For spring break this year, we decided to take a driving trip to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Since our mid-March spring break is so early in the year, we were worried we would be snowed out of some activities, but ultimately there was plenty to keep us busy regardless. With an 11 hour drive either direction, we decided to break our trip into two days and stay over at Lubbock. And since we would only have to drive about 5 1/2 hours the first day, we made plans to leave on Friday right after work.

Well, it was a Woods family vacation, so of course things didn’t go as planned. Our schedule started going off the rails on Thursday already. Sean was destined for Virginia on an early morning flight so he could attend a meeting and then fly home that night. Alas, his first flight was delayed by over four hours, so he’d have to stay overnight and wouldn’t be home till Friday afternoon.

We packed in a flurry once he got home with kids dancing around and Sean fielding a call from work. After a return home to pick up something we had forgotten, we finally started our 5 1/2 hour drive to Lubbock at about 7:30p.

After a largely uneventful drive, we rolled into our hotel around 1:00 in the morning. The kids had just started stirring as we were arriving, having enjoyed a nice 3-hour-long sleep in the car. We waited and waited for Sean to get us checked in. Ian started to grumble. At long last, Sean came out to let us know the bad news – our reservation had been canceled, and the hotel was fully booked. We tried two other hotels in close proximity, but they were full as well. Sean finally gave up and called the reservation line for our original booking and they were able to place us at another of their properties a few miles away.

All of that took us about an hour, and by then, the kids were AWAKE! For my part, I was so tired, I think I fell asleep while they were still bickering and shrieking in their bed. (By the way, they talk about how much fun they have sharing a bed when we stay in a hotel, but they fight the whole time. I swear they even fight in their sleep. This is not my favorite arrangement.)

After a serviceable hotel breakfast where both kids insisted on having freshly made, Texas-shaped waffles, though neither kid actually ate them, we started on the rest of our journey to Albuquerque.

Poor Sean was shot. He had had five hours of sleep or less for three or four nights running, and I could see his eyes hanging at half-mast as he tried to slog along the flat west-Texas highways. I wound up driving more than is typical for us.

We arrived at Albuquerque a bit later than we intended, so our first stop was at our AirBNB to drop off our stuff and get a look at the place. The kids had a shared room, but they each had their own twin bed, so it was the perfect set-up for them. They could help each other feel safe, but wouldn’t have to fight over mattress real estate.

After that, we took them over to the nearby Tiguex park, so that they could burn off some energy after having been trapped in the car for so long. The playgrounds there were pretty neat, and Maya and Ian both seemed to be especially fond of this one slide where they glided over rollers that jostled and wiggled them as they slid down.

When they seemed to be winding down, we tried to squeeze in a visit to the American International Rattlesnake Museum. The variety of snakes on display was amazing, and they seemed to be healthy and well-cared-for, as far as I could tell. I found it completely fascinating, but I may have been alone. Maya was quite taken with a big tortoise she had found hiding in a corner. She patted his shell and gently touched his feet. After that though, it was a nearly non-stop onslaught of “when will we leave” and “can we buy X piece of fakey junk.” The latter in particular drove me nuts. Is it all small kids that fall into raw acquisition mode when visiting a tourist attraction? There was even a point where one of the snakes was actually agitated enough to be rattling his tail at us, and we tried to show the kids while also encouraging them to back away and let the poor creature calm down. I’m not sure it made a dent. Maya would actually *pretend* to be interested in a snake, presumably to mollify me, look me right in the eye, and then ask if *now* she could go buy something from the gift shop. I feel so manipulated! We left with only their certificates of bravery and temporary tattoos the museum folks gave them as a reward for this alleged bravery. (Bravery, ha! Try stunning indifference.)

We had been seeing lots of art in the medians and in front of various buildings as we were driving around Albuquerque. Many of the overpasses were even painted. Maya was eating it up. She proclaimed once as we were driving to dinner, “New Mexico is too beautiful for Texas!” The couple of Albuquerque folks we floated this past seemed surprised to hear it.

Maya had started reading in earnest maybe a month or so before this trip, so she was into reading everything as we were wandering around. She was teaching Ian how to say Albuquerque properly. “No Ian, look, it’s Q-U. You say AlbuQWERky.” She thought she was hilarious, and of course it was called Albu-quirky for the rest of the trip.

