Boldly Going

For our two year anniversary, my wife and I took a road trip across New Mexico and back, spread over the course of five days. The following is a log of our trip, along with pictures and observations of what we saw along the way.

Day 1 -  Sunday, August 31, 2014: 
"There's no such thing as a wrong turn, as long as it leads to Albuquerque" ~ Me

Yesterday was a lazy day. Normally I would feel bad about this, but the normal sense of urgency to make our precious day off worthwhile is happily absent. We've taken the upcoming week off to celebrate our two year wedding anniversary. Technically our anniversary isn't until the 8th of September, but the week of Labor Day works best with my school schedule and Laura's work schedule.

Church attendance has become an important part of my life since Laura gave me the push to return to the fold, so we attend sacrament meeting with a truck full of luggage and a change of clothes handy so we can hit the road as soon as the last amen is uttered and the organist plays us out. One nice thing about the size of our town and stake, is we are the only ward in our building, so church always starts at 9am. By the time we opt to ditch the 2nd and 3rd hours, we'll have plenty of time to make it to our destination

My original planned route, which I post to Facebook for my friends' and family's info prior to the start of the trip, involves making a loop across New Mexico, the first arc making its way through Glenwood, Reserve and Socorro to Albuquerque, where the Marriott awaits us with a prepaid room. Laura suggests a detour through Duncan to drop a gift off at a friend's house before we forget. (We have friends here. Yaaay!). We weigh the pros and cons of going through Duncan at the beginning vs the ending of the trip. Duncan it is. Our loop will end up looking like a figure 8.

We make a quick stop in Lordsburg to eat, a quick stop in Deming to top off the fuel tank, and then it's off to I-25 via the Hatch route. Just outside of Hatch, a town famous for its green chile peppers(Anaheim peppers given a distinctive flavor by the growing conditions in the ares) a massive traffic jam ensues due to the annual Green Chile Festival, which has packed an unusually high number of vehicles on the town's main artery to the freeway entrance as people clamor in and out of town for the food and fun. Could I stop to enjoy the festivities and rationalize that my ox was in the mire and needed a snack? Probably not. With the assistance of my cell phone's GPS, I find an alternate route to the freeway that involves a back road that passes through 11 miles of farmland. Villages named Salem and Garfield come and go along the way to I-25.

I should note that beyond Deming, the road to Hatch and all of I-25 north of Las Cruces are new territory for me. I've been curious to see what I-25 looks like, knowing little about it other than that its course roughly follows the Rio Grande from Las Cruces to Albuquerque and beyond. I find it's mostly flat, with the exception of the occasional large dip as the freeway drops into and out of large side valleys draining into the Rio Grande.

Truth or Consequences becomes visible off in the distance. We stop. I explain to Laura what I know about the history of the town's name, using google to fill in the gaps.

Socorro comes and goes. The Very Large Array is advertised on a Very Large Sign at the edge of town. We'll be seeing the array on the way back home, so we venture on toward Albuquerque, destination finally somewhat close.

We stop in Belen. Ten years ago, I considered buying land out here, as it was extremely cheap. Ten years later, land is still cheap out here, and I can see why. Beyond the farms, there's not a whole lot to see.

At last, we arrive in Albuquerque. My eyes behold the Big I for the first time. It's not as big as I had imagined it to be. Out of necessity due to surrounding buildings and development, the interchange is actually relatively compact. We check into the Marriott on Louisiana Bl, eat dinner at BJ's across the street, and take a trip to see the Albuquerque temple before retiring to the hotel for the night.

Total Distance: 385 Miles