New Mexico – Page 2 – Our RV Trip

Santa Fe Area

By Jennie Simpson | February 1, 2018

Hey Guys! We spent one week in the Santa Fe area trying to hit everything we missed last time and revisit a few of our favorites.

The first thing we did was hit one of our very favorite pizza places. Back Road Pizza. We’ve been talking about this pizza since we discovered it two years ago! The New Mexican pizza is probably our all time favorite.

We also managed to hit three National Park Units! It’s amazing how many NPS Units are in this area!

The Pecos National Historical Park preserves two Pecos Pueblo ruins along with old church ruins. Most of the pueblo ruins looked like the pic above. Not much was left. Around 2/3 of the South Pueblo ruins remain in an unexcavated mound. I wanted to include a picture of this sign to give y’all an idea of what one of these pueblos used to look like. Pecos, at its peak, was a trading place for the Plains Apaches and would have been home to around 2,000 people.

We saw several Kivas. I think I saw that there are 20 kivas at the Pecos Pueblo. You can see the remains of one in the pic above. (top right picture) During the Fall of 1540, the Pecos’ lives would be changed forever when a Spanish expedition claimed the land for their king and demanded the Pecos become Christians. The first mission built was finished in 1625. It’s estimated that the builders used around 300,000 forty-pound adobe bricks to complete the 1625 mission. This first mission functioned for 55 years but burned during a rebellion in 1680. The Pecos people tied a certain number of knots in ropes and handed them out to everyone. Each day they would untie one knot. When the last knot was untied, the rebellion started. The second mission was finished in 1717. By 1821 Pecos was almost a ghost town and in 1838 the last inhabitants left the pueblo to join their relatives at the Jemez Pueblo eighty miles away.

Fort Union National Monument protects what’s left of the three forts once built here. When the US acquired the New Mexico Territory at the end of the Mexican-American War, Fort Union was built to guard and aid in the American expansion into the Southwest.

Fort Union was positioned where the Santa Fe Trail’s two main branches met. Some years over 3,000 wagons made a trip up or down the Santa Fe Trail’s 900 miles. For many, Fort Union was the end of a long 800 mile journey through the Great Plains under constant threat of attack. At Fort Union there was someone on watch at all hours for incoming riders/wagon trains on the trail. When riders or wagon trains were spotted Fort riders were sent out to get everything organized and into a single file line by the time they reached the Fort. So, what was a trail wide enough that it would allow up to four wagons to ride side by side ended up being a single file trail closer to Fort Union. Can you imagine having that job? Telling riders at the end of an 800 mile wagon ride that they need to slow down and get in single file line? I imagine they were met with some grumpy people.

Fort Union protected the Santa Fe trail and it’s travelers, aided in protecting against Native American attacks, and was a major supplier for the US Army. There were three forts built here from 1851-1891 each fort getting bigger and stronger than the one before it. What once was the largest fort west of the Mississippi River is falling into ruins today. The NPS isn’t allowed to do anything but try to preserve what’s left. They’re trying their hardest to preserve this part of our history.

The grass has grown up over the trail. If there wasn’t a sign, you’d never know you were looking at one of the most important trials in US history. Can you imagine setting off on a 900 mile wagon journey across the Great Plains? Wagons could only cross in the summer or early fall when there was enough grass to feed the mules and oxen that pulled the wagons and they would only make around 8 to 10 miles a day. I’m not sure I’m cut out for that kind of travel. I feel like we’re crawling when we’re going 55 mph down the highway in our home-on-wheels!

The last NPS Unit we made it to in our week in the Santa Fe area was the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Valle Grande, in the picture above, was formed around one million years ago when a series of huge volcanic eruptions spewed a volume of material 500 times greater than the May 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. There’s a visitor center here and some trails, but we didn’t get to do much because it was cold and icy the day we went. I’d love to go back during the spring when it’s all green!

Valles Caldera looks like a big bear paw on a map. Can you see it? (top picture) We heard some of the Natives in the area call it that. This area is gorgeous even with the forest healing from a big fire a few years back.

One of the neat things about this NPS Unit is due to all of the volcanic activity. There are tons of obsidian laying around! What you might not know (we didn’t) is that when obsidian reaches a certain temperature it turns into poofy obsidian. A what obsidian? Poofy. In the picture above, you can see a normal shiny, black piece of obsidian. Next to it is the poofy obsidian. Poofy obsidian is soooo light and airy! It was pretty neat to see and feel the difference. If you step on it, it poofs. If you hold it too tight, it poofs. Due to the large fire there are tons of poofy obsidian in the park now. If you visit this park, please don’t poof their obsidian.

