Road trip to New Mexico

The New Year has finally arrived! I can’t believe December has already come and gone! While my family was off from being and school/work, we decided to take a last minute road trip to New Mexico before everything closed for Christmas, initially to see the snow, but we decided to squeeze in every activity we could in 48 hours. It’s amazing the things you can do in two days.

First of all, traveling in West Texas makes you feel like you’ve entered No Man’s Land. Other than the occasional areas with hills and mountains, there’s nothing but brown and dead plants. Oh, and you can’t forget about the cacti. *rolls eyes*

The geography slowly merges into New Mexico sharing its monotonous features.

New Mexico is just on the border of Texas and Arizona. So after about 6 hours, we arrived at the Carlsbad Caverns and spent about 3 hours underground. It’s a mind-boggling idea, but the caverns were absolutely beautiful! The Sonora Caverns have nothing on them.

Thank goodness for the lanterns that lit the stalactites and stalagmites or else it’d be pitch black in those caves! Of course, the pictures cannot do it justice but the sights were amazing. Makes you wonder what else we haven’t seen that could be right under our feet!

We decided to call it a day on that Saturday and headed to El Paso to spend the night there. We were able to see an amazing sunset upon arriving. It was absolutely gorgeous watching the sunset over the city and between the mountains.

The next morning we headed straight to the snow in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. We were hoping the snow wouldn’t melt by the time we arrived so that we could spend a little tie snow tubing. We did this a couple years back, and it was more fun than skiing in our opinion. The best part is that it’s free. All you have to do is rent a tube for $5 and find a nice hill with plenty of snow.

After that, we attempted to make a snowman and failed. Miserably. It’s amazing how much less you can feel the cold when you’re in the snow. Currently, it’s just as cold in my hometown minus the snow, but it is absolutely unbearable.

Next stop was the White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo. We stopped in Cloudcroft for some lunch and I found a wonderful used bookshop nearby called Imaginary Books. I couldn’t stay long because my food was almost out (which by the way, I ordered trout with a side of homemade mashed potatoes and peas — all gluten-free). But I was able to buy “The Secret History” By Donna Tartt, which I had been searching for at a reasonable price. I’ve started reading it already and I love it.

After lunch, we stopped by this scenery and took a few pictures.

When we arrived at the White Sands, there were literal piles and piles of sand in the middle of nowhere. Who would think there would be sand in the middle of New Mexico?? Normally sand is associated with water and warmth and, well, a beach…

This sand looked like snow from far away. But it was just very very cold sand.

We stayed until sunset. It was scary thinking about getting lost amongst all that sand, though. It’s actually very easy to do. But thankfully we made our way back and headed back to El Paso so we could head back home the next morning.