Our first stop this morning was at a big pile of trash. Check it out!
But of course that’s not just any pile of trash. That pile of trash is part of the world’s largest roadrunner!!!
He’s a bit strange since he just hangs out at a rest stop all day with no plaque or anything. I don’t know a thing about his story. But he’s pretty great, obviously!
We then headed back into Texas!
As we drove east on I-10, we waved to Mexico. (I-10 follows the Mexico-U.S. border, so everything you’re seeing in the distance below is Mexico.) Hi, Mexico!
On our way back to Marfa, we encountered our UFO again. This time, it was grounded!
We stopped for dinner at Pizza Foundation in Marfa (again, delicious) and then headed south toward Big Bend… and then things really got interesting.
I had made a reservation at the park lodge (a first for us as we usually stay in a town outside of a national park) since our time in Big Bend will be limited, but since I’ve never been to this park before, I didn’t really know much about where things were located and the like. I assumed we would just find out from the park ranger at the entrance station when we arrived, but I started to get worried when we weren’t on our way until fairly late.
And then the storm started.
It was a completely crazy storm with bouts of intense rain and very bright, very strong lightning everywhere. It was really dark (except when the lightning flashed), so we would just get these occasional glimpses of the huge mountains or whatever was going on right next to us. I don’t really know how to explain it, but it’s just an unsettling experience to be in unfamiliar terrain in the middle of absolutely nowhere with really tall rocks right next to you that you can only see when the super bright lightning that is flashing in every direction around you — particularly when you don’t really know where you’re going or anything. We started to get scared that the park lodge would be closed when/if we ever arrived and we wouldn’t be able to get in… and of course there was no way to call since we didn’t have any cell service and there were no towns or people anywhere!!
Anyway, we did make it to the park, which was a big relief, but it was probably around 9pm at that point, so the entrance station was unmanned. We had to just hope for some signage to help us find the lodge. Yikes! Fortunately, there was a clearly marked sign eventually, and the road took us over some sharp switchbacks, and we saw a huge sign warning us about being in BEAR AND MOUNTAIN LION COUNTRY USE EXTREME CAUTION OMG!!!!!! I think that was when Brian informed me I would no longer be allowed to make in-park reservations.
Thankfully, we did find the lodge. Unfortunately, it was pretty dark and nothing really looked open. Luckily, someone was bringing trash out from the main building (the lodge here is kind of a mini-complex with a few different buildings with guestrooms, a restaurant, store, etc.), so I jumped out of the car to ask how we could get into our room. She directed me to a bulletin board that had an envelope pinned to it with my name on it. Seriously?? I would NEVER have known about that! The envelope contained our key and a little map to show us how to get to the room. Then, on our way to the building where our room was, we noticed the power go out in the adjacent building. We hoped it was just people turning off their lights for the night, but (spoiler alert) of course it wasn’t.
The rain had stopped at this point and we just saw occasional flashes of heat lightning; the clouds were moving by very quickly, but when the moon wasn’t covered by them, it was really bright. We were finally starting to relax at this point since we had a key and a room and everything and we had survived the drive and the storm, so we decided to hang out in the parking lot of the lodge and take a few pictures of the stunning moonlit landscape…
While we were hanging out there, a couple of other lodge guests came by to chat about the power situation. Apparently something had been damaged by the storm out by El Paso (!) and everything was completely off. One guy told us they were expecting to have it back on in two hours. Sooooo we got out our flashlights and got our stuff into our room without really being able to see very much. What an evening!!
We went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta!!
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to come out to New Mexico when we were at Balmorhea and Brian overheard some Speedo-wearing guy there telling some other random people about how he was going to go to the Balloon Fiesta. As it turns out, Brian had quite the fascination with hot air balloons as a child and has always dreamed of going to the Balloon Fiesta (the largest balloon festival in the world)! Who knew? And the timing all worked out perfectly, so we went today. Yay!!
The Balloon Fiesta is a big deal, y’all. We had to get up at 4am (not kidding) and drive to a random shopping mall parking lot, leave Pearl, and board Albuquerque School District yellow school buses (notably the second time in just a few months we’ve been inside a school bus), which eventually took us to the Balloon Fiesta Park. Oh, and did I mention it was really, really cold? Because it was. And also it was pitch black.
However, just a few minutes after we arrived at the park, Dawn Patrol began!!
Dawn Patrol
The Dawn Patrol began at Balloon Fiesta in 1978, when two California balloonists developed position lighting systems that allowed them to fly at night. Dawn Patrol pilots take off before sunrise and fly until it is light enough to see landing sites. Fellow balloonists appreciate the Dawn Patrol because they can watch the balloons and get an early idea of wind speeds and directions different altitudes.