We also stopped back by Bandelier National Monument to revisit it in hopes of seeing it without snow, but the main trail was closed due to maintenance…so, we hopped back in the car and drove on. The views in this area are pretty stellar!

New Mexico is one of our favorite states. The views, the hikes, the NPS Units, the foodies, and the vibe all speak to us. There are so many postcard worthy vistas in this gorgeous state!

I imagine we will go back to New Mexico again and again throughout the years!

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop

World of Zoo Alameda Zoo Park

By Littlest | January 25, 2018

To my fellow animal lovers I bring to you a post from Alamogordo, NM.

In New Mexico you can find the oldest zoo in the southwestern United States. Alameda Zoo is a real nice little zoo where the animals are happy.

They have nice kangaroos. A big enclosure for them where they can run and jump all they want… just as long as they don’t get out! Kangaroos can jump at least three times there height, that’s a LOT higher than I can jump!

The mule deer were pretty happy too! Some of the zoo keepers drove by and the mule deer started begging for food! They know who feeds them! Mule deer antlers can grow up to a 1/4 of an inch a day. That’s pretty fast.

They have a Mexican grey wolf which just looks amazing!! This lone wolf is endangered. When their habitat is seen on a map, you can cover it with your pinky!

The antelope shared an enclosure with the peacocks. Did you know that antelopes are the second fastest land mammal?

We couldn’t get a very good pic of the emu, but one of them loved us. It kept following us around and yelled out when we left. I wanted to keep him but… he wouldn’t fit in the RV.

The coyote kept his distance. I think it was sleepy but who knows?

The porcupines were foraging for food, I do not want to fall onto one of those. That would be pretty painful!

In the monkey area, there was a baby monkey who followed us around. Luckily we didn’t get poop thrown at us! These are the same kind of monkey that’s on the movie Night At The Museum.

In the bird house there was this beautiful bird! I have no idea what kind of bird it is but just look at it! It looks kind of like a samurai bird to me. It walked up and all the quail ran away.

There were all kinds of birds in that bird house!

Some pretty ducks! This one looks pretty sleepy.

The ocelot wasn’t too happy. It looks like it was in an accident or something because it’s tail is smashed. A lot of the animals here are rescued.

The mountain lions were snoozing. Reminded me of our cats! They were having their siesta, but they kept a close eye on where everyone was. You could actually walk under their habitat! It was really neat!

There are a few bald eagles at this zoo. They were being all majestic.

A very sleepy owl.

These are some nice looking hawks to! They posed for us.

There’s a cute capybara. Did you know that capybara can hold their breath for five minuets! That’s at least four and a half minutes longer than I can hold my breath. We hadn’t seen a capybara in a zoo before so this was a first for us.

The tortoise was staying nice and warm under its light. It was pretty cold out the day we visited. This guy was HUGE!!

The lemur was being very active. Running up and down the branches. I don’t think he wanted his picture taken. I had to sneak up on him to get this shot!

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beast soon happens to the man.” I liked this quote from Chief Seattle a lot so I decided to share it with you.

I’m giving the Alameda Zoo a 5 star review based on the happy and healthy animals we saw! This was just a small county park and was different from the usual zoos we go to, but I really enjoyed it just as much some of the larger, better funded zoos we’ve been to.

See y’all at the zoo!

Written by Nicholas

Sand, Science, and Chilies

By Jennie Simpson | January 18, 2018

Hey Guys! We spent one jam packed week in the Alamogordo area of New Mexico. This was our second visit to the Alamogordo area and we still didn’t get through our entire to-see list!

The first thing we did when we got back to town was grab one of our absolute favorite burgers! Rockin’ BZ Burgers is still as good as we remembered them to be.

The second thing we did was revisit White Sands National Monument to get some sled time in!

Alex thought his sled was going a little slow so he waxed his sled up for some speed, then he found the tallest dune he could find! We expected a scene out of Christmas Vacation when Clark sprays his varnish on the bottom of his sled. It wasn’t quite that fast, but he did say he could tell a difference!

We did a Ranger guided sunset stroll one evening at White Sands. I love how bright white the sand looks next to the vivid blue the sky on a bright sunny day, but I have to admit…I’m kind of digging how soft everything looks in the late afternoon lighting.

And Guys, check out this sunset!

