Driving across Arizona into New Mexico

I took all of Monday and Tuesday (October 18-19, 2010) as holidays, as we needed to cover about 1500 miles over those two days. I figured Kim would appreciate a bit of help with the driving.

I particularly enjoy driving across New Mexico and Arizona. One of the reasons we decided to drive east first on this trip was that the east coast was mostly unexplored by Kim and I (by vehicle, at least). On the other hand, we've been on numerous road trips and ski trips throughout the southwest.

We got a little bit behind on this last part of the trip, having lost a few days on the front end of the trip with the gall bladder ordeal, and a few days more recently with my surprise trip to Taipei and the extended stay in Portland for business reasons. This put a small cramp in the end of the trip, as I did have a hard finish date, with a flight out of Austin on Sunday, October 24, 2010. Better get a move on...

As clear as the sky was in the early part of the day, as we headed south in Arizona, the sky did darken and we drove through a few scattered showers.

'Scattered' is the key word. They came, and went. A few hours later, we had a picnic under some gorgeous skies.

This being the end of the trip, we have quite a bit of food and snacks left over at this point. I was absolutely insistent on trying to finish the food we had (despite Kim's protests to eat at a restaurant). We didn't have much along the lines of real "meals". No matter, I was quite interested in being imaginative and inventing some new delicacies.

Here I am eating peanut butter and fruit snacks, on a tortilla. Yum. Sounds like something you'd pay $120 for at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan.

Kim "enjoyed" a tortilla slathered in a pesto spread with a soft cheese and some fried veggie crisps for texture. That's $110 at the same NYC yuppie avant-garde restaurant.

Shortly thereafter, we drove through the lovely town of Alpine, NM, where we unloaded a stash of postcards that we've somehow been carrying for way too long. Sorry guys.

Here, the aspen trees were magnificently welcoming the autumn with an eye-popping display of yellows and golds.

There were literally mountainsides covered in such golden aspens. Wow.

An hour or so later, the moon was rising in the east over the hillside.

And some huge clouds were rolling over those same hills, now in the distance.

A bit further into the evening, we pulled over for an explosive sunset..

That looked more like a nuclear explosion...

Or perhaps a volcanic eruption...

Thankfully, it was neither. Just a big bright, beautiful sunset.

Yeah, I'm sure you're wondering, "Huh? Applebee's?" Well, funny you should ask.

Kim's teaching coworkers gave us a gift card to Applebee's at the end of the school year, which we brought with us all the way from Austin, over 14,000 miles ago. We've passed innumerable Applebee's over the past 120+ days. But every single time, we've either just eaten, or have plans, or in a hurry, or just forgot, or a million other excuses. When we were mailing the postcards a bit earlier in the day, we made the commitment to eat at a damn Applebee's BEFORE this trip is over and we're back in Austin. So we asked the GPS to find us the nearest Applebee's between here and Irving, TX (our next real stop). Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Answer: Las Cruces, NM approximately 112 miles from here, only slightly out of the way. Done. We're there :-) And as a matter of fact, we really enjoyed it! Neither Kim nor I had been to an Applebee's in probably 12 years (or since high school). I got to watch Monday Night Football and the Rangers/Yankees game simultaneously. Not bad!

:-Dustin