Our Thanksgiving Road Trip To New Mexixo

Dear Kiddos, 

The last time we traveled was over 6 months ago when we went camping when school got out and since we all had an entire week off from school, I planned our first family road trip to New Mexico. After I found out about how every 4th grader in the US is eligible for a free family National Parks pass, I applied for the card and started to look up all of the National Parks within driving distance. New Mexico had the greatest concentration so we would get the most bang for our time in the car. 

Here's an overview of our itinerary: 

Austin  to Ft. Stockton. 

Ft. Stockton to Carlsbad Caverns, (With a pit stop in Pecos, TX for some legit, authentic, Chinese food...I'm totally serious, not kidding at all) 

Carlsbad to Roswell, 

Roswell to Albuquerque, (with a day trip to the Santa Fe Area) 

Albuquerque to White Sands National Park,

White Sands to Hobbs

Hobbs to Austin (with a pit stop in Big Spring) 

Once we exited Texas, we basically created a figure 4 and covered a few of the major sites, all at a leisurely pace. This was vacation, after all! 

We left right as school got out and started a 5 hour drive towards Ft. Stockton. We stopped at Dairy Queen along the way and got some obligatory blizzards. We would later learn that sugary liquids in small bodies makes for multiple bathroom stops. 

We stopped by the Anne Riggs Memorial museum to get a peek into what life was like back when you could get a bed for the night at an in for 10 cents, but if you were ok with sharing a bed, it was 6 cents a night. 

Afterwards, we drove north towards Carlsbad, but we stopped by Pecos, TX to have lunch in this gem of a Chinese restaurant. The outside was very unassuming, but the inside was very modern-looking and the food was very authentic, a little on the salty side, but you can tell that the noodles and dumplings were all hand made. 

Once we arrived at Carlsbad Caverns, we had to decide whether we would take the elevator down, or extend our journey by a mile by hiking down. Since everyone seemed pretty happy at that time, we decided to make the hike down. 

After we entered the large hole in the ground, we continued a steep descent along a series of switchbacks and were simply amazed at all the different formations that we saw. We rented the audio tour headsets and I'm glad we did because it made the tour very meaningful and educational. 

Hailey was all excited about leading the pack until she didn't. In fact, you will see that you are not in many of the cave pictures because after about a mile, you started to complain and whine about how boring the walk was. 

You big kids really got into the audio tour and were very diligent about making sure you didn't miss a single information station. Nathan saw this formation and thought it looked like a seal. Since Hailey, you were waiting by the elevator with Dad while Nathan and Hannah and I went to explore the cavern a bit more, we took a picture to show you. 

The cavern is enormous and we saw so many different formations! 

After we left Carlsbad, we had a shorter drive to Roswell. For dinner, we just had to stop by the UFO McDonalds. We got all our normal favorites, but I recently learned that McDonald's apple pie is dairy free, so I had to order one for you, Hailey. You gobbled it up happily. 

After a good night sleep, it was Sunday morning, so we took everything at a slow pace and decided to check out the town's UFO museum. Someone was being cranky again, but I think if we were given the opportunity to read the eye-witness accounts, then, it might have been worth the few bucks that we each paid to get into the museum. 

We discovered the library full of UFO related books as we were leaving, and realized that we could've come in with the little one to read some books while the big kids could go explore the museum in more detail. Nonetheless, we stopped long enough to read about 2 books and then we moved on to our next destination...which was closed. So we walked around outside under the warm dessert sun and found a cool video game store to spend some time at. 

All the on-line blogs that I read said that this gift store was a must-do in Roswell. So, after lunch, I called Area 51 to see if they were open. They were, so we piled back into the mini-mini-van and we headed to the gift store. While the gift store was a bit underwhelming, the main attraction is the back room where you can take completely cheesy photos with aliens. 

In the end, I asked you guys if you believed that aliens landed in Roswell. You both were convinced that it never happened. 

We continued our drive out of the dessert and about 3.5 hours later, the land started to become a bit less flat. The driving part was completely easy thanks to electronic devices. 

It was also very interesting to see the changes in vegetation as we climbed or descended in altitude. 

When we hit the mountains, we knew we were getting close to Albuquerque. 

We checked into our Airbnb which has underfloor heaters to heat the house. It was weird to hear loud gushes of water randomly throughout the day. I went to the store to pick up some food for our time there and found that while meat prices were pretty standard, their produce prices were through the roof. For example, a head of romaine lettuce was $7.99! 

