The Great American Road Trip: New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma

On July 28, we crossed from Arizona into New Mexico, headed for Albuquerque. We had a dinner of traditional New Mexican food at Monroe's, including a chicken Indian taco (which is served on fry bread), a sopapilla with Carne Adovada (aka pork marinated in red chile sauce), and a cheese enchilada on a blue corn tortilla. Everything was delicious, and the Indian taco was big enough to feed probably two more people.

We got churros for dessert and then spent the night in an Airbnb: a casita with our own courtyard, which was very nice! It also had a washer and dryer, which we were most excited about, as we were living out of carry-on suitcases and hadn't done laundry since Utah.

In the morning, we had breakfast at a fancy food court (my weakness, if you've read my blog before) called the Sawmill Market, then explored Old Town Albuquerque. Our favorite store was the Old Town Emporium, which had more beautiful textiles for sale than we could count. We both had to restrain ourselves from buying out the store. I had no expectations for Albuquerque, but I found Old Town to be really lovely.

Sawmill Market, a fancy food court where we had breakfast

Old Town Plaza in Albuquerque

San Felipe de Neri Church, founded in 1706

We then made the short trek up to Santa Fe, which was only about an hour away. We found parking downtown near Santa Fe Plaza and just explored for most of the afternoon or hung out in the plaza. It was a really nice, relaxing day.

In Santa Fe Plaza

Downtown Santa Fe

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

New Mexico capitol building

Obsessed with the adobe everywhere

I also ate one of the famous Frito Pies from the Santa Fe Five and Dime, which was chili, cheese, and sour cream served in a bag of mini Fritos with a fork. It was just as delicious as it sounds.

Later in the afternoon we went to the Georgia O'Keefe museum, which is small but lovely. I would definitely recommend it if you find yourself in Santa Fe.

Georgia O'Keefe museum

Two of her paintings

We had a dinner reservation that night for El Farol, a nice tapas restaurant right on famous Canyon Road, which is lined with art galleries. But I got a text in the afternoon that the restaurant had to close due to several staff members being exposed to Covid. So it was a scramble to find a different place, because nearly everything around us was either authentic New Mexican food (like what we had the night before) or really fancy stuff, like $30 bowls of pasta or steakhouses. We ended up settling on the Coyote Cafe Rooftop Cantina, which was delicious and had a ton of atmosphere (and it was affordable!).

We splurged on a really nice adobe casita Airbnb in Santa Fe, and it was so pretty and comfortable!

Coyote Cafe Rooftop Cantina

Hanging chiles like this are everywhere in New Mexico; these were hanging directly next to our dinner table.

We relaxed in our Airbnb for the evening and slept in the next morning. We swung by Dunkin' on our way out of town before making the 4-hour drive to White Sands National Park.

When I started planning this trip, I started with the car rental. As I was going through the itinerary and making other reservations one by one, I realized I added an extra day to our car rental by accident. We hadn't booked our airfare yet, so I asked Julia if she wanted me to change the drop off date for the car rental or if I should just add a day to our itinerary. She unsurprisingly chose the latter, so that's how we ended up going to White Sands. We had to get back to Kansas City to drop off the car and to catch our flight home, and if you look at a map, you would see that we went completely out of our way; White Sands is directly south of Santa Fe, but our final destination was northeast. All of that said, visiting White Sands was my suggestion, and I'm so glad we made the effort to go there.

White Sands National Park is so named because "great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert, creating the world's largest gypsum dunefield," according to the national park's website. It's not a huge national park but it's absolutely worth the trip, if only for how unique it is. We got to the park in the mid-afternoon, slathered on sunscreen (the sun reflects off the white sand and can cause sunburn x 2), and ventured out onto a boardwalk among the dunes.