We finally made it to the New Mexico Museum of Space History! We tried to make it last time we were in Alamogordo, but we ran out of time. We learned about Ham, the worlds first Astrochimp who traveled into space in that little capsule you see in the above top picture. Nicholas had a good time dressing up in astronaut gear! :-}

There was a whole section on Star Trek. Beam me up Scotty!! There were some very cool exhibits! This one in the right picture was a rumble pad where you felt the power of a shuttle take off. It was a really cool exhibit!

We had way too much fun with the Whisper Dish! We all took turns whispering and listening to each other from across the Museum park. The nerd always comes out of us when we find an interactive museum! Our nerd hearts were very happy at this one.

We found an old train trestle while we were out exploring Cloudcroft. Check out the view we found! Can you find White Sands NP in the pic above? It’s there! Check the left side of the picture.

Oh! We found these really yummy and super huge biscochitos at a place called Rizo’s! They were fresh baked and so so good.

We never know what the grocery store is going to be like. The first time we visited Alamogordo we found Lowes and fell in love with it! We were all excited to go back to the tortillaria for some fresh made tortillas and to grab some roasted chilies from the produce section!

We had to stock up on our favorite treats before we left town. What’s not in the picture is the 10lbs of frozen green chilies we bought. We love green chilies!! The only other thing we had time for was hitting up the two pistachio farms to stock up on some tasties!

Alamogordo was one of our favorite places from our first loop back in 2015. When I added it to this loop I worried that it really wasn’t as great as we remember it to be. That burger wasn’t really that good. White Sands really wasn’t that fun. But Guys, it totally was! Alamogordo is definitely one of our favorite places and after two visits…we still have new things to do there!

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop

World of Zoo the Living Desert Museum and Zoo

By Littlest | January 11, 2018

To my fellow animal lovers, I bring you my second Zoo post, and this time it’s in Carlsbad, NM. Now, the Living Desert Museum and Zoo was really neat since all the animals were found within the state park. I’ve been to a LOT of zoos but I have never been to one that is also a state park… how cool is that?!

I liked the views from the zoo, it was pretty neat!

They’ve got two Mexican wolves, sadly they are really rare, but they look amazing!

They’ve got various birds like the golden eagle, which was watching us very closely.

The horned owls took quite a while to find and were very neat, can you find them?

The last bird I’m going to share is a blue jay, isn’t it so pretty?!

The prairie dogs were probably my favorite part of this zoo. It’s hilarious to see their little tails wag when they run! It looked like they just got some food too!

The javelina decided to say hello and came right up to the fence! It’s nose was working trying to sniff out some food.

The black bear they have looked very sleepy. Not only was the bear sleepy,

but the grey fox found a patch of sun and decided to take a nap too! It looked very comfortable!

We must have come during nap time because the porcupine was sleeping too!

Although the mountain lions were not happy with us making an appearance and kept going back where we couldn’t see them,

the bobcats decided to pose for us! It looks like it’s smiling at us! Neat!

Walking around you could find some pretty flowers, you could also find some gypsum! We’ve been to some sand dunes made of gypsum, White Sands NP was awesome.

There is a nocturnal area where you can see some rattlesnakes, it gave me the heebee jeebees. I don’t like danger noodles.

Then you walk around the corner and BAM! Giant bat head! Kinda startled me it’s hidden until you round the corner!

They have a plant area which when you go inside, prepare to take off your jacket because it is warm in there! That area has some plants from all over the world!

It had barrel cactus, some neat trees and pretty flowers.

The tortoise was a fair size and was on the move.

The bison were just lazin’ around like bison do.

The mule deer weren’t doing much either, but look at those antlers!

The entrance had a neat little museum with a touch table and the coolest part of the museum, in my opinion, was the fact that it shows you what the area looked like a really, really long time ago! The area was under a sea!

Based on the variety of animals and how the animals were all happy and healthy, I give the Living Desert museum and zoo a 5 star review.

I’ll see y’all at the zoo!!

Written by Nicholas

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

By Jennie Simpson | December 28, 2017

Hey Guys! When I was planning the New Mexico/Texas part of our trip back in 2015 (the first time we were in NM) I skipped the Carlsbad area. I kept reading all of these sketchy reviews for the RV parks in and around the Carlsbad area. We were so bummed to pass this area by because we’d heard how amazing the Carlsbad Caverns NP is. But, without a place to park our home-on-wheels…we had to miss it.

This year as I started planning our #grandwesternloop I thought about the Carlsbad area again. There are two National Parks available in the Carlsbad area and we do love our National Park Units! So, I dug into the RV park search again. And again, the park reviews weren’t the best. But I felt a little better about one in Carlsbad so we took a chance and booked a spot for two weeks. We were completely prepared to move on down the road if the park ended up being totally sketchy, but it wasn’t! It was a decent park and we spent two very full weeks exploring as much as we could!