Dinner that night was at a place called 66 Diner. Ian could have chicken fingers. Maya could have a cheese burger. Mom and Dad could try out some of the famous green chile cheese burgers. They pull no punches with their chiles around there, and we loved it! The burgers were simple, but delicious. Maya said she loved the food so much, she wanted to come back to New Mexico again just to eat here. (It’s too bad this trend didn’t continue through our whole trip.)

After a stop by a local Wal-Mart for a few supplies and a stop by Jubilation Liquor for some local beers, we all went home and found ourselves quickly to sleep.

The next day, we had a quick cereal breakfast at the apartment, let the kids play for a while (the AirBNB had a box of toys! I love that!), and then headed to our first stop of the day – the Bristol Doughnut Company. Seeking out interesting doughnuts has become sort of a loose Woods family vacation tradition, and we had a really good run this trip.

Bristol Doughnut Company is housed in a double-decker bus, and after we bought our doughnuts and some milk, we headed up to the upper deck. My prickly pear doughnut featured a technicolor purple icing atop a rich yeast doughnut, but Sean had chosen the best: a brown butter masterpiece that was so rich, I’m not sure I could have eaten the whole thing in one sitting.

We had planned to hit Explora, the local children’s museum, that morning but it didn’t open till noon, so we headed out to Petroglyph National Monument instead.

We stopped in at the visitors’ center to pick up a map and let the kids use the bathroom. After having to forcibly extract our two little consumers from the gift shop, we drove out to Boca Negra Canyon, the most accessible hiking spot. There were three short hikes and without any planning, we took the hardest one first: Mesa Point. The hike up wasn’t overly strenuous, but the weather was bonkers. It was 50 degrees outside, which to use central Texans sounds kinda cold. We were in our long sleeve sweaters with jackets besides. Even ditching the jackets, it wasn’t long before we were sweating. Sean said it was the best 50 degrees he’s ever felt.

The hike was neat. Soft volcanic stone had blackened over time, and then prehistoric people carved away the black to make pictures of people, scenes, and other items that can only be guessed at. Once the kids got into finding the petroglyphs, Maya especially had a lot of fun. Ian, being Ian, was happiest if he was moving.

At the top of Mesa Point though, Ian had his moment. He was looking out over Albuquerque, and he pulled me down so that he could whisper in my ear. He told me he had seen in one of his videos that if you were on the highest point, you could yell out, and there would be an echo. I asked him if he wanted to try it out. He seemed hesitant, so I let him know that it was okay if he did it. He called out with that clear, sweet voice of his and … we heard his echo! It worked! We had to move Maya around a bit, but we eventually got her echo to work as well. Eventually, thinking it might be nice to let our fellow hikers enjoy some peace and quiet, we stopped the kids from hollering from the mountain top, and at that point, the kids lost interest and we began our descent.

After agreeing to let Maya buy some random pink binoculars as long as she agreed that it was worth spending her own allowance money, we made our purchases at the gift shop, stopped to pet a few random dogs outside, and then headed into town for lunch.

We ate at a place called The Dog House, where you order at the window, and then they cart the food out to your car. One poor lady was handling a very full parking lot. The kids were hungry and jonesing hard for food. Maya inexplicably ordered a burger, but Ian was all in on the hot dog. I had a mustard dog and some tots, but again, Sean won. He ordered a chili cheese dog. That thing was fierce! This wasn’t some shitty canned chili dumped on a hot dog and lathered in enough cheese that you maybe wouldn’t notice. No sirree. This chili had spice and oh my was it delicious. I think Sean may have suffered for it though.

After that, we took the kids over to Explora for big fun at the children’s museum. It started off well enough. The kids made airplanes and Maya especially seemed to enjoy trying to use different shaped parachutes to see which was most functional. We built outdoor structures with blue foam blocks. We played with bubbles and had lots of fun.

And then we wandered past the gift shop. We had been explaining to Maya that souvenirs are meant to remind you of the place you had visited. Then it was on; justification mode, engaged! She launched into a long and obliquely reasoned lecture about how her pink binoculars from earlier were relevant. This time, she found a little blue and white toy jet in the gift shop that had not a single thing to do with our trip. For Pete’s sake, we hadn’t even flown to get to New Mexico! Sean tried to help her understand that this was just a random toy and that she should hold out for something more of the area. She wouldn’t budge. And so she learned a lesson about delayed gratification. There were tears. There was a 6-year-old tantrum in the gift shop.