White Sands National Park

On the boardwalk

We stayed in the park for a couple of hours, then went to get checked in at our KOA campground cabin in nearby Alamogordo (since we returned our beloved tent in Sedona). The stretch of US route 70 that connects the park to Alamogordo passes directly through the White Sands Missile Range, a military testing area operated by the US Army. Occasionally the road is shut down if a missile test is being run (and we thought it was a little crazy that civilians are usually allowed in that area), but we got very lucky that they didn't do any tests the day we were there. We got checked in just as a sudden rainstorm blew through, which we waited out in our cabin, before we had an early dinner of our on-the-road provisions; at this point so late in the trip, we were down to soup and a variety of individual serving potato chips. I know it sounds silly but I was glad the camp office had a microwave because I hate to waste things. After dinner, we decided to go back over to the park to catch the sunset. Our gourmet dinner of soup and chips was unfortunately not enough for Julia, so she ended up stopping for some fast food on the way, and I got an ice cream, so clearly it was a dinner of champions. We almost didn't go back to the park that evening, because it was a 20 minute drive just to the gate and we were kind of run down from so many weeks of travel, but we were both so happy we did because the sunset there was one of the best we saw on our whole trip.

The photos don't do this justice because it really was a stunning sunset

The white sand doesn't retain any heat, so we could walk around barefoot without getting burned. It was also the softest sand I've ever felt!

In the morning, we set off again. We were spending the night in Amarillo, TX, but we were swinging by the Mexican Canyon Trestle and Roswell, NM on the way there.

The Mexican Canyon Trestle is a railroad bridge just outside of Cloudcroft, NM that's on the US National Register of Historic Places. Cloudcroft has an illustrious history as a vacation destination due to its high elevation and therefore mild summers compared to the rest of an otherwise arid region. The Mexican Canyon Trestle used to be a bridge on the El Paso and Northeastern Railway, which connected Alamogordo and Cloudcroft by train, until cars drove the railroad out of business in 1947.

Mexican Canyon Trestle

To me, this honestly looks more suited to a rollercoaster, not a full-sized train crossing a gorge. I can't imagine taking this route but it looks like a thrill!

We then stopped in Roswell, NM, famous for the Roswell UFO Incident of 1947. According to its Wikipedia page, "on July 8, 1947, Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that they had recovered a 'flying disc.' The Army quickly retracted the statement and said instead that the crashed object was a conventional weather balloon." Naturally, the panicky retraction cemented in people's minds that the flying disc was alien-related, and Roswell leans so hard into that story that I absolutely loved visiting. I'm all about enthusiasm, and Roswell loves that alien story so much that they have a flying saucer McDonald's, the International UFO Museum and Research Center, and aliens all over town, among other things. It was such a hoot to explore for an hour.

Roswell flying saucer McDonald's (with aliens chilling out front on the right)

RALF, aka Roswell Alien Life Form

International UFO Museum and Research Center

Seriously just laughed for the entire time we were here. I LOVE the enthusiasm in Roswell

We then continued on to Amarillo, which is the largest city in the Texas Panhandle (though I think "chimney" is a more apt word to describe it). All day, the temperature had been climbing, and at the same time, we were descending. The Mexican Canyon Trestle's elevation is 8,450 feet, while Amarillo's is 3,605, and when we got there at 5pm and it was over 90 degrees, we could really feel the difference. We stopped at Cadillac Ranch on our way into town, which is a monument of painted Cadillacs stuck into the ground head first.

Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas

Since Cadillac Ranch is a little tourist attraction, they had food trucks and also a stand selling spray paint so you could make your mark on these masterpieces. But honestly, it was so hot and dry that we decided not to linger, and hurried back to the car and the air conditioning.

Julia had asked to visit Amarillo, and when we got there, I asked if there was a reason she wanted to visit. There's nothing wrong with Amarillo, by any means, but its heyday of being a tourist destination on route 66 has long past. Turns out Julia didn't have a reason for visiting, so other than visiting Cadillac Ranch and taking a drive through downtown on historic route 66, there wasn't much for us to do.

Historic Route 66, aka the Main Street of America, was one of the original highways in the US Highway System. It connected Chicago with Santa Monica, California, running through countless cities and towns along the way—including Amarillo.

