Takeaways

• It’s easy to get distracted from a goal when a new relationship comes into view.  I have since learned that when the goal is to find yourself, the relationship is either not the right one, not the right timing, or both.
• New Mexico sunrises and sunsets are made for painting (if you paint, which I don’t)
• Honestly there are so many places to visit in New Mexico.  I have visited many since this trip and there is always something new to see which means SURPRISE this is not where I ended up living.  Sorry for the spoiler.
• Ended up having a nice long layover there about a year later.  I hiked up La Paz trail and would HIGHLY suggest. 

 

Written in New Mexico (November 2016):  New Mexico is my new favorite place.  That’s right.  It is giving every other state a run for it’s money in the race to becoming my new home.  I mean, I crossed the border from Texas, ran into a winery (Fort Selden Winery) on accident and then pulled into Elephant Butte Lake State Park just in time to see one of the more beautiful sunsets of my trips so far . . . it seems like maybe it could be a sign that this is a place that just works with me to make everything wonderful.  I mean how do you get to watch this beautiful of a sunset, then get to camp in that place under the stars, only to start the following day with an amazing sunrise, ALL on accident.  What do you think?  Do things happen on accident?  Or is there some ultimate reason why I was able to have such a perfect day to start out my trip through New Mexico?

 

Written over a year after my trip to New Mexico (August 2017):  I still miss New Mexico.  It is such a beautiful place to spend time and I think every day about how I need to get back there.  From Elephant Butte State Park we continued North through Albuquerque, stopping at the Petroglyph National Monument which was a very warm walk through the desert.  Somehow we were lucky enough to run into a man who professionally photographed petroglphy.  He had therefore done research on these specific petroglyph and could tell us the history of some and how many are from different times and tribes that were passing through or lived in the area.  History is amazing and fascinating, is it not?  (side note:  I would end up with a 30 hour layover in Albuquerque later in the year and hike the La Luz trail in the Cibola National Forest up to the top of the Sandia Mountain range, then taking the tramway down to the bottom.  I was able to time it just in time to grab dinner at the top and watch the sunset on my ride down.  It wasn’t part of my 50 in 52 . . .  but it was so amazing and beautiful I still highly suggest.  Will post more photos soon.

We then continued our trip to camp in Bandolier State Park.  Visiting the cliff dwellings for a short hike the next day.  The way this tribe was able to survive in such difficult landscape is pretty impressive.  I found an appreciation of how the humans built larger and lower versions of cliff dwellings that the birds did higher up.  Humanity in harmony.  Visiting again is on my list so I can climb the ladder to the Alcove they have set up.  It’s over 140 feet of ladder.  It looks dangerous and necessary to cross off my (ever growing) bucket list.

The difficult part of New Mexico was by the time we crossed the border into Arizona, I was considering ending the journey.  Both the one I was on as well as the relationship I had been forming.  Travel is so important to me and I realized through this trip we weren’t compatible travel companions let alone life partners.  I wouldn’t take back the trip though, we all live and learn, right?  Without the trip I may have never found out we were so different (and not in the good way).  It does just make me feel the need to visit again, though.  This trip felt like it was cheating on the 50 in 52.  I need to visit again so I can find the pieces of me that were hiding away there that I maybe missed because I was distracted.