A Trip to Cowboy Country
Flat lands, tall mountains, red rocks, snowy peaks, and aliens??
Sunset at Arches National Park in Moab, UT.
Week 34 (Jan 13 - 18): 370 Miles
On January 13th, we were happily reunited after our independent traveling and time with family. Brian’s Aunt Mary and Uncle Gary kindly took us in again for a few days while we prepared to get back on the road. Thanks again to the Patterson family for being such great hosts.
On Saturday, we packed the car up again and began our drive into West Texas. Texas is a huge state, so we had to split our drive out of it into two days. First, we drove to Austin, Texas, for lunch, and more specifically, for BBQ. With the help of some local recommendations, we honed in on la Barbecue, a Michelin Star winning BBQ spot with an extremely long line, but good vibes and even better food. It was an awesome experience, and we would gladly come back to Texas for the BBQ. After a long lunch break, we continued our drive west to spend the night in San Angelo, Texas.
Week 35 (Jan 19 - 25): 500 Miles
On Sunday, we finally crossed the Texas border into New Mexico. We immediately noticed far fewer oil-drilling rigs operating on New Mexico’s land, despite it being just a few miles from where we had seen tons of oil rigs in Texas. After a few hours in the car, we came across the town of Roswell, NM. You may recognize the name of this town because it is the famous crash site of an alleged UFO. With this type of history, we had to stop at the UFO Museum. It was a very silly stop, and we had lots of fun taking selfies with the alien figures.
We continued north from Roswell to our true destination, Santa Fe, NM. This was a beautiful drive through the high desert and into the mountains. We checked into our cute pueblo Airbnb just outside Santa Fe’s historic downtown and settled in for the night. Our trip happened to land on some of the coldest days of the year for Santa Fe during the polar vortex that was hitting most of the USA. But not a problem; we spent our MLK day walking around town bundled up in many layers, hats, and gloves, checking out the city’s beautiful art and historic buildings. Another fun thing about Santa Fe is that we met up with Lee & Dave, whom we stayed with earlier on the roadtrip at their home in northern Idaho. Lee & Dave were spending the winter in Santa Fe, and we all had a delicious meal together at a New Mexican restaurant - different than Mexican! It was awesome to meet up with them on the road. Hope to see you guys again soon! Overall, we really enjoyed Santa Fe and think we will be back in the future to enjoy some more New Mexican food and check off a couple more of the many museums in town.
Week 36 (Jan 26 - Feb 1): 250 Miles
After Santa Fe, we drove an hour and a half north to Taos, New Mexico, to enjoy the Land of Enchantment and get some skiing in. Taos Ski Valley was an absolute blast and kicked off the start of our ski season! After a beautiful weekend in Taos and a couple of work days in our adorable cabin, Brian had to head out to town for a work event. Grace cozied up in the cabin for a few days, waiting for fresh snow, making fires, and watching movies after work. Grace was able to get one more ski day in before driving down to Albuquerque to meet back up with Brian.
Looking down at the Rio Grande
Week 37 (Feb 1 - Feb 7): 700 Miles
While in Albuquerque, we had to do some sightseeing for one of our favorite TV shows - Breaking Bad. It was cool to see some of the filming locations from this incredible show!
From Albuquerque, we drove west out of New Mexico into northern Arizona. Our destination for the day was Monument Valley in the Navajo Nation. This was a long drive out into the desert, but it was well worth it! We stayed at an amazing hotel with an incredible view of the rock formations. We saw a beautiful sunset and sunrise with almost no one around us. Later in the afternoon, we took the Subaru off-roading to explore the area more.
After a fantastic stay in Monument Valley, we headed further north into Utah to stay in Moab.
Moab welcomed us with one of the most beautiful sunsets in Arches National Park we have ever seen (shown in the selfie at the top of this post!) It was an incredible way to end this adventure-packed weekend, and we were feeling so grateful to be able to explore the country in this way.
We tried to go to Arches National Park or nearby Canyonlands National Park every evening after work to catch the sunset, but this was not enough to fully satisfy us. Moab and the nearby National Parks have been added to the growing list of places we need to revisit in the future to spend more dedicated time.
Early Wednesday morning, we packed up the car and headed north to Salt Lake City, UT. We would be staying in SLC for five weeks straight, enjoying the many ski resorts the city has to offer! This was an exciting part of our trip because skiing in Utah was a big motivating factor in making this roadtrip happen. Every winter, we met people working remotely and spending their winter in Tahoe, CA, skiing. We wanted to do the same, but in UT! And we made it happen :) Our next blog post will have lots of skiing photos - stay tuned!
