The way to New Mexico was a long, endless road with nothing but desert for hundreds of miles. There wasn’t much to see except sand and bushes, although the sunsets were beautiful.
My main destination was Santa Fe. But when I looked at the map, I noticed I was near Las Vegas. I had always wanted to go, and since it was right there, I figured I might as well stop in. As I got closer, I was surprised that there wasn’t more traffic. When I pulled into where my GPS said was Las Vegas, I was even more surprised. I pulled up and asked someone, “excuse me, where are the casinos and the chaos?” He looked at me and chuckled while he told me, “you’re in the wrong Las Vegas.” Apparently there are two, and I was in the small, unexciting one.
Luckily, Perry, the man who told me this, was nice enough to show me around anyway. He showed me little ponds, and a little castle they had off in the distance among the trees, which was actually a college. He showed me a hot spring too, which I had never experienced before.
The next morning the air was a cool 60°, the perfect temperature for a soak in a hot spring. A cement structure had been built to house the spring, with three separate tubs that ran down into each other. The top being the hottest, getting cooler as it went down.
The top one was so hot that my skin couldn’t bear it. I ended up going for the lowest, and coolest one. I enjoyed relaxing in the hot spring while listening to music and talking to locals.
Since the hot spring was the only thing going on in Las Vegas, I decided it was time to head to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The first few days Maggie and I were in Santa Fe, we walked around exploring. We went to various parks where we would hang out in the grass while I drew. We explored dry creek beds and tunnels that led to no where. I found random parking lots to sleep in and would go to the nearby hotels for breakfast in the mornings.
Eventually Mitchell came to join me in his bus. The two of us stayed in a cute little park that was open 24/7. It was next to a dry creek bed that we took the time to explore. I found multiple beautiful rocks along the way that were streaked with green and pink.
We had been wanting to go to an ecstatic dance, and luckily for us, we found one through Facebook right in Santa Fe. The dance took place in the back of a small store. There were surprisingly a lot of people there, probably around 30. Although this venue didn’t have the cool, colored lights like the others I had been to, the dance was a lot of fun. It had been a while since I danced, and I enjoyed moving freely around to the music.
We had been told a place called Prince Park was the best spot to watch the sunset in the city, so we had to check that out, and agreed what we had been told was definitely true. We were so high up that we could see the entire city stretched out before us, with mountains far off in the distance.
We stayed up there for a while as the sun set, watching as it turned the sky into different colored masterpieces.
The last thing we wanted to do in Santa Fe, the reason we were actually there, was to go to Meow Wolf, a psychedelic, immersive art experience where you are encouraged to explore every nook. We had been told it was a must-see by a several different people.
As we walked into the exhibit, we were greeted by a neon, underwater world. There were all sorts of different colored coral around us, taller than we were.
Then we came to a house, which was full of all sorts of cubby holes. There was a laundry room, and when we opened the dryer, it took us down a small slide lit up by swirling blue lights that led us into a little room that guided us to more adventures.
Everywhere we went we had to touch everything. Some random things worked as musical instruments, such as the bones of a large mammoth, or red lasers that shot through the air and sounded like a harp when they were touched.
Random picture frames and walls would open up to completely different worlds. The whole thing seemed never ending. Every time we thought we had seen it all, we would find a new mystery room.
At the end I treated myself to a purple-pink drink that had a cotton candy cloud on top, the perfect ending to our adventurous day.
Then we hit the road again. We were supposed to be passing through Albuquerque, but my car had different plans. As we were driving through, all the lights on my dash came on, my radio and air conditioner went out, and my car started making all sorts of weird noises. I pulled into a parking lot, and as soon as I got my car stopped, it shut off and refused to start again.
Luckily for me, Mitchell is amazing with cars. He looked at it and instantly determined the problem to be the alternator. We went to an auto parts store nearby, they happened to have one in stock, and he worked on my car into the night as I slept peacefully in the bus. I’m grateful he was there, or it could have turned into a few days, and a very expensive affair.
