Road Trip Diaries Day 16: New Mexico Wins the Pretty Sky Award

     Hello from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm lounging on a comfy bed in the aging but still cute Route 66 Hostel (Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel came here!) while Caitlin plays some excellent classic rock. Her taste in music and portable speakers have been a godsend these past two weeks. And this moment is pretty darn perfect. I've settled down from my let's-go-all-day-and-see-everything-possible mode, and sitting in a private hostel suite listening to Pink Floyd and Eric Clapton and The Animals is hard to beat when I'm this tired. mmmm acoustic guitar...

In A Nutshell: Overview of Day 16 
Route: Denver, CO to Albuquerque, NM
Miles traveled: 451 today, 5,623 total.
Hours in car: 7.5 hours today, 71 total.
Coffee consumed: Caitlin: 2 today, 21 total. Cortney: 0 today, 5 total. Combined: 26. Although I probably lost track of a few, these are just the ones I remember. I'm more of a tea drinker.
Food highlight of the day: Finally getting some real Spanish rice after fantasizing about it since last week.
Quote of the day: Caitlin: "I'm completing my slow but inevitable transformation into a gay man." This while admiring a striped scarf in a thrift store named Plato's Closet.

It's weird being this close to California again.

New Mexico: Way Prettier than I expected. And certainly way prettier than Nebraska. 

     As I mentally prepared myself for another day on the road, I imagined today would be full of flat ugly desert. Kind of like Nevada, where there are few things other than prisons and signs telling you not to pick up hitchhikers. (Note: Nevada is obviously not on this trip. I crossed it on my way to and from South Dakota when I worked there in 2008. And to those who live in Nebraska or Nevada, please don't take offense- I know your states may have decent and interesting areas too, but driving across them in their entirety.... oy).

What I expected from New Mexico
(photo taken in Montana)

What New Mexico actually looks like

But back to New Mexico: When I saw the sign announcing that we had crossed the border from Colorado to New Mexico, I was taken aback by the fact that we were surrounded by pleasant green hills and striking mountains. And even as the dirt became redder and the trees became shorter, New Mexico remained stunning and hilly and a nice pale shade of green all the way until we reached Santa Fe to take a short break. 

     We stopped in Santa Fe for about 40 minutes, because a number of people have told me I needed to stop there. And it's cute. Full of little square adobe buildings and slowly ambling tourists with big cameras around their necks. It seems like a good place for a retreat, like the ones I went on at my Catholic high school. It is very Catholic in its roots, too. Signs all around the cathedral proclaim "Celebrating 400 years of faith!" Caitlin has a more cynical way of putting that. Missions have a rather dark history, but today this place is a lot friendlier and very pretty. 

 

I got some mango sorbet, strolled through the little plaza, and it was time to go. Santa Fe is quaint and quiet and it has two Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's within minutes of each other. Road tripping college students clearly don't belong here. It is for people with money who like a pretty little town, as far as I can tell. And there are lots of flowers. It reminds me of my grandma's house. 

     Albuquerque is only about an hour south of Santa Fe, and quite a different place. The land dries out after Santa Fe and is full of creosote bushes. 

Still more exciting than a lot of our drives

     Albuquerque is a fairly big city, with bars and pizza places and all kinds of noisy hangouts that would not dare rear their heads in the adobe-clad historic district of Santa Fe. Perhaps in other parts of Santa Fe, but we did not visit them. 

Albuquerque- I keep calling it Albequirky. 

       Anyway, this seems like a pretty cool spot. I'm still recovering from going out blues dancing last night in Denver though, and alas, tales of New Mexico's nightlife will have to come to pass some other time or in the life of some other person. I'm chillin' in this janky old hostel listening to the Rolling Stones, my 6 day headache has subsided significantly, and I'm enjoying this thoroughly.
     Oh, and about the title of this post- I'm serious, the sky has been amazing this entire day. You can see the bright blue in some of these photos, with perfectly fluffy white clouds, but there were also various shades of grey and even golden clouds hovering over the hills and bluffs, some with streamers of rain visible from where we were on the dry plains. The sky here is remarkably multicolored, and often the horizon will show two or more kinds of weather as it is influenced by the terrain.
      And here's the sunset as viewed from the window of our janky old hostel. Prettiest sky of the whole trip- thank you New Mexico!