We finally made it to Carlsbad Caverns National Park! We didn’t make it during the bat flight program, but honestly…I’m ok with that. The thought of around 400,000 Brazilian free-tailed bats flying over my head just isn’t really appealing to me. I wonder if they offer ponchos to keep the bat guano off of the people watching? The amphitheater where you can sit and watch the bat flight program is in the top picture above.

Speaking of bat guano…some of the early settlers used to mine the guano to sell as natural fertilizer. I can’t imagine what that would smell like. We were there several weeks after the bats had moved on this year and we could definitely still smell them.

I really wanted to see the natural entrance to the cave so we walked the steep, narrow trail down 750 feet to get into the cave.

I’m not a professional photographer. Far from it. I point and shoot. Seriously. So when I get into a cave with dim light…well, I take several hundred pictures of everything and just hope for the best. Fun fact: the first pictures taken in Carlsbad Cavern were taken way back in 1915 by Ray V. Davis. There are more than 110 caves in Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Carlsbad has one of the deepest and most ornate caves ever found. It’s hard to believe that around 250 million years ago the whole area where Carlsbad Caverns is found was under a shallow tropical sea. Yup, you read that right…a tropical sea! It was this start along with some twists and turns from Mother Nature that made all of the rock formations you’ll find in Carlsbad Caverns possible.

It’s amazing all of this was created one drop of water at a time over thousands and thousands of years.

There are several Ranger led tours you can take plus a self-guided tour. We opted for the self-guided tour. When it was all said and done, we walked about 3 miles. The thought of having to walk nearly 800 feet back up to the surface was a little daunting. Y’all, I was sooo glad to see an elevator! It only took a couple of minutes to get back to the surface and the visitor center! Sweet! You can also go into the cave by way of the elevator, but I really wanted to see the natural entrance. And…going down steep inclines is usually easier than huffing your way back up. Usually.

The CCC built all of the buildings in the picture above. They’re still being used today. If you don’t know what the CCC is…go look it up. It was a vital program and should definitely still be in place today. We’re fans.

You might think the only thing to do at Carlsbad Caverns National Park is to explore the cave, but you’d be wrong. There are several hiking trails and even a 9 mile scenic drive! It’s a one way loop that isn’t as bad as it looks. We were told it’s better to have a high-clearance 4×4 vehicle, but we didn’t see anything bad. I wouldn’t recommend trying a trailer or RV on this road, but a car would work alright (in my unprofessional opinion).

We found this magnificent view on the scenic drive. I think…don’t quote me on this…that this was the Rattlesnake Canyon Overlook. There was a little pull off so we all got out of the car and walked down a small trail to stand there with our mouths hanging open just gawking at the view before us. Luckily, I remembered to take a few pictures.

I did find one pretty! I love that light lavender color!

The day we went to explore Carlsbad Caverns NP it was bitterly cold and extremely windy. We did one small hiking trail up top, but that’s all we could stand. It was too cold for us and the wind was absolutely insane. We thoroughly enjoyed trekking through the cave and the scenic drive! We ended up spending almost the entire day here and we really could have spent more time if it hadn’t been so windy and cold.

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop

Back In New Mexico!

By Jennie Simpson | December 21, 2017

We’re back in New Mexico!! We’ve been missing that New Mexico vibe ever since we found it back in 2015 during our first visit to the “Land of Enchantment”.

We spent two very very full weeks in the Carlsbad, NM area and Guys…we didn’t even come close to seeing it all! I can’t cover everything we did so I’m going to stick with our three favorite adventures in this area. Nicholas will cover a different one for y’all in a different post! The RV park we stayed at had this cool mural on the side of one of it’s buildings.

By chance, I found out about a very cool place in Lincoln National Forest. I’m hesitant to even tell y’all the name because it would be a shame for it to be overrun with people and ruined. But, because I love y’all so much…I’m going to spill it. Just for you. Sitting Bull Falls!

The CCC was assigned to work at the Sitting Bull Falls Recreation Area in 1940. Most of the structures there today were built by them and they’re still standing strong.

A long long time ago a big portion of the United States was under a Permian Sea. The mountains we know as the Guadalupe Mountain Range is, in fact, an ancient barrier reef very much like the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia today. There are places where the ancient reef is exposed and you can see it. Sitting Bull Falls is one of those places!