We questioned the wisdom of doing so, but we carried on and headed out to the Sandia Skyway Tram. We figured we were in trouble when Maya asked if she could have her ipad to pass the time on the 15-minute ride up the mountain (we said no). Once we got on the tram though, the kids were transfixed.

Ian was wary at first, but if anything, in this his older sister is a positive influence on her brother. She was so excited, we had to keep her from pressing her face against the glass. Once Ian saw how Maya was brave and safe, he joined her right down by the window, face inches from the glass, watching the rocks and conifers and occasional patches of snow pass beneath.

Once at the top, we wandered outside and our two little Texans got to play in the snow! They made a game out of finding the unspoiled patches of snow so they could stomp fresh footprints. While I was watching the kids stomp, Sean wandered a bit further out to see what photo-worthy scenes he could find. This couple who we had been in our tram as we rode up the mountain had gone out beyond the safety fence. As Sean moseyed up to assess the view, the lady handed Sean her phone and asked him to snap of photo of the two of them … while behind her, the man had pulled out a tiny box and was getting down on one knee. Sean had unwittingly become an engagement photographer! We found out later that the woman had no idea; she had just wanted a nice photo.

We spent more than a few cycles keeping Maya from skidding hundreds of feet down a defunct ski slope, but otherwise the views were beautiful, the kids enjoyed their time in the snow, and we even accidented into timing our descent with sunset.

We gamely went on to Sadie’s for a rather late dinner (at least for a family with two small children.) Sean and I had the most lovely green and red sauced carne adovada and enchiladas. Ian had a ground beef taco. And Maya, poor Maya, who used to be our adventurous eater, had the first of several ill-advised cheeseburgers.

As I recall, she plowed through this one, but it was through sheer force of will. Evidently, we kept taking her to places that used cheddar instead of American cheese on their burgers. Maya was not impressed and the issue would rear it’s unfortunate head again later in the trip.

We also learned that our kids do not like sopaipillas. They are fluffy pillows of deep-fried goodness. Sean and I enjoyed ours dabbed with some honey. Our kids had leftover Pringles in the car on our way back to the rental apartment. Sigh. And at long last, to bed, to bed, where everyone had some much needed rest.

We had been running the kids pretty hard, so we hung out at the apartment and let them play for a while after breakfast. Then it was off to our next doughnut destination: Rebel Donut. Sean and I were now convinced that New Mexico could do no wrong in the application of chili flavors to things, so Sean had a red chile chocolate bacon donut, and I had an apple green chile fritter. Both, to my tastes, were mild on the chile, but they were delicious.

Once we were nicely loaded with sugary dough, we headed over to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History. While there, a friendly staff paleontologist did his level best to check in with the kids periodically and attempt to keep them engaged. The dinosaur displays here were pretty neat and wide-ranging. The kids also really enjoyed the outer space part of the museum. The solar system model was fun, but the big draw was the Mars Rover whose camera they could control so that it focused on them.

We attempted to drive to this giant rattlesnake sculpture I had found as a kind of weird roadside attraction, but alas, it was blocked off and we weren’t able to get more than a glimpse of it.

After a late lunch at Frontier, one of those institutions with long hours and affordable food, we launched out on the Turquoise Trail route up to Santa Fe. The drive took 90 minutes instead of the hour the interstate route would have taken, but the scenery was gorgeous. As we headed north, snowy, blue-gray peaks became visible behind the warm-tone stone landscape we’d become used to over the past couple days. If Ian hadn’t been asleep, I believe we might have stopped in Madrid. It’s a small city along the route that appeared to have a kitschy charm that was possibly not contrived.

We got to our AirBNB house in late afternoon. Ian was completely in love with the place. There was neat decorative tile work in the bathroom. The kitchen table and chairs were painted in a flower motif. There was artwork on the walls and a harp and drum hanging around the living room for the kids to play with a bit. I was annoyed because I had messed up and booked a place with no washer and dryer. Plus, it was a historic home, which meant it had lots of character. In this case, it wound up having just a little too much, but more on that in a bit.

