Rather than rushing up to Santa Fe and bothering Karen and and her husband, Bill (another friend from our scholarship group) at midnight, I spent the night in Albuquerque. While waiting for Karen to get off work the next day, I toured Albuquerque a little bit.

Many of the towns in New Mexico were founded by the Spanish a long time ago. A legacy of this remains in the presence of a central plaza. So, it felt like a natural first stop in the city.

First I checked out the old town, with its plaza.

Now, Old Town is nice enough, but it definitely felt touristy. The streets of Old Town are lined with various restaurants and shops. I wandered through the church yard (but did not enter), picked up another rosary in the attached gift shop, then took a stroll through the streets.


Given that I come from a long line of potters, I couldn't resist ducking into a pottery outlet shop. I picked up a couple of pieces that were similar to these ones.

Honestly, I was done with Old Town relatively quickly. I wasn't really souvenir hunting this trip, and (like is usually the case) most of the pieces I actually liked were far too expensive.

Next I drove west of town, to the Petroglyph National Monument. Between 400-700 years ago, the native population carved designs onto the volcanic rocks of the region. These designs are all over the place in the park, found on a large number of rocks seemingly at random.


There were several small hiking areas in the park, each with a couple of trails. I only visited Boca Negra canyon.

I had read at some points that the early spanish settlers also drew some petroglyphs, though I had no way to tell which was which. Also, lacking a manual, much of the symbolism was lost on me. I could really only enjoy the petroglyphs on a surface level.


Petroglyph national park was pretty close to residential areas.

I liked this design - the spiral bisected by a straight crack in the rock.

A collection of petroglyphs.

Albuquerque, from the hill in Boca Negra canyon.

I have reached the End, apparently.

After completing my hike, I had lunch, picked up some supplies for camping and hiking, and then headed North to meet up with Karen. That night, we had dinner with Jaymin (another person I went to undergrad with now living in Santa Fe) and one of Karen’s local friends, Paul at a restaurant just around the block from Karen's place.

My food bravery plummets without Zane to goad me and a lack of "safe" options. This trip was not a culinary adventure. At dinner that night, I had Tacos (boring, I know). To my credit (if you're feeling generous), I did sample some some of the green chile that is so prevalent in this region. First I tried it straight. I must say, it’s much more palatable when placed in something else, like tacos. Still, it wasn't unpleasant and actually tasted good (if a tiny bit hot for my pathetic spice tolerance).

Following this, we turned in. We had a long day ahead of us; Karen had planned an 11-hours-of-driving road trip to begin at 8am the next day.