March 5-8 were spent in Albuquerque, which is the only place to which I've ever traveled and thought "I could totally live here." The photo below is from Old Town, which is basically where you go to give Albuquerque all of your money.
On March 6, I ventured up to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, where I hiked through the very aptly named Slot Canyon. These were some pretty spectacular rock formations.
On March 7th, a friend and I went to Petroglyphs National Monument which is a 1-mile hike along rocks decorated with ancient petroglyphs and more modern graffiti art. Our hatred of vandals intensified throughout the walk. Specifically, some guy named Tom.
Later that day, we went to the aquarium in Albuquerque, which was perfectly lovely but had nothing on the parking lot of said aquarium. For the parking lot contained a road runner! And he ran right at me! He didn't catch me, though, for he is neither as large as he appears on TV nor a coyote.
I woke up in the slightly wee hours of March 8 to drive to Arizona where there was, shockingly enough, snow. Maybe an inch. Enough to leave semis and cars strewn about the ditches in its wake. In any case, I made my way to Petrified Forest National Park, which includes a goodly portion of the Painted Desert and is very scenic. This park was largely a driving park; there are only a few short hiking trails and a lot of the petrified wood has been stolen/vandalized. The top photo is of the Painted Desert with a bit of snow, and the bottom photo shows a petrified log sitting atop the rocks.
On March 9th, I was able to make a photo tour at Tonto National Monument, which features two sets of ye olde cliff dwellings. The upper cliff dwellings (where we hiked to) are only available by guided tour. Thanks again, vandals. Once again, the views were spectacular and made it entirely worth the long slog to the top. It was especially refreshing to be on a tour where I could take as much time as I wanted to set up and take photos.
I stayed in Tucson that night, which was very close to my next stop on March 10: Saguaro National Park, which is very fun to say. Here I took a guided tour about desert life in the saguaro forest. It was really interesting and I saw this really befuddled saguaro below:
I drove to Las Cruces for the night and saw this in my rearview mirror, so had to stop to take a photo of it.
March 11th was all about the White Sand. I went to the missile range first and then on to White Sands National Monument, where I plopped down on a nice, cool dune and stared out at the other dunes for close to an hour. Very soothing and beautiful and all that. I was able to be on the dunes for sunset that night, which I highly recommend!
I spent the night in El Paso, which was the first time I've ever been in Texas. I wasn't there for too long, though. I had to get up to drive in the morning before the sun even rose. It was a beautiful sunrise, though!
The reason for my early rising was that I had a 10:00 tour at Slaughter Canyon, which is a part of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. There was a 45-minute hike to the canyon entrance, so I had to leave plenty of time for that. the hike was pretty brutal. It was a 500-ft elevation gain over half a mile. The cave was not the greatest one I've been in. The floor was very slippery and there was a lot of evidence of guano mining, which is not a good thing. The features all had black goo on them from motorized equipment being used there, despite regulations not allowing it. Still, the columns below were pretty impressive (I included people for scale).
After Slaughter Canyon, I went back into Texas to see Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I only did a couple hours of hiking here. It's definitely more geared toward all-day and multi-day hiking. It looks like a beautiful place to be if you have more time.
After Guadalupe, I went back into New Mexico to the main cave at Carlsbad, which at that time was only accessible by elevator (the natural entrance closes after a certain hour to ensure that there's time to exit before the park closes). I descended 750 ft into the Big Room, which was pretty impressive, but it was a lot more touristy than the other caves I've been to. There was a paved path all the way around and the cave was lit. There were certainly some interesting formations, but I may have been caved out by this time. :^)
I stayed in Roswell that night (no UFO sightings), and then headed back up to Albuquerque for my last day. On the last night, Lael and I took the tram to the top of Sandia Peak to catch the sunset. The sunset was okay, but the view was still fabulous. This is Albuquerque from the top of the tram:
This vacation was completely exhausting, but I would do it all again!
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