On our hike to the top of the falls we kept marveling at all of the fossil bed we could see. If you look closely you can actually see some of the ancient reef fossils! How cool is that? And how nerdy does it make us that we spent quite a lot of time looking at the ancient fossil beds? Don’t answer that…I don’t really want to know. We’re nerds and proud of it! Ha!

When we got to Sitting Bull Falls there were two other families there. One family was leaving, but the other family looked like they were…well, just getting started on a selfie session. They were selfie-ing fast and furious. So…we hiked to the top of the falls to kill some time and see what we could find. We found some really pretty fall colors! We walked the path beside the stream that made the falls for a while before heading back to the falls. When we got back that same family was still taking selfies. Seriously…how many selfies does a person need of the exact same spot?

Speaking of the falls… There are actually three falls. You can explore all of the nooks and crannies at the base of the falls. The boys had the best time here! We found this little pool of green algae that was flowing with the water. It would move and sway with the current. I took a video of it…hopefully the movement shows up in it. I’ll add it to the video that I’ll add to the last post for the Carlsbad area so watch for it there.

Because the falls are so gorgeous…here’s one more shot of them.

Just in case y’all didn’t know…New Mexico is Cougar Country. And…as if that isn’t frightening enough…there’s all kinds of different types of rattlesnakes. I’m kind of glad I didn’t see these signs before we went on our little hike to the top of the falls.

Let’s see…oh yeah, foodies! Carlsbad was a total surprise to us! In a completely good way! I was expecting more of a wider spot in the road with some touristy shops type of area, but it’s not that at all! We found a great little Mexican place called El Jimador, another spot called Danny’s Place that not only had some great smoked meat but, a pretty darn good smothered burrito!

And then there’s Church Street Grill with their Green Chili Burgers and their Texas Toothpicks (onion straws and strips of jalapenos). Guys…this place was soooo good! Too good! Like, I-need-bigger-pants-now good!

They’re not your typical pretties, but you have to admit…they are pretty.

Well, I think I’m going to have to break the Carlsbad area into a few different posts. So stay tuned for the two National Parks we explored along with Nicholas’ post on a zoo we visited!!

See y’all down the road!!

#grandwesternloop

Alamogordo

By Jennie Simpson | January 28, 2016

We’d heard that there was going to be a snow storm the day we were supposed to drive down to Alamogordo, NM so we got started as early as we could and hoped for the best. We hadn’t driven but maybe an hour before we ran right smack dab into the front edge of a blizzard. Luckily, we kept just ahead of it the entire time we high-tailed it down to our RV park in Alamogordo. The people at the RV Park told us they’d heard the area would get 7 inches of snow that night. We had big plans for the next day so 7 inches of snow didn’t sound great. When we got up the next morning, we didn’t see any snow at all, but when we got out we quickly discovered all of the roads leading out of town were closed. Apparently, the rest of New Mexico was closed due to the blizzard. We went back to the RV and regrouped. We spent that first day at a Hastings where we checked out the movies, games, and books. It was kind of a nice relaxing day. Usually, our weekends are go, go, go.

We ended up eating lunch at Rockin’ BZ Burgers where we had the best green chili cheeseburger in New Mexico. This place is solidly at the top of our list for burgers. Littlest got the fried pickles and they were surprisingly good! We ended up eating here twice…in one week!

The main reason we came to Alamogordo was to visit White Sands National Monument. In the photo above you can see the Sierra Blanca which is 67 miles away from WSNM.

The RV Park we stayed at had sleds we could borrow so we could go sand sledding! Yup, you read that right…sand sledding! If you don’t have your own sleds, the visitor center has them for $10 apiece.

We had to find the highest sand dune we could to slide down and then we had a contest as to who slid the farthest.

When we got there, the visitor center was packed. It was so bad I had second thoughts about going into the park. I was afraid we’d just be waiting in line to go down the dune. You can see how crowded it was in the picture above. Ha! There was enough room for everyone to spread out and stay out of each other’s way. It was wonderful!

There’s not much wildlife at this National Park, but we did see a few signs of birds and some tracks we thought were from a kit fox.

We had the best time at this National Park! There wasn’t a ton of trails to hike and the park isn’t the biggest one or the prettiest we’ve been to, but there were so many opportunities for fun here.

We spent an entire day driving the Billy The Kid National Scenic Byway.

Our first stop on the scenic byway was the Lincoln Historic Site where we learned everything you could possibly want to know about Billy The Kid

and the Lincoln County War. I won’t give you an entire history lesson here…but I will tell you I didn’t know the whole story. In a time and place where the law wasn’t really the law, The Kid stood up for what he believed to be right and he paid for it with his life.

