After Louie’s graduation, we wanted to take a road trip. For various reasons, we haven’t had a good Rocky Mountain road trip in a few summers, so we were really looking forward to it!

I originally started planning this road trip for last summer, but when Louie got invited to attend the Oslo conference, we nixed the plans. So I said, let’s do it this summer instead, and replanned the whole thing, with a few minor changes. It was originally a two week trip, and then Louie got invited to do a conference in Vail, so we added that on, to make just about 3 weeks of travel.

But then I hurt my knee, and I was worried about hiking and such, but it didn’t seem like a reason not to go, so we went!

Day 1: We set out from St Louis in the morning. We had plans to stay in a small town in Oklahoma, Boise City, that night, so we had about 11 hours of driving to cover. We stopped for lunch in Olathe, Kansas, and just kept driving. I have to confess, I must have been putting the pedal to the metal a bit much at one point in western Kansas, and we got pulled over. It was in the middle of nowhere and the roads were straight and flat, and I had gotten carried away, I guess. The cop asked where we were going, and this was a tough question to answer as we were going everywhere! We said we were going to Boise City, Idaho first, and then I maybe said Las Vegas, New Mexico and the cop seemed to think we were complete idiots. Which at this point we really were. Lucky for me, he had had a roommate at the academy with the last name of Frey and seemed content to give me a warning, so I set the cruise control for the speed limit and we continued on our way.

We got into Boise City quite late, and grabbed Subway sandwiches for dinner at a nearby gas station.

Day 2: We had breakfast at the Farmhouse Cafe in Boise City, which was barely labeled as a restaurant, but google maps showed it to be one. It was busy enough, filled with cowboys carrying actual guns on their belts and a man who used the ladies’ room in front of me–I was about to go and then he went. He claimed it was because the mens’ room was out of order (which Louie was confused by as he had already used it) and the whole thing made me think about all the reasons we use one restroom or the other and WHO CARES as long as people can use the bathroom, which is a thing that everybody has to do, and yet here we were surrounded by people who thought the whole thing was a joke and yet they wanted to use bathrooms that didn’t match their gender identity. GAH. Anyway, I had thought it would be fun to say we had spent the night in Oklahoma as neither of us could recall having done so before, and perhaps that was enough for a lifetime?

Our next stop was Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico. We enjoyed driving to the top of the Volcano and hiking around a bit. My knee didn’t hurt too much with some walking, but I didn’t take the second hike with Louie and rested instead.

We saw there was another NPS site nearby so we went to Fort Union National Monument after that. It was interesting as well, but the best part was seeing a whole bunch of pronghorn (sometimes called American Antelope) on the drive.

After that it was time to get to Las Vegas, New Mexico, sometimes called Little Las Vegas. No, it’s nothing like the other Vegas. But Louie has a friend, Mario, who lives there and we met him for dinner and stayed in a lovely AirBNB in the downtown area. We had dinner at the Castenada Hotel Restaurant. I enjoyed seeing that the Hotel was a former Harvey Girls Hotel, right by the train station, if you are a fan of the podcast The History Chicks, you might have heard that episode.

Day 3: We got breakfast in the downtown Plaza area of Las Vegas, at a small place called El Rialto. We were both eager to try New Mexican food, and enjoyed green chile sauce on our meals.

We then drove to Santa Fe to meet Louie’s friend again for lunch at a place called Cafecito, which was very good and was located on Shoofly Street. After lunch we said goodbye to Mario, and then walked around the square at Santa Fe for awhile until the weather became too rainy/scary looking and we thought it was a good time to drive instead.

After an hour or two, we headed to our next destination: a yurt in White Rock, outside of Bandelier. We checked into the yurt and got situated, then we had dinner at the Pig and Fig, a local restaurant, and took a drive up to White Rock Overlook.

That seems like a good place to stop today, so I’ll pick up with Day 4 and more White Rock next. I’m sure you are thrilled I fit 3 days in one blog post, aren’t you?