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A Road Trip in Ruins

Some of you might be wondering why we haven’t posted in a while. Well, it’s because we’ve been on the road. Now that we’re home, we look forward to sharing our latest adventures with you, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here’s a short synopsis of some of what we encountered on our latest winter road trip.

New Mexico

This is what the central part of eastern New Mexico looks like. The only wildlife you might see when traveling this road is a pronghorn or two and possibly a hawk. Mainly it’s wild grasses and cactus for what seems like endless miles and hours. We were glad to finally see mountains (and even a little snow) when we got to central New Mexico.

Our trek covered some fun cities and national parks in central and southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. The trip was fun and uneventful except for some weather issues. On day two we were met with 70 mile per hour winds near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Not only were we plagued with zero visibility in the blowing dust, but a tractor-trailer rig blew over in front of us and blocked the interstate. Fortunately, the driver was only slightly injured but had to be pulled out of the cab through the broken windshield. We didn’t get any photos because it was just too terrifying trying to help the driver and worrying if drivers behind us were going to see that traffic was stopped.

Blowing dust on I-25 near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Our planned hike in the mountains at Las Cruces was out of the question, so we spent a couple of hours eating lunch in a Subway sandwich shop and watching the awnings over their windows blow away. Luckily, our hotel let us check in early enabling us a place to get out of the wind.

Arizona

Day three was perfectly gorgeous: a bit chilly but with just a slight breeze. As we drove toward our first stop of the day in Arizona, we began to see some snow-capped peaks. But when we crossed the border, Arizona greeted us with gorgeous desert peaks, all topped with glistening snow. It was a scene that we would see throughout our trip, but it got even better.

Snowcapped mountains in southern Arizona.

Our first destination of the day was in those mountains, but not at a high elevation, so the weather was perfect for hiking and perusing the park site. We were blessed with perfect hiking and sightseeing weather for the next few days until we woke up to the scene below on day six. Our itinerary called for a morning of hiking in a national park, so we went prepared to be cold and muddy.

View from our hotel room on Day Six. It was amusing to see palm trees and snow in the same shot.

As luck would have it, the skies cleared, and we were able to enjoy the park as planned. While driving northward toward our next stop, we saw even more frosted peaks with fresh snow. 

Then we saw this:

There were nine of them, but we couldn’t get them all in one shot.

One day we went from this cold and wet mountainous landscape…

We have high praises for snowplow operators!

…to this dry and windy desert landscape, all in the matter of a few hours.

Conclusion

In all, we traveled through three desert ecosystems with each one being unique in its climate, flora, and fauna. We also saw some breathtaking mountain scenery along with a few lonely backroads. Where Arizona meets Mexico, we saw the border wall and talked to a park ranger who regularly shares her lunches with hungry immigrants who have crossed said wall.

This is a spectacular cloud rainbow that we saw while we were on a backroad in Arizona. It’s fuzzy because we took it with a fully zoomed cell phone through the windshield while looking directly into the sun and driving down the highway!

It was an amazing road trip covering just under 2,400 miles. With that said, you might be wondering about the title of this post. No, it wasn’t a ruined road trip at all, even though we had to change the itinerary a couple of times due to snow. For now, let’s just say we learned a lot of history, visited some nice towns and cities, and did a lot of walking, hiking, and eating. We’re excited to be back in the blogosphere and cannot wait to share our latest destinations with you!

Mike and Kellye

 

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