So the story goes like this. Lace and I had tickets booked for Cuba and Colombia for 2021 Thanksgiving holiday time. Something came up and we had to cancel. Darn pandemics with their death and destruction and cancelled travel plans. However, there was also very good news from my point-of-view. Lace elected to come and spend the whole 10 days with me anyway. Those of you with grandchildren know that when any one of them chooses, over all other options, to spend time with you it’s like a super gift from the Grandma Elves (or we have really kind grandchildren).

Our plan was to take a small New Mexican road trip, finish watching the last seasons of  Killing Eve, putter, and have deep philosophical discussions…and sleep a lot and watch a movie or two.

AND for Thanksgiving dinner to make Monica’s Acoma Posole and Three Sister salad, another recipe originating with indigenous Americans.

The holiday turned out perfectly…almost better than a long trip to faraway places.

I’m going to stretch the visit out over two or three posts, the better to include more photos.

Day One of the Road Trip: In my opinion, New Mexico is near the top of any list of states offering spectacular road trip possibilities. For this jaunt, we decided on White Sands and then Roswell and a museum or two, and best of all, we’d have all those miles of two-lane roads between. We did take I-25 and I-40 in and out of Albuquerque, but that was it. My Texas road trip had re-addicted me to back roads travel.

Maps are critical to these adventures. They are how you know where you want to go, which scenic or challenging or isolated or roads to take to get there, and they give you visual check-ins of where you are in the bigger picture, whether that be country, state, county, or village limits. So that’s where the album begins:

Valley of the Fires, near Carrizozo. Where I fell in love with New Mexico. My Air Force husband had returned from an overseas assignment to be relocated to Alamogordo, New Mexico. I was not happy…however, after driving into the state in the middle of the night, I woke up as we reached Valley of the Fires where we stopped to stretch our legs and eat leftover sandwiches. I was mesmerized, never having seen anyplace quite like it. It was a big part of what ‘enchanted’ me for a long time. Still does sometimes…if only it would rain.