Many of the buildings that were around during the Lincoln County War are still standing. We got to see the Courthouse that Billy escaped from.

And a hole in the wall that might have been from a bullet Billy fired as he was attempting his famous escape.

The boys earned probably the coolest badge so far at Lincoln Historic Site. It looks like a Sheriff’s badge.

After we left Lincoln, we stopped at Fort Stanton. We saw a short video about the Fort and walked around the grounds. The Fort opened in 1855 and was used for several different purposes through the years until it was designated as a state monument in 2007.

The next stop on the scenic byway was at Capitan, NM and the Smokey Bear Historical Site.

The boys had been looking forward to this for a long time. They both are Smokey Bear fans. We spent a couple of hours going through the museum and working on the Junior Ranger booklets.

We got to see where Smokey is buried.

This was one of the hardest Junior Ranger booklets they’ve done, but they got some pretty cool S.W.A.G. for their effort! We were starving by the time we made it out of the Smokey Bear Historical Site so we headed for Ruidoso, NM and a burger joint called Hall Of Flame Burger. It was a super good burger, but I didn’t get any pictures. We were that hungry. We, of course, got the green chili cheese burgers, but we couldn’t really taste the green chilies. Beyond that, the burger was top notch. The place was small and packed and we were lucky to get seats.

I finally got a picture of a Roadrunner! They are so difficult to get a photo of! Fast little buggers.

It’s a pistachio.

There were two different pistachio orchards right across the highway from where we stayed. We could see one from our RV and it was constantly busy. So, we thought we should probably check it out. We stopped at both, but our favorite was McGinn’s Pistachio Tree Ranch.

You could go in and taste pistachios and pecans and…wine! The store smelled heavenly when we walked in and I was super excited to see that they had ice cream! It was a fun way to spend a few hours

and we walked away with a few purchases!

This was our last week in New Mexico and we started panicking about the prospect of no New Mexican chilies…so we stocked up. This isn’t all of what we ended up with, but it’s a good portion of it. And yes, we are already planning a return trip to The Land Of Enchantment…and chilies.

See y’all down the road!

#newmexicochiliaddict

Santa Fe, the City Different

By Jennie Simpson | January 20, 2016

Santa Fe is the only Capital City in the United States that can claim both the oldest Capital City as well as one of the newest Capital Cities. Are you confused? How can it be the oldest and still be considered one of the newest?

The Palace of the Governors is the oldest capitol. It has been the seat of Spanish, Mexican and American governments over the last 405 years as of 2015. There’s a new Capitol Building and now the Palace of Governors is a museum. In the photo above you can see all of the local artists who gather around the building to sell their crafts. If you want to get an authentically made souvineer, this is the place to come.

This is the new Capitol Building.

Every Capitol Building is different. You can get an idea of what’s really important to the city or state by what’s inside. The Santa Fe building has a gorgeous dome. I love the colors.

The inside of the New Mexico Capitol Building, you’ll find art. Which, might not surprise you when you consider there are over 250 art galleries in just a two-square-mile area in Santa Fe.

One of our favorite pieces was this buffalo head. It was made with all kinds of spare bits and pieces.

Before we get too far into this post…let me just go ahead and answer the question that several of you have asked me. Yes, there really are dried chilies hanging everywhere in Santa Fe. Everywhere. Doors, windows, porches, fences…if you can hang something from it, there’s probably chilies there. Inside and outside. Personally, I love it!

When I planned New Mexico…many, many months ago, I found out about the Loretto Chapel and its “miraculous staircase”.

The Chapel is no longer a working Chapel, but you can pay to go inside and look around and take all the pictures you want.

You can see the “miraculous staircase” in the photo above. What makes it so miraculous? It has 33 steps in two full 360° turns. Still unimpressed? How about the fact that it doesn’t have a center support and it’s not held up by side supports either. You can’t actually go on the staircase or touch it. They have it roped off, but you can get close enough to appreciate the craftsmanship and the beauty of it.

Between the art, spicy food, and chocolate houses…there’s something for everyone here. I’ve never seen so many chocolate houses in one city! Notice the Green Chili Caramels? I told you they put chilies in everything!

We, of course, had to try several different restaurants in Santa Fe! The plate above is from Posa’s Tamale Factory. We headed there in search of a place to get our Christmas tamales. I got to try my first calabacitas (which turned out to be squash) here.

Posa’s Tamale Factory has been pumping out tamales since the 1950s. They provide tamales to many of the restaurants and stores in Santa Fe. You can see the packaging area through the glass windows in the photo above.

