The Land of Enchantment

13 min readOct 23, 2017

We sat down and went through a list of the places we wanted to visit. It ranged anywhere from Iceland to Alaska. Eventually, we decided that we spend so much time traveling overseas that sometimes we forget to enjoy our own country. With that, we decided to take a 8-day road trip through New Mexico, the “Land of Enchantment”.

Rather than spend 2 days driving to and from a starting point (which was either Lubbock or El Paso, Texas), we decided to fly into El Paso and rent a car to maximize the vacation time we had.

Day One

We landed around 3pm. We picked up our rental car and immediately went to visit with Anthony’s family (his cousins, aunts, and uncles on his father’s side live there) and I finally had the infamous Chico’s Tacos. Verdict: it looked kinda weird but it tasted pretty good.

Day Two

After having our rental car the first day, the most basic Jeep Patriot, we decided to take it back to the airport and switch it out for something more comfortable and less rickety. Coincidentally, they gave us a Hyundai Santa Fe.

We took off towards Albuquerque around noon and decided to take the scenic route, which took us on the Lake Valley Scenic Byway. We drove through Hatch, NM, where we stopped for the best green chile burger we’ve ever had, a couple of ghost towns, and around the base of the Black Range mountains.

We checked into Hotel Parq Central in Albuquerque around 9pm and it wasn’t too much later until we encountered something weird and unexplainable.

This excerpt is from a Facebook post I made:

An hour ago, we checked into a beautiful hotel suite in Albuquerque after a long 6-hour scenic drive and we were excited to settle in. We walked around the room and I noticed a middle drawer on a dresser in the bedroom open, so, naturally, I close it (or at least I thought I did). We walk around admiring the bathrooms and living area, and I walk back in to the bedroom and saw the drawer open again. So, again, I closed it. For sure this time. Anthony takes a phone call, walks out of the room, I look up, the drawer is still closed, I look back down to post an Instagram photo, I look back up, the same drawer is open again.
Ten seconds later, Anthony tells me he just found out that the hotel we’re staying at was recently renovated and used to be a children’s hospital and asylum in 1926.

Long story short, we abandoned the hotel and booked a room at the most vanilla hotel we could find nearby, the Wyndham. We wanted to make sure we could get a good night’s rest so that we could wake up at 4am to catch the shuttle for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Balloon Fiesta; I only knew that it was the most photographed event in the world. The experience was amazing and indescribable. Imagine being surrounded by 600 balloons, all taking off into the sky one by one, and hearing all of the burners going off — it was surreal. We were so lucky that our trip coincided with the event dates.

After the balloon fiesta, we visited Spurline Supply Co, had lunch with a friend, and then headed off towards Santa Fe.

We arrived in Santa Fe that afternoon and decided to walk around the plaza and found our way to the Gruet Winery tasting room. Following that, we went to dinner at a really cute place called Radish & Rye.

Day Three

We spent the entire day exploring Santa Fe and saw things like Loretto Chapel and San Miguel Mission.

Once we were done on foot, we went out to Santa Fe Brewing before heading over to Meow Wolf, which is probably best described as an immersive, hands-on, psychedelic fun house. It was ridiculously cool. I won’t be able to explain it so you’ll just have to eventually go there and see it for yourself.

After having our senses blown at Meow Wolf, we met up with a friend for dinner at Tune-Up Cafe and drinks at Santa Fe Spirits.

Day Four

We checked out of Hotel Santa Fe and went to eat at The Shed, another highly recommended restaurant. There were a couple of key dishes that our server recommended, which was described as New Mexican cuisine: carne adovada and “Christmas” enchiladas, which means getting both the red and green chile sauces. Note: it’s pretty spicy.

Our next reservation was at Ten Thousand Waves, which is a Japanese-style onsen and spa in the mountains above Santa Fe. Since our check-in wasn’t until 3, we decided to take a detour to Pecos National Park.

When we arrived at Ten Thousand Waves, I immediately felt relaxed. We were shown to our room, which was this little zen cottage behind a bamboo gate hidden amongst trees and bushes, and they had this music playing in the background that pretty much melted the stress away. I bet the playlist was called “Evening Meditation”, or something like that.

First things first: we suited up and hit up the sauna. The property was immaculate and after a few hours, I forgot that we were even in Santa Fe — it felt like we were transported to Japan. At 5:55pm, a soft voice over the PA system called our names because our massage appointments were approaching.

We had a really nice dinner after the massage at an izakaya (Japanese gastropub) on property called izanami.

Once we returned from dinner, we called the spa because we wanted to see if they had any availability for a private bath the next morning. At Ten Thousand Waves, you have the ability to rent out a private area for yourself that no one else has access to. Score! They had one availability!

