Think back on your most memorable road trip.

The first flight I took post-covid was for a girls’ trip throughout New Mexico. It wasn’t just escape from quarantine that made this trip special–I had some major bucket list items on the itinerary.

I haven’t made an itinerary like this from online trip planning in a while! I always like to have a lot of options mapped out–more than can be completed in a day–so that I can leave room for my travel companion and I to follow where our curiosity leads us, or in case something doesn’t work out as planned. What we didn’t end up doing was crossed off red on the list. We also missed a whole day. Our flight was delayed so we didn’t get to our first hotel until way late into the night, calling for us to visit White Sands National Park on the second day before driving to Santa Fe.

When I make a google mymap, I always code the symbols one color for each day.

White Sands National Park

Our first stop was White Sands. We visited the museum, took a hike, took tons of pictures and watched as some folks all decked out in the latest fashions uncomfortably made their way in the sand, and we SLEDDED DOWN THE HILLS.

Drive to Santa Fe

The next step was to make our way to Sante Fe, NM. Our day was cut short, so we were able to make fewer of our planned stops. We couldn’t help but stop at Pistachioland; this was my first legitimate roadside attraction. The largest pistachio in the world!

More importantly, we made it to a destination I planned on visiting: Three Rivers Petroglyph Site. The Petroglyphs are from between about 200-1450 AD.

Santa Fe, NM

Once we got to Santa Fe, we stayed in a lovely hotel. Yet, first thing in the morning, ran away from it. I’m an early riser and my travel companion is not, so I got my fitness in and previewed Canyon Road, viewing ahead of time the places we’d want to visit and enjoying the outdoor sculpture gardens.

WE WENT TO MEOW WOLF.

I took SO MANY cool photos here but looks like I only emailed myself a couple for this post. Maybe one day I’ll do all of these locations justice with individual posts. Maybe not!

We also visited the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native American Arts. This mixed media piece titled “Why are you like this” by Angelo Williams about ADHD moved me to literal tears, so I took a photo with it.

On the Road Again!

The next day, we were back to our travels for one of my top two destinations on the trip: Chaco Culture National Historic Site.

This park was newer on the National list, and with Trump just having left office, it was still underfunded, incomplete, and lacking roads to get to it. But it was still WORTH IT. About a thousand years ago, people trekked from all over the Americas and beyond to trade goods and hold ceremonies here.

I can’t wait to go back there and see more one day. There was so much we didn’t see, knowing that we couldn’t be on the surrounding dirt roads without daylight.

So, we made our way to Albuquerque.

Albuquerque

BECAUSE WE HAD TICKETS TO THE INTERNATIONAL HOT AIR BALLOON FIESTA, NBD!!

That’s not all, folks!

I have 968 photos from New Mexico on my phone. There are so many moments and destinations I didn’t share about the trip on this post, but it was brimming with artistic inspiration, beauty, exploration and wonder. Maybe one day I’ll do these moments justice with posts of their own, maybe not.

With this friend, I’ve also taken a road trip from Denver to Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole National Park. Don’t tell my husband that our wedding road trip wasn’t the one I chose as most memorable, ha!