There was a little break after Dawn Patrol while we all waited for the sun to come up and whatnot, so we went and got funnel cakes and hot chocolate for breakfast, browsed the souvenir tents, and tried not to freeze (with little success). We didn’t have to wait very long before Mass Ascension began – about 600 hot air balloons all inflating and rising together over about two hours. It was truly amazing! We had some gray and cloudy skies, but the weather didn’t diminish the experience at all.
Here is a snippet of the many, many videos I took on my iPhone during the ascension.
But wait!! Believe it or not, that’s not all. After we got out of the park (which, incidentally, took around two hours from field to Pearl’s door — come on, Albuquerque International Balloon Festival), we drove to White Sands National Monument! And we saw a giant pistachio on the way!
Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at White Sands, it was raining (?!) (not the first time we have brought rain to the desert), plus we were exhausted from our early morning and everything, so we didn’t spend a lot of time there. It was a beautiful and interesting landscape in spite of the rain, though.
We had initially toyed with the idea of sledding down the sides of the dunes (which is one of the main activities to do at White Sands), but the rain made that less appealing. It didn’t stop these little girls, though!
White Sands is one of the few national parks where you can pretty much go wherever you want. There are a couple of trails, but you are more than welcome to walk all over the dunes and touch things and kick sand around and stuff.
By the time we finished up there, we were both pretty much about to collapse, so we got set up as quickly as we could at the Ramada in Las Cruces, N.M. (which is very nice — much nicer than how we usually roll). Tomorrow, we head back to Texas!
We didn’t stay long today, though. But we’d like to come back since Marfa is chock-full of really interesting looking art galleries and the like. We also had a deeeeelicious breakfast this morning at Cochineal. I mean, what was that about? I was really not expecting that level of awesome in the culinary department in rural west Texas. Good job, Cochineal!
Anyway, we continued on our merry way down the road.
Wait a minute. What is that?
OMG A UFO!!!!!!!!!
Oh. Just kidding. It’s a weather blimp. But we are in UFO country over here, so you have to keep your eyes peeled!
So, after Marfa, we drove through a little town called Valentine, and then we happened upon a Prada store. Alas, it was closed.
More desert landscape followed:
Then we drove through El Paso. And I have to ask, El Paso, what is your deal? Why are you SO HUGE and sprawled and spread out and full of soooo many strip clubs and strip malls?
And then…
Wait, what? Yes! We decided to go to New Mexico! We have our reasons! You’ll see. We weren’t even deterred by this!
First of all, we went to Hatch, New Mexico. Hatch is the home of the famous hatch chiles that show up in late summer and immediately being making everything more delicious. The tiny little town hosts a big chile festival in September.
We were a bit late for the festival, obviously, but there were still lots of chile stands lining the road into town.
We also got to see the famous chiles growing in the field!!
As if all that awesomeness weren’t enough, Hatch is also home to Sparky’s, which not only has delicious food but is also a roadside-attraction aficionado’s dream, with statues of Uncle Sam, some weird cartoon family holding burgers and root beer, a metal robot and pig, etc:
After Hatch, we shot straight up to Albuquerque’s charming Sandia Peak Inn (by the way, I think this is the only hotel we’ve patronized on Route 66 in all our travels). We enjoyed seeing the lovely harvest moon on our way!
Why the heck are we in Albuquerque, you ask? You’ll just have to come back tomorrow to find out!
For being in the desert, we sure have seen a lot of rain. Today the storms hit on the drive from Flagstaff to Four Corners. Yesterday it was on the way to the Grand Canyon. I thought this area was supposed to be dry! The interesting thing about the terrain out here (fairly flat) is that you can see the thunderstorms from miles away. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to avoid heading into said storms because there’s only one road.
We left Flagstaff this morning and drove on what I believe will be our only tiny stretch on Route 66:
Initially we thought we would travel more on 66, but things just didn’t happen that way.
Anyway, we made a quick stop at Sunset Crater National Monument on our way out of town. It’s a very interesting park where a volcano erupted as recently as the 13th century. Apparently there used to be a trail up to the actual crater, but it sustained significant damage from hikers and had to be closed. You can still take a short trail around the base of the crater, though:
While we were there, a ranger pointed out that we could see a snowstorm happening on the mountains in the distance:
We didn’t have any snow, but we did run into some very dark clouds and some rain as we drove through Arizona. We saw some really pretty scenery!
Then we arrived at Four Corners Monument! This is, of course, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah all touch corners. Nice!
With that, we were able to add two more states to our list:
After the rain and clouds today, we caught some truly amazing rainbows, too:
Now we’re at the lovely Days Inn in Cortez, Colo. Tomorrow: cliff dwellings!!
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