Road Trip: New Mexico and Colorado

I just got back from a trip to visit Shannon (we decided to meet in Albuquerque), and we had a great trip!  We rented a Jeep and headed to the mountains.

We drove from Albuquerque to Colorado, with no particular plans, stopping along the way when we saw something interesting.  Green chile stew, snow skiing, cliff dwellings, wolves, mountains, missiles and movie motels:  all part of this trip!

(Now I am one of those guys who can go to a friend/relative's house to watch their vacation picture slideshow/videos and not get bored; I am also one of those guys who knows that not everyone can sit through that type of torture.  With that being said, I'll include the gallery of pictures that we took and let you decide if you would like to go through them!)

We started in the "Old Town" section of Albuquerque, having a late lunch at Monroe's on Lomas Boulevard, with green-chile-smothered enchiladas and Miguel Stew, then we headed north toward Colorado, taking backroads along the way.  We ended up in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and settled in for the night at the High Country Lodge (which was really great!).

Most of the next day was spent on the slopes at Wolf Creek Ski Area, and then we headed into Pagosa Springs to soak in the hot springs there.  The springs smelled worse than a ice hockey locker room, but a constant 100 degrees (when it was 30 degrees out) was nice.

The next day we hit the road again, and we came across this sight:

It's a motel with two drive-in movie screens, viewable from your room!  How cool is that?!? They only show movies in the spring/summer months, but a great concept, none-the-less.

We made it to Colorado Springs that night, had a great dinner at a German restaurant, then stayed at a Bed and Breakfast, owned by a really nice couple (Tom and Sheri) (and the 'breakfast' part consisted of blue corn blueberry pancakes with fresh fruit, hash browns, and chicken and smoked red pepper breakfast sausages... yum!).

The next day, we took our time and rolled back towards Albuquerque, stopping near Santa Fe for the night (we stayed at a casino, and I actually did pretty good at the blackjack table!).

A trip to the top of Sandia Mountain (with a visit to the Sandia Cave and to the National Musaum of Nuclear Science and History) made our trip complete, and after a dinner of sushi and a visit to Barnes and Noble, we were ready to turn in for the night, anticipating an early morning, heavy-hearted flight back home.

Vacations are great, until you have to come back home, right?