We had dinner at a restaurant called La Choza. To start with, even though Santa Fe apparently has a ton of restaurants for a city its size, it also had a ton of visitors. Everywhere we checked was packed. We wound up waiting I think close to an hour to eat, which is always good with the kids. By then, we weren’t far off from closing time, so the woman waiting on us was … terse. The food was good enough, except Maya’s cheeseburger again had cheddar cheese on it. She refused to eat it. Sean refused to let her order food and not eat it. It’s like when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force … it was a long night. We left with Maya having filled up on milk and french fries and having given up on having doughnuts at the next morning’s stop.

That night, after we got everyone to sleep after all the dinner drama, and Sean and I finally got to relax a bit, we noticed that the shower was dripping. But it was more than a little drip-drip-drip. It was more like a trickle. And *some* of us are borderline insomniacs who have a hard time sleeping during the best of times. I was ready to murder that shower.

The next morning, we bathed under that infernal ever-dripping shower. We had a brief first breakfast, making sure Maya had a good helping, and once we were all cleaned up and ready to go, we headed to Whoo’s Donuts. These were probably the most interesting doughnuts of our trip. I had a blue-corn and lavender one which wound up having a fritter-like texture. Sean had a couple, but the one I’m remembering right now was a white chocolate and pistachio number that was incredible.

Then we were off to visit Meow Wolf. Meow Wolf is a giant experimental art installation housed in a converted bowling alley. We were pleased to find that the kids were allowed to touch things with gentle hands and that the experience would be appropriate for them. We were meant to follow this interesting story line to enhance our experience, but after a few rooms of the kids having to wait on us to read things and cipher through clues, we realized we weren’t going to be able to see it through to the end. After a certain point, it became a game of “wooo, look at that cool art! Shit, where did our kids go?! Oh good, there they are” times a thousand.

The place was incredible. The kids were hooked before we even went into the building because there were giant sculptures in the parking lot. Once they found out they were allowed to touch, it was on. We climbed through a refrigerator to an alternate dimension, we played mastodon bones as if they were a giant xylophone, we wandered through a glow-in-the-dark aquarium lorded over by a giant octopus hanging from the ceiling. There was a roving cast of characters that would talk to us occasionally, to the kids’ delight. We never got to find out what happened to Lex and his immortal pet hamster Nimsesku, but we had an amazing experience.

We spent a really, really long time at Meow Wolf, so much so that it was probably unforgivably late when we finally fed our children. It was so late, that at least Sean and I weren’t planning on having another meal. We had heard from multiple sources that Horsemen’s Haven was the place to go. Sean and I enjoyed our food, but Maya and Ian barely ate.

We went to the Railyard development to let the kids play in the park for a while afterward. It was a little cold and rainy, and poor Maya started her park visit off by trying to jump over a large stone bench and doing an epic face-plant that would have been funny had we not been so worried. After that though, the kids played for a while. We are going to have to get Ian into some sort of rock climbing gym. That little dude was scrambling up piles of boulders faster than I could actually notice him doing so. I shouldn’t have worried though; he’s as cautious as he is sure-footed.

After playing at the park for a while, against our better judgement, we gave in and let the kids have McDonald’s for dinner. And then we decided to relax and stay in for the evening. Well, the rest of them relaxed. Because I had screwed up and rented a place with no washer and dryer, and because I didn’t want to sit around a coin laundry for hours waiting, I used the bathtub to hand-wash the few items we’d need to make it to the end of our trip.

It’s a good thing we all got some rest that night because the next day, we went hiking. We made sure the kids were fed before we left the house, but then we messed around long enough that Sean and I didn’t want to take the time to fix ourselves breakfast and eat it. Instead, we made another trip to Whoo’s. The grown-ups ate pastries en route, and we tucked the kids’ doughnuts away to have as a treat after lunch.

I had plans to go hiking in the slot canyon trail at the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. Too bad for us, there was epic snowfall this year and the trail was not yet open. We had kind of already given up when a week before our trip something called a bomb cyclone had dumped even more snow on the area, so we switched to our fallback plan, which turned out to be pretty great.

We went instead to Bandelier National Monument. The main loop trail is 1.2 miles long. Along this hike, we would get to climb ladders up into human-made caves in the stone called cavates. The hike was beautiful, and as much as I could pay attention, informative. The kids really did like climbing ladders to get into the cavates, but they also really loved taking photos with their little Instax cameras. We stopped SO OFTEN to take photos that it was becoming a bit of a punchline.

