The Land of Enchantment

Is it ever! This is the most beautiful state. Our drive today took us from Tucumcari to Santa Rosa to Santa Fe to Albuquerque, then finally to Gallup. We covered a lot of ground. In Santa Rosa was our first side trip. The Blue Hole is just that...a 60 feet across by 80 feet deep hole filled with crystal clear, blue water. They had a whole park built around it with a fun looking slide and diving boards. A favorite spot for scuba divers, you can see so far down, I'll bet that would be awesome to see what's all the way down there. There was a playground for Matthew to stretch his legs in too, so we had fun there for a bit. Then it was on to Santa Fe. The drive there was breath taking. Matt and I have never seen anything like the terrain out here. We are at about 7000 feet elevation, and the cliffs and plateaus and mountains are so so cool. We took a million pictures, but they don't even come close to doing justice to how beautiful it is.

We stopped for our second side trip at the Pecos National Historical Park. Here we saw ancient Pueblo ruins...wow. We hiked about a mile and a half up and around the ruins. Yes, Matthew was right there with us loving every minute. There were informational markers so you could get an idea of how the residences were laid out, and the churches and businesses. This pueblo was home to 2000 people when it was built.

Santa Fe was awesome! Such a cool city, the buildings look nothing like our buildings out East. They are all low to the ground and stucco, pueblo looking. Really really neat. Santa Fe seemed to be very natural and environment minded. Everything was organic, or natural in the restaurants. We ate at this really cool place called Cowgirl Bar and Grill. The food was great and we were sitting in a "kiddie corral", so there was a play ground again for Matthew to play in. We could have spent a week in Santa Fe, and have decided to vacation here one day.

But on to Albuquerque. The drive was more of the same, yet so different. Everywhere we looked was something we had never seen before. Albuquerque was another cool city. Much bigger than Santa Fe and more cityish feeling. But pretty none the less. We crossed the Rio Grande and with that left the plaines behind us and began our climb to the Colorado plateau. There were plenty of cool things to see between Albuquerque and Gallup, but we were just ready to get to the hotel. Unfortunately we think we passed up some cool stuff...but we've just vowed to come back again someday. We did pull off to check out the continental divide...pretty cool.

We were going to explore Gallup tonight, it has the most "dazzling display of neon" on the old Route 66, so we wanted to see it at night. However, little Matt had other plans. Poor thing is so sick of being strapped to the chair. We decided to pass up a cool restaurant for dinner, and opt for something in the room. Matt is out right now probably grabbing a pizza. We'll be sure to check out Gallup tomorrow before we head North.

Tomorrow we are going to the Four Corners! I'm excited for that one. AZ, CO, UT, and NM all at once. Ending up in Holbrook, AZ for the night.