The next morning, we drove to Bandolier Cliff Dwellings and explored the caves. On the way there, we actually stopped by a McDonalds for a bathroom break and since we had to buy something, we ended up buying 4 more apple pies for snack. Someone was super happy about that! 

After we arrived at Bandolier, we talked to the rangers and then we had a picnic lunch at the picnic tables before we started our adventure. We learned that thousands of years ago, the Pueblo Indians settled along these cliffs. They used stone tools to carve into the basalt rock and built extensions for their homes.  

It was really neat to be able to climb into the artificial caves. 

After a good walk, we drove back to Santa Fe and explored Meow Wolf. We decided we would try to solve the mystery of what happened to the family who used to live in the house. Hailey, it was super cute seeing you get into solving the mystery too! You would see something weird and want to immediately share that info with your siblings because it seemed like your really believed that you found a key clue! It was a fun place. We spent about 2.5 hours inside and we then left to get dinner. 

The next morning, we were scheduled to have a 2 hour family horseback riding tour along the Rio Grande river. We were told to arrive about an hour early to feed the horses and to just get to know them. 

They also had a bunch of pups who we just fell in love with. Hailey, even you liked them because they were not lick-y dogs and knew to sit and give people personal space. 

The weather was in the low 40's, but with the sun shining, it felt perfect. I thought 2 hours would be too long of a ride for the kids, but we were able to hang in there for the whole 2 hours. This was probably the highlight of the trip for everyone (except for Hailey...you claim that the McDonald's apple pie is still your favorite part of the trip.) Hailey, you rode out with me and you returned with Daddy. For me the toughest part about riding tandem with you was that your helmet was right under my chin and every time the horse started to trot, you helmet would just bump into my chin! When you moved to ride with Daddy, it became much easier. 

After horseback riding, we got some lunch at a Pho place across the street. We tend to go to Asian restaurants on trips because of the whole Dairy sensitivity for Hailey. American restaurants sure love their butter and cheese. 

Afterwards, we stopped by a pelota bar and you all got to customize you own popsicle. 

Hailey, you got mango with sprinkles

Hannah, you got bubblegum, white chocolate and M&Ms and fruity pebbles. 

Nathan you picked bubblegum, milk chocolate, M&Ms. 

After popsicles we went to the children's museum. They had a lot of really cool exhibits and we were able to do just about everything in the 2 hours that we were there. 

For dinner, I found a Southwestern restaurant that has dairy free cheese options and we drove 18 minutes out of the city to go there. Hailey ended up ordering.....get this, 

mini-corn dogs and French fries. The rest of us enjoyed our cheese filled entrees and then we headed back to the house for our final night in Albuquerque. 

We drove to the Petroglyphs National Monument and learned that these carvings were created back in the year 1000-1300 by the Pueblo Indians. Over thousands of years, weathering has caused the outside of the rock to form this black coating. The Indians carved spiritual, directional, and other symbols into the rock. 

This one looks awfully a lot like a pokeball!  

Hannah found one that looked like a bunny! 

Is this an axolotl petroglyph?!?!

After that, we drove south west to White Sands National park. We brought our own sleds and purchased the wax at the visitor center gift shop. 

Playing out on the sand was bright. The temperature was just right: not too hot and not too cold, but we later found out that if you take your shoes and socks on, you almost have to put them back on because the sand basically felt like snow! It was so cold! 

We left just as the sun was setting and I was able to capture a little bit of the beautiful sunset from the back window of the mini-mini-van. 

We drove another 3.5 hours to Hobbs. Since it was Thanksgiving eve, we didn't find many restaurants open for dinner, so we dug into our snacks and had frozen peas for dinner. We later did find a Wendy's open in Artesia, so we also stopped in there for some supplemental dinner. 

On Thanksgiving morning, we headed out of Hobbs to make the last leg of the journey home. We stopped in Big Spring because I had read that there was an amazing playground in the town and that McAllister's was open there. We first stopped by to play and then learned that McAllisters was instead, closed. 

McDonalds to the rescue! We quickly had our lunch and headed back on the road. Hours later, we exit the dessert and enter the hill country, which after seeing miles and miles of flat land was a refreshing change of scenery. 

We came home, had packaged ramen noodles for dinner and then called it a night. We spent the next day cleaning and then on Saturday, we got together with Hannah's godparents and celebrated Thanksgiving together. 

We had quite the feast! 

Ok, well, this was a long and detailed post with lots of pictures! Enjoy! 

Until next time, 

Love, 

Mommy