The Sopapilla Factory was right across the highway from where we stayed. They had some really good food!

We kept hearing about Tomasita’s. The food was ok, but we did find the biggest, fluffiest sopapillas we’ve seen so far!

Another place we kept hearing about is Santa Fe Bite for its green chili cheeseburger. This would be a good time to mention that Santa Fe is the green chili cheeseburger capital of the world. The world. Confession: Jerl is the only one of us that actually got a green chili cheeseburger here. You can see a pic of it in the photo above. He said it was a great burger, but he couldn’t really taste the green chilies. My advice…go to Blake’s Lottabuger (you can find Blake’s in all the bigger cities in New Mexico). It’s a better burger and is a third the cost.

We made it up to Los Alamos for an afternoon. If you don’t know Los Alamos, it’s where the Manhattan Project took place.

We spent several hours learning more about the Manhattan Project at the Bradbury Science Museum. This is a fantastic museum!

This was another wonderful hands-on museum. It was like spending the afternoon doing science experiments

and brain teaser puzzles. They had to kick us out of this museum too so they could close. We’re going to have to start going to these places earlier in the day!

There aren’t many original structures from the Manhattan Project left. There’s a small walking tour you can do, but it was getting dark so we didn’t have time to do it.

Taos wasn’t on our list, but we kept getting asked if we were going to go there. So, we thought maybe we should. Our visit to Taos took up an entire day. We drove The High Road to Taos then took The Low Road back. It made a nice big loop.

We visited the San Francisco de Asis Church. We heard that this church is one of the most photographed and painted churches in the world. The outside was different from what we’d seen before.

It was simply stunning inside. Unfortunately, photos aren’t allowed inside the church so I can’t show you. You’ll just have to go visit it yourself so you can see it!

Downtown Taos is pretty small. There’s a walking tour of it that we did. Taos kind of reminds me of a small ski village.

Taos has an elevation of between 7,000 and 8,000 feet. There’s a ski resort not too far away.

We walked around the Plaza. It was originally a fortified shelter and marketplace.

It wouldn’t be a true day trip without sampling some local fare…We found ourselves at a place called Orlando’s. It was small and brightly decorated.

Not only was Orlando’s the most authentic place we’ve eaten at,

but it was also the second most expensive place we’ve eaten on this trip. The food was amazing. We finally got to try posolé here and we learned about a third type of chili sauce…caribe! Caribe is totally different from the red and green chili we’ve been having. In the photo above, you can see all three chilies. Red, green, then caribe (on the right).

You are looking at the Rio Grande Gorge and Bridge. This is the second highest cantilever bridge in the U.S. Towering at 650 feet above the river, the bridge makes quite an impression. You can park at the rest stop and walk out on the bridge and look down into a canyon that would be deeper than the Grand Canyon if it wasn’t filled with so much silt.

One of the popular things to do in Taos is go to the pueblo. We went, but when we found out it’s $16 a piece to go walk around it…we passed. I’m sure the pueblo is nice, but I’m not going to pay that much to just go walk around it and then have to pay more on top of that for the tour. Maybe if we hadn’t already been to so many other fabulous pueblos…maybe. We saw the teepee above on our way out of town while driving on The Low Road back to our home on wheels. I couldn’t pass up the chance to get a photo of it.

That’s all folks! That’s our time in the Santa Fe area! We will definitely be back to this area at some point!

See y’all down the road!

Santa Fe Area Hiking

By Jennie Simpson | January 11, 2016

Hey y’all! We stayed in the Santa Fe area for two weeks and managed to squeeze an amazing amount of adventure into our time there. I’m going to break this area up into two different posts. This first post will be about the hiking we did.

We spent an entire day at Bandelier National Monument! Bandelier is located in the Frijoles (free-HOH-lace) Canyon and the first evidence of habitation goes back 10,000 years.

We got to see Bandelier covered in snow. It was beautiful! Bandelier, NM is part of the Pajarito Plateau, which was formed by two separate eruptions of the Jemez (HAY-mess) Volcano more than one million years ago. Each of the two eruptions was six hundred times more powerful than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Think about that for a minute. Can you imagine how destructive those eruptions were?

The boys had a great time playing in the snow. It was perfect for snowballs.

You’re looking at the village of Tyuonyi (QU-weh-nee). This is just one of several large pueblos located in Bandelier National Monument. This one would have been two stories tall, contained about 400 rooms and housed around 100 people. Access to this village was by a singular ground-level opening.

