Our trip started out like the Fockers…everything fell in to place perfectly. A nice guy that I met at the bar saved me a good seat on the plane (we flew South West, which does not assign seats). We had a few cocktails and played cards for most of the long flight (South West does not offer movies on their cross country flights). My flight left about 40 or so minutes late, but we made up some time in the air and landed just a few minutes after Erin’s plane…she was waiting for me when I disembarked. We got our luggage unusually quick and made our way to the rental car counter where there was no line. The grumpy faced attendant that started to help us decided to go on break mid-way through our rental process and turned us over to Bernadette. Bernadette happily upgraded us from our mid-sized reservation to a brand new PT Cruiser Convertible!! Hell yeah!!
The ride from the airport to the B & B was absolutely beautiful! Living in Florida I forget how amazingly stunning mountains are. I think I like the scenery of the dry high desert over the lush green foliage of humid Florida…or maybe it’s just the change that I like. I do like the architecture in NM better than Florida – everything is Adobe style. Apparently it gets quite cold there and rarely gets too hot so the Adobe is designed to hold heat. Our Innkeepers said that they rarely have to turn on the heat in the winters.
Our B & B was located in a remote area outside of Santa Fe. The house was gorgeous…the pictures on the internet did not do it justice! They have an indoor pool that was built as part of the living area. Just off the kitchen was the patio and pool area. The back wall was all glass looking out over the vast open desert…not a single house in sight.
Fortunately, Erin and I have two very important things in common…we both like to drink and we both love good food! It seems that every day was planned around our meals and every outing included a bar break. People in New Mexico are very passionate people. It became apparent early on that they are very passionate about Tequila…I learned a few things about Tequila that I didn’t know, one being that they do not like Tequila that has color – all the good Tequilas they serve clear. I also never knew that there were so many options and brands of Tequila (none of which are available anywhere near me here in FL). We had some fabulous Margarita’s and I was introduced to Sangrita. Sangrita is a spicy, tomato based sidekick for Tequila. The Tequilas are so good that they are often consumed by sipping rather than mixing in a drink. The Sangrita makes for a nice chaser.
The other thing that the people of New Mexico are passionate about is Turquoise and every jeweler thinks theirs is the best and they will take 30 minutes out of their day to tell you why. Within the first hour of our first adventure we had seen enough Turquoise jewelry to last a lifetime! Erin actually gave in a bought a few pieces…all I bought was a cheap pair of earrings that just happened to match the dress I was wearing that day.
Because I’m a bit of a Negative Nancy I have to briefly touch on one major downfall of our trip. It was freakin’ HOT!!! Yeah, I know it’s the desert, but no one…not the stores, not our B & B, no one has a/c. Apparently it never gets THAT hot there. I know that people use the “but it’s a dry heat” excuse, but I’m not buying it!! I felt like I was cooking in an oven. I guess I’m strange, but I like the humidity. Remember earlier when I mentioned the architecture and that the Adobe holds heat?? Well, we were literally sleeping in a clay oven! There was no place to go to get cool.
We had tons of fun though! We went hiking at a National Monument called Tent Rocks. The area was so beautiful...so much more than any picture can portray. I'm glad that we decided to go!
We went to a town called Madrid that was featured in the movie Wild Hogs. It's an old hippie town. Lots of shops, but not much more. From there we went to the town where Young Guns was filmed. This was a bit of a disappointment, just two short blocks of old west looking buildings...no shops or restaurants, but one very scary looking bar (we opted to avoid this one).
Sunday was spa day. Erin found this awesome spa up in the mountains called
Ten Thousand Waves. We both had fabulous massages and a relaxing visit.
All in all our trip rocked!! I could totally see myself living there (except for maybe the winters). Highly recommend it as a vacation spot...any season (well winter only if you enjoy skiing/snowboarding).