We decided that since my car broke down in Albuquerque, it was a sign that we should stay and see what the city had to offer. We both did Uber Eats, a food delivery service, to make a little money for the road. We worked for the day, and then as the night fell, we explored a few nearby parks.
We spent the next day at Tingley Beach, which really wasn’t much of a beach. There were three different ponds, but they were only used for fishing and bird watching. One of the ponds was filled with all sorts of different kinds of ducks and geese. People would go there and feed the birds, and they swarmed anyone with food.
The birds were nice, but not being impressed by the “beach,” we decided to walk down some nearby trails that ran through a small patch of forest. That’s when we found the river.
We hadn’t realized those paths led to the Rio Grande River. It was wide, and appeared deep, other than random spots of land that popped up here and there. But as we sat there taking in the beauty of the water, a few people walked into the river and walked all the way across. Apparently it wasn’t very deep at all. In the sections they had walked, it only went a bit over their knees.
We took off our shoes and headed into the water. We walked halfway across then decided to walk down the center of the river, going with the flow. Some sections were shallow enough was Maggie was able to easily walk through, just getting her paws wet. In some sections it did get deeper, to where she couldn’t touch. She went back and forth between walking and swimming in little bits.
At one point Maggie did stray away. She decided she was sick of the water, and headed for the shore. She made it over to the bank, but wasn’t able to make it up the incline, and there she sat. I tried to get her to come over to me, but she wouldn’t budge. I started to trudge across the river to get her, but as I did, it got deeper and deeper. I figured I might have to get my shorts wet to get my poor little stuck pup. To my surprise, as I walked it got deeper quickly, and before I knew it, I was not touching at all. I had to swim over to my pup through water that fought against me. I’m surprised Maggie got over there with how strong the current was. No wonder she didn’t want to come back! When I got over to Maggie, we were both soaking wet. I had to carry her back across the river, and trying to swim across the fast current while holding a dog who had decided she was done with the river was quite a task.
I carried Maggie over to a dry spot of land in the middle of the river. She was very happy to find a stick to play with there. I sat there basking in the sun, trying to dry off, because even though it was hot out, I was chilly from the water. Mitchell decided to lay right down in the river. It was shallow enough where he laid down that his face and the top of his body was out of the water. He told me that it felt amazing and I had to try it. I was skeptical at first, seeing how I was already cold and the only dry part of me was my hair, but I said screw it and laid in the water next to him.
It was an incredible feeling. I could feel every individual wave of icy water washing over me, feeling as if it moved through my entire body, cleansing my energy.
After lying in the water, we were both quite cold, and decided to hang out in a piece of dry land until we dried off. Eventually, the warm sun dried us, and only then did we realize we were still in the middle of the river. If we went back the way we came, which was towards the bus, we would get all wet again. I was not about that. I suggested we go forward, even though it was the exact opposite direction of the bus. Mitchell wasn’t sure it was the best idea, but I refused to turn around and get wet all over again. I had just gotten warm. So forward we marched.
We did have to walk through some ankle deep water but luckily that was the only bit of wetness until we saw a little path off to the side. We easily made it there and were back on dry land! There were a series of trails that wrapped back around to where we had started. We did have to cross the river again, just in a very shallow part. The trail was lined with trees full of blackberries that we snacked on along the way.
That night we found a little spot to park on a side road. We tried to sleep at the beach, but security pulled up and told us we had to move. He also asked if Thomas was our cat, and said how startled he was when he knocked on the bus and a cat popped out from under it.
It ended up being good that we moved, because we ended up in a cool part of town. There was a museum that had statues outdoors, and plenty of parks that we enjoyed exploring.
I really loved Albuquerque, especially once I found the river. I could definitely see myself visiting again in the future, but it was time to be off again, to Arizona, a state that has always called to me.
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