Day Five

We woke up, had breakfast, and got ready for our private bath. It was AMAZING. Anthony and I had the whole place to ourselves for 55 minutes. The private area had it’s own dry sauna, cold plunge pool, and hot spring bath. It was 55 minutes of heaven.

Onwards to Taos!

We drove The High Road to Taos, which is another scenic byway that connects Taos to Santa Fe, and stopped at a couple of places on the way, such as the historic Santuario de Chimayó.

We stayed in Taos for only a night because there was just so much we wanted to explore. We checked into El Pueblo Lodge and then went out to get a feel of the small town. Everything closed at 6pm so we weren’t able to do much besides walk around the plaza. Afterwards, right before sunset, we drove out to the gorge and barely made it before the sun went down.

After freaking out on the bridge because of the height, we stopped at Taos Mesa Brewing Mother Ship on the way back into town after the gorge where we took a breather and searched for places to eat. We found an awesome restaurant located in a small town called Arroyo Seco outside of Taos called ACEQ. It was a top contender for the best meal we had on the trip.

Day Six

Since we didn’t make it to Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO world heritage site, the day before (it closed at 4:30pm), we woke up early and drove over there to check it out. It’s crazy to think that some of the buildings have been standing for 1,000 years. Some of them are still inhabited and they have to be maintained twice a year. All of the homes are passed down generation through generation. We stopped in at a little jewelry store and chatted with the guy that owned it. He talked about how he learned jewelry making from his great grandfather. Each piece he was selling had a number and each number corresponded with a line on a list naming who in his family made it, when it was made, what materials it is made from, and where those materials were sourced. So rad.

We zipped through the guided tour, quickly walked around the pueblo, and then headed to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks.

Tent Rocks is yet another awesome national park with formations created by volcanic eruptions that occurred 6 to 7 million years ago. We hiked a 3.1 mile trail through the slot canyons and up the side of a cliff with an elevation gain of about 700 feet. The reward: a beautiful 360° view of the neighboring mountain ranges.

The sun started going down and the park was closing so we hiked back down and drove towards Santa Fe to stay the night at a family-owned historic BnB called Pueblo Bonita Inn.

That night, we went to pick up sandwiches at Whole Foods in anticipation of our all-day excursion to Chaco Canyon the following day and then grabbed dinner at Fire and Hops.

Day Seven

We woke up bright and early, had breakfast at the BnB, and started our 4-hour drive into Chaco Canyon. It was a beautiful drive through remote interstates but when we got into the canyon area, the roads got really rough. We did do our research ahead of time and knew that the last stretch of road was on a reservation and were not maintained until you reached the park so we were pretty thankful for the car switch. We’re still not sure how a passenger car can get down that road.

We spent the entire day exploring the ruins of the ancestral pueblos and a tour guide told us stories of how life used to be during that time. Bearing that knowledge, Anthony and I broke off to explore on our own.

We were crawling through the doorways of Pueblo Bonita when I spotted a curved, flat, white shard on the ground and dug it out of the sand. Once I flipped it over, it had a black pattern painted on it and I immediately knew I stumbled across an old pottery artifact that was probably a thousand years old. It’s surreal to be touching something that you can only view through glass at a museum. Once I showed Anthony, we placed it back to where I found it even though I wanted so badly to put it in my pocket. We had watched a video beforehand about how sacred all of the fragments are to relatives because it’s a personal connection to their ancestors.

After more exploring, we knew we had to beat the sunset out of the park because of how rough the roads were coming in.

That night, we were supposed to stay at Abiquiú Inn, which is the small town that the famous Georgia O’Keefe home is in, but there were limited dining options in town and it was approaching closing time. We decided to make a last minute decision to cancel our reservation and drive straight through to Albuquerque. Food first!

Day Eight

White Sands was one of the things I was looking forward to the most and it was the last thing on our list. The drive from Albuquerque took us almost 4 hours and we made it to White Sands at high noon.

It was everything I thought it would be and more.

We spent the afternoon frolicking in the white sand until we saw the thunderstorm rolling in and decided to pack up our shoes and head back to our starting point: El Paso.

Our last meal of the trip was dinner at La Morena with most of the family Anthony has in El Paso. It was such an awesome end to a wonderful road trip vacation.

Everything about the trip was wonderful (besides the haunt-y part) and I really can see why they call it the Land of Enchantment. There was so much to see and do with what felt like little time. We wanted to go through Ruidoso, Roswell, and Carlsbad Caverns and also drive along Route 66, but we’ll have to save that for another trip.

In the meantime, here’s a video:

Places To Visit

These are all of the awesome places we visited during our trip to New Mexico, plus some places that were on our list that we didn’t have time to check out: