Previous Posts In This Series: Planning, Driving West
As mentioned in the previous posts, we scheduled a road trip to New Mexico around the lunar eclipse. It would be practice for us in being digital nomads again, since we have been grounded from travel and homebound for over a year. Our youngest tagged along and got to be a digital nomad along with us, since she secured a virtual summer internship with a company based in Los Angeles and would be closer in time zone to her employer.
We planned for just over two weeks in New Mexico – arriving late Thursday to Albuquerque and staying 10 days through Sat morning of the following week. Then Santa Fe for four days and Taos for three days. This post focuses on our time in Albuquerque, and the next one will focus on Santa Fe and Taos.
In summary, we LOVED our stay in New Mexico and already know we’ll be back. Certain things we really wanted to see, like Taos Pueblo (and frybread!) were still closed for pandemic precautions. We also want to bring our oldest daughter here because the hiking is so good, and I really put a damper on everyone else’s ability to enjoy that. I’m the one that gets passed on both sides by new moms carrying babies, groups of toddlers, and senior citizens…
Even without the hiking, we still had an amazing time.
Staying Near Old Town
We rented an AirBNB for the week, and were very lucky to be within walking distance to Old Town. The house itself was pueblo-style, and was built by the grandfather of the current owner! One amazing thing about the house is that we didn’t have to use air conditioning or heating the whole week, even though highs every day were in the upper 80’s to early 90’s, and as cold as 50 degrees at night. The house was large enough for all of us, with 3 bedrooms and a great little outdoor patio in the back – we had plenty of space to work. The full kitchen allowed us to take some of our meals in the house, so we didn’t have to eat out every single meal.
The residential neighborhood itself was really nice, with diverse and distinct homes, some with beautiful flowers in full bloom:
The location was perfect because we could easily walk to Old Town, which had lots to see:
Saw Mill Market is a new modern complex with a small vendor space on the weekends but also a wide variety of food stalls open all week. There is lots of seating, and we returned multiple times.
We also returned multiple times to shop Old Town. I picked up some note cards by Native American teens, New Mexican food items like green chile pistachio nuts, local jams and Frybread cosmetics (not made of frybread, just cosmetics made by a frybread cook!).
We also enjoyed Albuquerque Museum’s free outdoor sculpture garden, just outside the museum:
Also in Old Town, and less than a five minute walk from where we were staying, is San Felipe de Neri, New Mexico’s oldest church dating back to the 1700’s. It was a lovely church, and they had a welcoming service. It was our first in-person mass in over a year.
Outdoor activities galore
Just down the block from our AirBNB was a flamenco school that presents live performances in an outdoor space on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but I was voted down in favor of attending an Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game. It was a lovely night for baseball – though the promised fireworks show was cancelled due to high winds. New Mexico is generally pretty strict about social distancing and wearing masks, but not at this game — it was packed. It was a high-scoring game, lasting about 4 hours, and the Isotopes won!
While we had to pay to get into the Isotopes game, ($20 per ticket – way cheaper than going to watch Scott’s favorite team, the New York Mets) with the exception of paying a few dollars to park at Sandia Peak and the Rio Grande Nature Center, the rest of the outdoor activities listed below were all completely free!
We checked out the Petroglyph National Monument. The monument consists of three different areas, each with giant mounds of volcanic rocks deposited over 100,000 years ago. Some of the rocks have designs and symbols carved into them by Native Americans between 400 and 700 years ago. We went to the Piedras Marcadas Canyon section, parking in the lot of a playground that is adjacent to the monument site. That section has a 1 mile official paved path with several viewing of sections of rocks with lots of carvings. We walked much of that path, and also explored some of the off-path areas, climbing some of the small hills.
Scott uncovered the Pueblo Montano Chainsaw Sculpture Garden, a small but fascinating outdoor exhibit of various status carved by a firefighter from trees burned in a forest fire.
We also visited the Rio Grande Nature Center and walked an easy trail, with some views of the Rio Grande river.
Additional walking opportunities were uncovered when we scouted viewing points for the lunar eclipse. We visited Supper Rock, a small neighborhood and park, which featured tons of Scott’s favorite plant – the prickly pear.
We returned a couple of times to City View park, a residential neighborhood park with picnic tables, a walking loop, basketball courts, small playground and an adorable baby (with mom of course) on the same walking schedule as us. (Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the cute baby!)
The Albuquerque Rose Garden boasts 1,200 roses and was in full bloom when we visited. It completely surrounds the grounds of one of the public libraries in town.
Scott and our youngest visited an area outside of town with the dormant volcanoes that deposited the rocks to the Petroglyph. A short half mile walk from the parking lot takes you to a viewpoint with sweeping views of Albuquerque. They continued walking some of the paths, and climbed up to the top of one of the volcanos. The volcano area is about a 30 minute drive west of town.
Scott solo hiked along Sandia Peak, which you can access by a 2.7-mile tram ride or a drive to the top and then hike along the top of the mountain. The tram was $29 per person, each way, and was running on limited capacity, so we opted to drive. I enjoyed the views from the lookout points, and Scott returned on his own to do the hike. The peak is just over 10,000 feet above sea level (and 5,000 feet above Albuquerque), and the drive to the top (Sandia Crest) from downtown Albuquerque is just under an hour.
Scott also went running solo and captured playful photos, including the one at the top of this post, of the many hot air balloons that take off in Albuquerque (home of the largest hot air balloon conference in October).
Detour to White Sands National Park
No, these aren’t snow drifts. White Sands National Park is the world’s largest gypsum dune field, 275 square miles of desert that is visible from outer space. It took over 3 hours to drive each way from Albuquerque, but we squeezed this into our final full day because I had seen a picture of the glistening sand and wanted to see it firsthand.
Kids (and adults) rented colorful blue and red sledding disks from the Visitors Center and careened down the dunes. Scott stomped around. I walked a mild slope. There are multiple walking paths, and one section has a boardwalk with educational signage if you are unable or uninterested in walking on the actual gypsum crystals. The museum was closed due to Covid, but there was enough to do just with the dunes. It would have been fun to stay and see the sunset among the dunes, but we had a long drive back.
One of New Mexico’s crops is pistachios. On the way back, we stopped at Pistachio Land for some souvenirs and a picture of the giant pistachio:
New Mexico is a foodie capital, but we stuck with comfort food
We ate:
- brisket and sausage at Powdrell’s BBQ
- Mexican food at Little Anita’s in Old Town (apparently this restaurant introduced the breakfast burrito to the US) and Monica’s El Porto
- contemporary at the Saw Mill Market
- diner food at 66 Diner
- college food at Frontier on the University of New Mexico campus
- and even Chinese food at Chopstix ABQ
These places were all fun, but our favorite find in Albuquerque was Tia B’s La Waffleria:
You can choose from 5 types of waffle batter: blue corn, biscuit, buttermilk, coconut and yellow corn. I ordered the Blue Lavender – blue corn waffle with blueberry sauce, fresh blueberries and lavender whipped cream. Yes, you can taste the lavender, and yes, I bought blue corn meal so I can try to replicate this at home.
We are also always on the lookout for good donuts places, and Albuquerque did not disappoint. We discovered Amy’s Donuts, and it was so good we went there two times. The varieties were endless, as you can see in the photo below, and best part was that they fill their rounds and long johns right there in front of you, so they are fresh. Scott got a buttercream filled maple round, our youngest got one filled with strawberry, and I had a Bavarian cream-filled long john.
You don’t need a million dollars to enjoy yourself in New Mexico. Once you get there and pay for housing, many outdoor activities are free. Also, booking an AirBNB with a kitchen can save you money on food costs, not having to go out to eat every meal.
Activity-wise, our biggest expense were tickets to the Isotopes baseball game ($60 for the tickets, plus $16 for food at the game), and White Sands National Forest, which charged $25 per car.
So far, we’ve been able to balance work and play. Since most of my clients are on Eastern Time, and we’re on Mountain Time, I work in the early morning, taking calls as early as 6a. But then I’m typically done by mid-morning.
Next stop: Santa Fe and Taos for another week of work and vacation!
We are Scott and Caroline, 50-somethings who spent the first 20+ years of our adult lives in New York City, working traditional careers and raising 2 kids. We left full-time work in our mid-40’s for location-independent, part-time consulting projects and real estate investing, in order to create a more flexible and travel-centric lifestyle. 
Financial independence and early retirement is not something we originally focused on, but over time realized it was possible. Our free report, 
