Road trip recap, part 3

The final leg of our trip took us south into New Mexico and deep into the southwest. After Mesa Verde, we set out for Santa Fe. Driving through southern Colorado and northern New Mexico was spectacular-- beautiful rolling green hills, pine forests, and jagged rock formations. Unfortunately we rolled into Santa Fe a little later than we had hoped, so we didn't have much time to sight see there, and I didn't get any pictures. But we had a nice pasta dinner and wine at a delicious Italian trattoria in the old town, followed by a romantic stroll past some of the old churches (many built in the early 1600s!), quaint courtyards, and town square.

The next morning we headed back into the town center in search of a quick breakfast. On a whim, we ended up bypassing Starbucks and buying homemade steak and chicken fajitas grilled on the corner by a street vendor at 10:30am. We ate them on benches in the shade of the tall trees in the town square. Unexpected, but delicious. Afterward, we drove south through New Mexico and down to Roswell. We stopped for a Blizzard at the local DQ and of course we had to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center. It was in an old movie theater, and it laid out all the evidence for the famous Roswell UFO crash back in the late 1940s. Some of it was pretty convincing, some of it was definitely debatable, but it was entertaining all around. This is J observing the alien autopsy, and then the front of the museum.


Next, we drove down to the very southern part of New Mexico to stay in Carlsbad for the night. Unfortunately, I don't have many positive things to report about this town, but the fact that we felt unsafe hanging out in our hotel room that evening prompted us to go find something to do and we wound up repacking all of our belongings back into our car and seeing "The Hangover" at a drive in movie theater, which was a blast. I hadn't seen a movie at a drive-in since 1983 when I saw "Return of the Jedi" with my family as a very small child. Neither of us had seen previews (where they usually show you all the funny parts), so we laughed like crazy.

The final stop on our road trip was Carlsbad Caverns National Park the next morning. Unlike the town of Carlsbad, the caverns were really interesting and well maintained. The main "room" of the caverns is the largest single cave room in the entire western hemisphere.


An hour southeast of Carlsbad, we crossed our final state line:


We continued east on I-10 for about 6 hours and arrived in San Antonio, where we spent the night with one of my best friends from college, Anne, and recuperated over some delicious Tex Mex. The next day, we made the short trek from San Antonio into Austin. During our road trip. we saw so many beautiful, funny, and uniquely American things, but, after 8 days of driving, we were so happy to have finally arrived, and we celebrated that night with dinner at Austin's legendary BBQ establishment, The Salt Lick. We're looking forward to many more adventures ahead as we explore Austin, settle in, and meet new people.