The New Mexico!

Sorry for the long delay, blogging is hard without the internet...

After leaving dreadful Austin, Jack and I drove the 10 hours to Carlsbad, NM. Before we decided to stay there, I had never heard of Carlsbad, NM, only the intensely creepy Carlsbad, Czech Republic. As it turns out, Carlsbad USA turned out to be a far more terrifying experience than the Eastern European version.

When we were around an hour away from Carlsbad things got very strange. The air was thick and hot, there didn't seem to be another human for hundreds of miles, there was red lightening on all sides and we encountered a suicidal Jack Rabbit (think any David Lynch movie- thats what we were driving through).

We had intended on camping, but the blood lightening and the memories of the slaughtered Jack Rabbit forced us to stay at a hotel- a "comfort" inn. The parking lot was empty, the lobby was empty- the only sign of life was coming from a middle- aged man sitting behind the counter staring at the television straight ahead. In a Norman Bates voice (now we are switching movies) he told me that he normally charged 95$ for the only room he could give us, but he was willing to do 75$ for us. He handed us the key for room 201 and a la serial killer quietly said "I will be here all night."

There wasn't anyone else in the hotel (or so we thought), and the room he gave us was directly above him. The front lock didn't work and the room was conjoined with another. Jack checked under the bed and in the closets a few times, set his knife on the bedside table, and right as we were falling asleep, the most terrifying thunderstorm touched down on the roof of our hotel...

Ok, so morning in Carlsbad wasn't so bad, we were both glad to be leaving the hotel and in generally good spirits as we made our way to the Carlsbad caverns. I know- it probably wasn't the place to go to dispose of our Carlsbad consternation, but we went anyway.

There are also cool (but still very creepy) things on the surface:

There are a few cute things in Carlsbad:

Then we made our way through Roswell, NM. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived the UFO museum and RESEARCH facility was closed. We still managed see multiple aliens around the town of Roswell. 

After leaving Roswell, we made our way up to Santa Fe. The sky was just beautiful that day/night so many of our pictures ended up being clouds.

By the time we reached the Santa Fe line, I had fallen in love. The air tasted and smelled different, the sky was a color purple that I had never seen before and the mountains created a perfect wave in and out of marshmellow-y clouds. 

As soon as we pulled up to our adorable cabin, (we keep trying to sleep in our tent, we truly want to "rough" it, but thunderstorms keep getting in our way) we opened our bourbon and Lonestar and sat outside where we were able to see the stars for the first time in a very long time.

The next morning we woke up to a cat named 'Bennie' prancing around our front porch.

and here is Bennie, Jack and our photogenic cabin: