Our flight timeline was a little more forgiving for this trip than our previous trips, so we decided to make our to going to the airport part of the experience. We got reservations at Abe Fisher – a Jewish restaurant in downtown Philly and stayed the night at the Four Points near the airport. Adela was able to escape work early enough that we could stop at the hotel instead of needing to park downtown and drive somewhere. The food was amazing! We got latke fries, broccoli salad (light on the broccoli though), short ribs and then some desserts. The short ribs were to die for; it was served with fixings to make little mini reubens or cuban sandwich bites with. Literally melted in your mouth good. Dessert was less good, but that’s because my apple crisp (which was tasty) came out at about 200 degrees so I had to pour it out of the ceramic dish it came in. We also got to try some amaro, which we both decided tasted like something we would be comfortable never tasting again in our lives. After our fantastic dinner we skedaddled back to the hotel and woke up… on time.
On time was 5:35, so we had plenty of time to hit up the lounge for some breakfast. We had some carrot-tomato energy shots which could go in the file with the amaro. Our first flight was uneventful, the two of us had an exit row to ourselves. In Houston we trekked over to the lounge for another quick bite. The quick bite turned into lunch and drinks because our flight was delayed for 3 hours! There must’ve been storms that delayed the crew from arriving at the airport or something. Once we actually left to El Paso the flight was once again uneventful. And what I was dreading… renting a car… turned out to be the easiest thing ever. Like pre-pandemic rentals. Way different than “we are waiting to see if people return enough cars today” which we’ve been used to. We navigated our way to Adela’s parents house for some enchiladas and chatting.
After chatting we caught some z’s before waking up relatively early the next day. The time change definitely helped getting up on time. We met at Adela’s parents’ house for some more introductions before heading to Mesilla to walk around the little market they had. Our Sunday was capped off with a trip to a brewery and a movie. Our relatively chill Sunday met a relatively adventurous Monday. It started off with more breakfast before we took the trip out to White Sands National Park. It was out of this world crazy. Like the sand is just… so white. I had to wear sunglasses to protect my fragile Northerner eyes, but when I took them off it was just white as far as the eye can see. Adela’s mom got us a sledding saucer that we were able to take on a couple runs. I only almost gravely injured myself once? Perhaps twice. It is… not like sledding on snow.
We made our way to Aguirre Springs for a picnic lunch which was lovely. Definitely bookmarked it for a future campsite. We just need to somehow figure out how to get our tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and cooler down from Pennsylvania. We dropped Adela’s parents and Estela off before heading back to the Organ Mountains for a little hike. The hike went to some water that dripped down from a reservoir. It was aptly named… Drippings Springs. We had to leave the park before sunset otherwise we would have gotten locked in. So we drove down the Bosque Brewing near the university and invited Adela’s cousin to join us. I was informed that this cousin was 19 year old sophomore in college. He was in fact a senior and could order his own beer. After Adela and Julia picked their jaws up from the floor they very suavely inquired as to how he was able to order a beer if he was so young.
The next morning we got up relatively early and headed back to the mountains for another little hike. The destination of the hike was a little waterfall with a small pool of water, and the scenery along the way was pretty spectacular! Afterwards we got some coffees and chatted for a little bit before heading to Adela’s parents’ house for a nap. Well, I took a nap, I think everyone else was productive or something. Dinner was grilled chicken and we ended the night with some intense Scategories. I don’t remember needing to vote on things so frequently from my past Scategory playtime. This was our last night in Las Cruces – the following morning we met Hector and Cecilia for some breakfast. I didn’t end up with what I thought I was ordering, but it was still delicious. Turns out green chile on everything makes it taste good.
After a filling breakfast we started making our way north to Albuquerque. Along the way we stopped at New Mexico Tech to visit Adela’s alma mater and see how it had changed throughout the years. Apparently some stuff was exactly the same and some stuff was way different. We also decided this was the perfect place to wire our house down payment from. Just to add a little bit of spicy stress to the day! After hanging out for a little while longer we hit the road again so that we could make it in time to take the tram up to the top of the Sandias. We put our name in for food when we got to the top – but there was about an hour long wait so we took a little stroll around and just generally enjoyed the scenery. The restaurant had one server I think for the whole place… and the hostess kept seating people. He definitely worked hard that day.
Our next day brought some serious excitement (and another super early wakeup) – Balloon Fiesta 2021! Adela had the inside scoop on what to do – wake up at buttcrack o’clock and get to the festival area and not have to park in outer space. Step one was completed easily. Step two was get some coffee cuz it’s cold in the desert at 5 am. Then step three was wait until they start lighting up the balloons. It was super cool seeing them get lit up in the dark! We were there on special shapes day – which meant that the first of the regular balloons to launch was a giant cow. We meandered through all the balloons admiring them (they’re all way cool). I don’t know if I could pick a personal favorite just because they were all so different. What we dubbed the derpicorn is the one that sticks out most in my mind when I think back to the day.
Later that day we took a trip over to see some local petroglyphs. I had read a little bit about them online – they’re not quite as good as the ones that Adela said were about 45 minutes away (those are actually 4-6 hours away) but they were pretty cool. It did take us a little while to actually find the trailhead. Part of that might have been because I wanted to get my national park passport book stamped saying that we were there! The last event on the agenda was to meet some more of Adela’s family for lunch. Luckily there was a very small child to distract everyone from interrogating me 😀