Amarillo Airbnb

Our Airbnb in Amarillo was really nice though, and after keeping so busy, it was nice to have a quiet evening in the Airbnb. I had boxed mac and cheese for dinner (I really felt strongly about not wasting the stuff we bought, in case that wasn't obvious) while Julia got takeout for dinner. She had brisket in Amarillo that she says was some of the best she ever had.

We took it easy again in the morning but were on our way to Oklahoma City before the afternoon, which was another four hour drive. My friend went to Oklahoma State University, so I asked her if she had any recommendations for us. She suggested we check out Braums, which she described as a local chain "fast food/grocery store/ice cream place," and recommended a burger and milkshake. We were totally sold on that and found one on the way to Oklahoma City, where we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch.

Our first stop in the city was the Oklahoma City National Memorial, which honors the victims and survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. The Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people and injured nearly 700 others, remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the US.

The Memorial Fence, where visitors can leave mementos

The Reflecting Pool, on what was once Fifth Street, and the Field of Empty Chairs, which are 168 empty chairs that represent the victims of the attack

There is also an onsite museum, which I'm sure is excellent, but we decided to stay outside. We spent awhile at the memorial though, reading everything and taking it all in. So much thought and effort was put into each aspect and section of the memorial; we were both really moved by it, and I would absolutely recommend a visit if you find yourself in Oklahoma City.

On our way to our Airbnb, we swung by to see the Oklahoma State Capitol (which marks my 21st, in case anyone was wondering. Seeing all 50 capitols is less important to me than all 50 states but if we're nearby, we both figure why not?).

Oklahoma State Capitol

We relaxed in our Airbnb for a little while before venturing back out for dinner. My friend had recommended checking out the Bricktown neighborhood of the city, and I wanted to try Oklahoma-style barbecue, so we found the best of both worlds at Earl's Rib Palace in Bricktown.

Julia and I both love barbecue, and we have been fortunate to try nearly all the famous regional kinds of barbecue in the US, which have different styles of sauces or cuts of meat depending on where you go. Texas is the real famous barbecue from that area of the US, most of which bleeds into Oklahoma; however, Oklahoma barbecue has one staple that sets it apart: smoked bologna. We were both game to try it, so we both ordered combo platters at Earl's Rib Palace that included bologna. I enjoyed it, while Julia thought it was just okay; Carolina barbecue still holds my heart.

On Monday, August 2, we had a few stops to make before we drove the last leg of our road trip. On our way out of town, we stopped at a Goodwill to donate the stuff we bought at the beginning of the trip in Kansas (primarily at the Dollar Tree) that we didn't want to bring home with us. I also left a few things in our Airbnb that I hoped our hosts could use, like Clorox wipes and dish soap, rather than throw them out. We also stopped at a post office in Oklahoma City and mailed a large box of souvenirs back home, since neither of us had any extra space in our carry-ons (and even though it was a large box, it was still less than a checked bag. Airline fees are such a rip off!). We then drove the last six-hour leg of the trip, from Oklahoma City to the Hertz in Gladstone, MO where we initially picked up our car exactly four weeks earlier. We then took an Uber to our hotel for the evening, a Hilton right near the Kansas City airport. I put in the wrong Hilton at the airport and we had to take a shuttle to a different airport Hilton, as apparently there are two, so thankfully we kept things interesting right up to the very end.

We got room service for dinner that night and went to bed early, then took the airport shuttle from the hotel to make our 6:25am flight to Detroit. When we boarded our next flight to Allentown, I texted my parents to let them know we were going to leave on time, only to find out once we boarded that there was an issue with one of the engines, which delayed our takeoff. Then, when we landed at the Allentown airport (which is tiny), there we no open gates for us to disembark, so my dad ended up hanging out in the airport for more than an hour waiting for us. Thankfully, he was very gracious about the wait, and we were just happy to finally get off the plane!

Finally home on August 3

We made the hour trip home from the airport on August 3. We had spent 32 days on the road, visited 16 National Parks and 13 states, and covered 7,777 miles. It was truly the trip of a lifetime, and we were so lucky to have been able to do it!