If you’ve been following us along on our journey, you know we’ve gone to quite a few different pueblos. Usually, we don’t get to climb into them. The boys were super excited that at Bandelier, not only do you get to climb the ladders, you get to go inside the pueblo rooms!

I managed to get all three kiddos to stop climbing around long enough to snap a picture.

When we got to the park that day we were told the trail to the Alcove House was closed due to icy conditions. We hung out in the Visitor Center while the boys did their Junior Ranger booklets and I asked a couple different Ranger’s about the trail. Before we headed out, we were told we could go ahead and do the Alcove Trail, but to be aware of the ice. The Alcove Trail led us through the woods and across several bridges. It was a wonderful hike through the snowy forest.

We made it to the Alcove House without trouble and checked out the ladders. They had some ice, but they were in good shape. We climbed up the few very long ladders to ascend 140 ft to the top.

At the top is this Kiva (KEE-vah), which was excavated in 1908. They found almost perfectly preserved specimens of red corn and matting. It was all closed up when we got there so we didn’t get to see inside.

There’s a separate section of Bandelier National Monument you have to drive to. On our way there we stopped at the Whiterock Canyon scenic overlook.

The view was stellar!

The Tsankawi (sank-ah-WEE) unit of the Bandelier National Monument is just as good as the main unit. It’s a loop trail that takes you up a couple of ladders to a lower and upper cliff.

Tsankawi is located on the Pajarito (pa-ha-REE-toe) Plateau and was home to the Ancestral Tewa Pueblo people during the 1400s. When the Jemez Volcano erupted over a million years ago, this land was covered in thick layers of volcanic ash. Over the years, the ash was compacted and formed rock known as tuff. Tuff is a soft stone so it was perfect for the ancient peoples to carve out their homes in. The softness of the rock is also what caused the paths to be worn down. In the photo above, you can see the path we followed while in Tsankawi. These paths weren’t’ carved out, they were worn down by the 1000s of times people walked the same path.

The view from the upper cliff was fantastic.

You can see where people have placed their feet over the years to get back down the ladder.

The village of Tsankawi contains about 275 rooms. Some of the structures here were two story. The cave rooms, like the one above, is called a cavate (CAVE-eight). These rooms were usually plastered in some kind of mud mixture and painted while the ceilings were blackened by smoke. Smoking the ceilings hardened the volcanic tuff and made the tuff less crumbly.

We were climbing down the last ladder as the sun started to disappear. It was a long full day. We highly recommend Bandelier National Monument to anyone who will be in the Santa Fe area!

We also had a fantastic day exploring the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. While it’s designated a National Monument, the National Park Service doesn’t take care of this park. It’s taken managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

When we started our trip back in May of this year (2015), I would have probably hated this hike. I preferred the nice neat paths. Oh, how times have changed. I’ve come to realize that if you want the big scenic payoff, you have to work for it. Now, our favorite trails are the ones that are more…primitive…with some scrambling.

We scrambled over, through,

around,

and under…it was awesome!

This trail takes you a mile and a half through a slot canyon made out of volcanic tuff and carved from flash floods over the years.

At the end of the slot canyon, the trail climbs a steep 630 feet up to the mesa top. In the photo above, you can see part of the steep climb up…notice it’s covered in snow and ice. It made for a very interesting trek.

The Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument was designated in 2001 to protect the unique geological landscape known for its light colored, cone shaped tent rock formations that are the result of the big volcanic eruptions we talked about earlier in this post. The tuff, ash, and pumice from the eruptions were over 1,000 feet thick.

Here’s the view from the top.

Kasha-Katuwe means “white cliffs” in the traditional Keresan language. You can see in the picture above how they look white.

We had a wonderful time doing a few of the many hikes in the area. We were bummed we didn’t have time to fit more in, but that just gives us a reason to come back to the Santa Fe area again!

See y’all down the road!

Pizza Roundup Back Road Pizza

By Littlest | January 6, 2016

Back Road Pizza is a super tasty pizza place in Santa Fe, New Mexico!

You can get sandwiches, salads, calzones, and pizza.

The decor was cool. The staff designed and painted the pizza pans (I think that makes it even better).

There were pool tables upstairs you could play.

Being in New Mexico, you can even get green chilies on your pizza and I highly recommend it!

The bathrooms are clean and the staff were all really nice. Back Road Pizza totally gets a 5 star review!

I liked it so much I had to get a shirt from there. The shirt is too big, but that’s OK because I can wear it over my sweatshirt!

See you next time on

Pizza Street!