Nicole is driving so I’m writing this on my phone. Expect typos aplenty. Also, if you’re following along, I’m posting these a day late so this post is for Thursday the 27th. Only three days in to the honeymoon and time is starting to get a little weird. It feels like we’ve been on the road for a week now but I’m pretty sure it’s only been three days. We’re in mountain time now which only adds to the effect.
The first leg of today’s trip was from Balmorhea up to Carlsbad, New Mexico. If you’ve ever driven the Texas panhandle, you know what it looked like: Flat, featureless, unpopulated, and very, very quiet. We bypassed the caverns looking and went straight in to town in time for lunch. Mi Casita had the right look, so we popped in from since excellent green chile enchiladas and queso. This was a very old school joint, with those school plates that make you think of elementary school. Very satisfying.
From Carlsbad, we headed out on 82 toward Alamogordo by way of Cloudcroft. This is a drive I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s a gradual climb up the east slope as the cacti gradually give way to evergreens. Before you know it, you’re 8,600 feet above sea level in Cloudcroft. The descent into Alamogordo, on the other hand, is anything but gentle. It’s a step drop through crags and canyons, sloughing of four thousand feet in fifteen miles. If yesterday reminded me of the Scottish highlands, this was coming down West slope of the rockies.
Alamogordo was the biggest city we’d been so far, but out essentially shut down at six except for the Starbucks ( which was inside the Albertson’s), so we decided just get a place to stay and grab a bite.
Word to the wise: Avoid the Satellite Inn in Alamogordo.
We thought it’s be fun to stay at a small local motel. We were mistaken. the Satellite is the reason why the boring hotel chains were able to take over. Dirty, smelly, and skeevy, with no charm to make up for it. We made a very easy call to abandon it and hit up the clean, pleasant, dull Day’s Inn.
While the lodging was nothing special, dinner was spectacular. We hit up Rockin BK’s Burgers because the Yelp photos looked so good. The pictures not lie. I had double burger with bacon and green chile and it was as good I’d imagined. The beef patty (formerly “thing party” because autocorrect) had good char on and the bacon was crispy and fresh, let’s talk about those chiles. They were freshly roasted and flavorful in way you can’t get most of time
Oh and did I mention green chile cheese fries?
Tomorrow, it’s of to White Sands, the world’s largest pistachio, and the the West Texas town of El Paso.
-RK