Land of Enchantment

Tuesday, June 26^th

We drove north and crossed the border into New Mexico.  Our first stop of the day was Carlsbad Caverns.  This place was in the middle of nowhere…but absolutely amazing.  

After purchasing tickets we started our descent into the cavern.  We hiked down approximately 80 stories.  

We signed up for a Ranger guided tour of King’s Palace which is off limits for other visitors.  We heard about parties and weddings that were held in some of these rooms.  We also learned all about the history of the cave and all about its discovery.  

After our tour of King’s Palace we went on a self guided tour of the Big Room.  Parts of the Big Room reminded Seth of Goblin’s Valley.  The Big Room is the largest cave room that has been discovered.  Approximately 6.2 football fields would fit into the space of the Big Room.  

After visiting the Big Room we caught the elevator back up to the visitors center.  Then we drove on to Roswell.  Seth had been dying to go to the UFO Museum.  We learned all about the UFO that supposedly crashed in Roswell and about the subsequent government cover-up.  

We continued on our drive up north.  We had planned to visit the Very Large Array…which is a very large array of satellites featured in many movies...but were a little tired from the day, and our GPS decided to quit on us so we headed up to Albuquerque.  When we pulled into town we made a stop at Standard Diner another Triple D find.  I ordered the Bourbon Butter Burger and had absolutely no regrets.  What I thought was a large slice of cheese was apparently the butter with other ingredients mixed in…best burger I have had by far.  Seth also ordered a burger and we shared a cherry chocolate shake.  If my eyes look tired in this picture...it is because they were...darned allergies.  

After dinner we continued to my cousin Rachelle’s.   We were able to chat for a little while with Rachelle and her husband Doug before Rachelle set us for the night at her parent’s condo just five minutes from her house.


Wednesday, June 27

We headed over to Rachelle’s in time for a delicious breakfast of Biscuits, gravy and sausage balls.  We spent the rest of the day playing games with Rachelle, Doug and their children Carter, Anna, Ella and Brynna.  We played Qwirkle cubes, Aquire, Puerto Rico, Dutch Blitz and many more.   Rachelle and Doug hosted me many times during my first year at BYU and being with them brought back many of those memories.  Rachelle fed us great food all day…but my favorite was the chocolate cake we had for dessert.  I think it may have been Ella’s favorite as well.

Thursday, June 28^th

Before heading out of town we stopped at Rachelle’s again where she fed us her Dad’s delicious waffles.  I once made her apple pancakes with homemade apple sauce and she had tweaked the recipe a little to make a white grape sauce…I may have to steal that tweak.  It was hard to say goodbye to my sweet cousin.  I hope it is not two years before we meet again.

Our next stop was Chaco Culture Center.  I hadn’t heard of this National Park before and was pleasantly surprised.  We had to drive 16 miles on a dirt road to get there…but it was definitely worth the trip.  

We got to see some hieroglyphs and lots of ruins.  I can’t imagine how the people that lived her survived.

We saw many kiva's or circular rooms which were used for spiritual ceremonies and meetings by the ancient Pueblo people.

We filled up our camelback before heading out for a hike…but the water tasted really bad.  At first I thought maybe they had treated their water with tablets…then I thought maybe the tablets I had used on our backpacking trip had stained my camelback.   We mixed in some Gatorade but still got occasional tastes of yuckiness.   We eventually discovered that Seth’s gun oil had leaked all over the camelback.  We hope we have the situation fixed now.  We did hike up to the top of the mesa so we could get a better view of the ruins and valley.

Chaco canyon took slightly longer than we anticipated and we knew we wouldn’t be able to get everything done we had planned for the day.  So we decided to stay another night in the Southwest and we decided to add another stop...the Aztec Ruins.

We were able to walk through these ruins which really brought them to life for us.

Walking through took quite a bit of work...we had to hunch over quite a bit but it it was well worth it.