Partway through the hike, we had to make the decision whether we would like to take the spur trail to visit Alcove House. This added a half mile each direction to our hike, but we weren’t too worried about that; the kids had covered that distance before. The element of danger for this hike was the 140 vertical feet we would need to ascend, largely in the form of very long ladders. I helped Maya, who is quite capable of climbing those ladders, so long as someone’s there reminding her to focus. Sean helped Ian. Ian also did a very good job, but he’s a little shorter and would have a bit of trouble exiting the ladder on ascent and getting started on the ladder on the way back down. Sean effectively wound up climbing every ladder twice, because on the descent, which is a lot more harrowing with small children, Sean would climb down and set his camera bag and whatnot at the bottom of the ladder, then climb back up to help Ian down. Also, Sean is not entirely comfortable with heights. But we did it! We conquered the big, scary ladders and were rewarded with a neat view of the valley from the top and of course, the interior of the alcove house itself.

By the time we got to the end of our hike, all of us were ravenous. We tried to just eat at the restaurant there at the park, but they were out of chicken fingers and they didn’t serve American cheese on their cheeseburgers. I don’t even recognize us anymore.

Sean and I had noticed a place on the way out to the park called Fig and Pig. The name sounded promising, so we tried that instead. I don’t remember the particulars at this point, but everyone found something on the menu that they enjoyed eating, and we left satiated and content.

We largely spent the evening cleaning up and packing our things for the return trip the next day and also planning a brief jaunt into Santa Fe itself.

This next day, the kids were kind of pouty that we were leaving New Mexico so soon. They had their last meal at the fancy AirBNB house while we loaded up the car.

After finding parking at the plaza area in Santa Fe, we walked a whole block before we realized it was really COLD and was going to be a long walk to our first destination. Instead, we loaded back up in the car for the drive to the Kakawa Chocolate House. As we were walking into the shop, we noticed a few intermittent flakes of snow landing on the kids’ coats.

Kakawa’s focus is on producing historic drinking chocolates. They offered Mayan and Aztec type unsweetened chocolate as well as more traditional European mixtures. And the fine folks behind the counter offer you sample after sample until you find something you truly enjoy. Sean and Ian landed on the Tzul, a warm-spiced, very creamy chocolate. Maya went for the Americano. I’m trying not to judge; she was happy with it. I had the rose-almond, which is unsweetened. The rose and almond were there, but so was a heavy dose of chili – such an interesting flavor combination in my little cup of hot chocolate.

We returned to a now nearly-full parking lot. And then we hadn’t walked very far at all before it started to rain, so we made an emergency stop at a candy store because who doesn’t need MORE SUGAR.

Once the rain had more or less cleared up, we took the kids to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. They had a great scavenger hunt for the kids to fill out as they went through the museum. Maya filled out her sheet in its entirety, even choosing her favorite painting when she was done. Ian sort of filled his out too, though he was understandably less interested.

By the end, they were both pretty antsy so we went walking. We walked quickly past the Palace of the Governors and the vendors who had set up shop outside the building to sell their hand-crafted goods. I would have been interested in examining some of the wares, but the kids were toooooooo busy to stop.

We had a nice lunch at The Shed, where Ian became convinced that Sean said he could have a dog and Maya spilled part of her soda. At least the food was good! Then we had a quick stop by the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi to admire the architecture and the complete sense of peace (even the kids managed to stay calm and quiet and generally respectful). And then we had an even quicker stop by the Loretto Chapel to see the amazing spiral staircase. This staircase completes two full 360-degree turns, but has no center pole for support. Sean and the kids worked in stops for a few quick photos on the way back to the car, where we managed to make it mere minutes before our time there was to expire. We’d have gotten a ticket too – those vultures were circling.

We then drove the 5-ish hours to our hotel in Lubbock. Maya and Ian both said goodbye to New Mexico as we crossed the border into Texas. Our hotel stay this time was thankfully unremarkable. We slept well. We ate a good-enough breakfast. The kids had a swim in the pool. We loaded up the car and drove back to Austin.

This trip was what we had wished our West Texas trip had been. Yeah, there was a lot of driving. And yes, there were some tantrums here and there, usually by the kids. But, once we got into the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area, nothing we wanted to see was really all that far away. The places we stayed were generally comfortable. The people we met were friendly. We had a good variety of experiences without overdoing it. I’m calling this one a success.