Spring Break in the Southwest

After Vegas, we made our way to the Southwest to visit Tanya's family.  We ran into a few bumps on the way down - this is the nature of travel.  Our flight was delayed from Dallas to El Paso, we arrived to El Paso at about 2AM (instead of 10PM the previous evening), it was Daylight Savings day so it was really 3AM, we only got a few hours of sleep (after a red-eye flight), our shuttle took an hour to come to the hotel (it's an 8 minute drive to the airport) which meant we were late getting our rental car, which meant we were late getting into Alamogordo.

But all that was okay, because then we got to Tanya's Aunt Josie's house and we had delicious food and we hung out with her awesome family and we tried really hard to take a group photo but in every single one someone was doing something weird.  Mostly baby Zeb was playing with Tanya's sunglasses and pulling her hair.

Being world travelers, it's easy to forget that there are some really beautiful places to see here in the U.S.  For us Alaskans, it's often as big a trip to get to these locations as anywhere else, but as travelers, we should definitely not leave them out.

Alamogordo

A small town at the base of the mountains, Alamo is a desert town.  It is cool at night, hot during the day, and brown.  Any grass is imported - most people have rock gardens.  But the mountains add some texture to the view.

Her grandparents have the coolest backyard.  The trees they have include pecan, fig, plum, pomegranate, and quince.  They also have tomatoes, edible cactus, grapes, mint, potatoes, green chiles, and I'm pretty sure other stuff.

We also went to a pistachio farm to get real good pistachio nuts.  Who knew they grew on trees?

Ruidoso

We took a half-day trip down to Ruidoso, which is totally different from Alamo.  Once we got to the other side of the mountains, there were trees and rolling hills of forests.  It was beautiful.  We of course went to the casino for a little while.  We didn't have a lot of time, so we didn't get to see much, but this is definitely a place we could spend a lot of time.

Las Cruces

We made a quick stop through Los Cruces on our way back to El Paso (to catch a flight back to Dallas) to visit Tanya's brother and family.  They were also super nice, and the kids of course are adorable.

Dallas/Austin

Once in Texas, everything just sort of flew by.  We did a LOT of stuff (and did a LOT of driving), which was pretty cool considering we really didn't have a lot of time.  We saw...

Pioneer Plaza - a large public green space in the convention center district of Dallas; includes a commemorative collection of sculptures representing Dallas's beginnings, as well as a cemetery from the early 1900s.

Baylor University in Waco (Tanya's Alma Mater) - a private school, though you probably know them for their sports

Medieval Times - a dinner show in the styles of tournaments from the medieval era; really cool horse stuff!!  (I'm an equestrian myself, so their dressage portion of the show was really exciting for me!)

Longhorn Caverns - created by water over thousands of years; used by the Comanche first, then storage, and of course for whiskey during prohibition; this is a huge cavern!  We took a tour (the only way you can go in there), but we didn't do the intense spelunking, just because that would have taken half the day, and we didn't have that time.  Also, there are some pretty tight spots in there, and I'm not sure we're ready for that.

Hamilton Pool - a nature preserve, really beautiful, lots of hiking available; swimming is available sometimes in the pool, but it's on a day by day basis, as sometimes the bacteria levels are too high for them to allow human contact.  The catch is that the parking lot is only big enough for 75 cars, so if you don't go early, you could be waiting in line, in your car.  We went early, and there weren't many people there.  We didn't stay long, though, just a little walk.

Cave Without a Name - discovered by sink hole; also used to hide whiskey during the prohibition; some animals fell to their death via sinkhole; kids snuck down with flashlights and discovered the larger parts of the cavern; if you want to go scuba diving in the dark, you might be able to get to the next cavern over, but we did not do that.  It's really beautiful in here, with lots of really interesting formations.

Sister Creek Vineyards - mostly they offer reds; their white wine is award winning, and absolutely delicious; it's definitely off the beaten path, but the self-guided tour of the winery and the reasonably priced wine-tasting line (and the friendly staff) are worth the drive; even more worth it is the Muscat Canelli Reserve and regular are even more worth it.

And of course we also visited Tanya's other Aunt Mari and her family.  They got us BBQ for dinner - yum!  Really fun hanging out with them.  I'm just really glad these people are my family.

We also went to a Joshua Radin concert, with openers Cary Brothers and Rachael Yamagata at Granada Theater, a small but really nice space (about the size of Bear Tooth, for Anchorageites).  Really great music.

It was a whirlwind of a trip with a lot of driving back and forth (especially in Texas), but seeing family and other cool stuff was totally worth it!