Shout Out to New Mexico

If you know me personally then you know that my husband’s job takes him all around this great country of ours.  He has seen some of the coolest places and he’s also been to some hole in the walls that no one has ever heard of.   Because it’s a job that takes him away from home we were blessed last year to buy a camper that would make it a little more familiar and affordable for him when he had to be out for long stints of time.  I am thankful that I get to travel to his destinations whenever circumstances permit me to.   We have seen some amazing places in the last four years and the adventures we’ve experienced have been unforgettable…definitely memory makers.

In my opinion it doesn’t matter where you go you can find something “unique” and “interesting” about whatever town, state, or country you go to.  Whenever my husband goes to a new place you can bet that I’m online googling things to do and see in that particular city.  He’s been to some SMALL towns, which we live in a small town, but even in those little, bitty, off-the-beaten-path whistle stops you can still find charm and character if you look hard enough.  Although the places we’ve visited are not our home, they’re still home to someone.

New Mexico was an unexpected surprise for me.  I wasn’t really sure WHAT to expect while I was driving sixteen hours to get to my destination.   I drove across Oklahoma, Texas, and half way through New Mexico before I turned south at Albuquerque and headed towards Los Lunas and Belen.  That was the first round.  The second trek I made took me even farther south to Elephant Butte and then on to Las Cruces.  My third trip in three months (and a lot of hours in a car with a sore back) landed me in Roswell and Carlsbad.  Each time pointed us to new adventures and each campground introduced us to a host of new friends.

We hiked up mountains, trekked through deserts, sledded the White Sands, crawled through caverns, painted rocks, worried about the homeless, disputed the 2nd amendment with people from Maine, learned hiking how-to’s from good folks that lived in Massachusetts, climbed Tome Hill, gave a family gas money who was stranded and couldn’t get back home, drank green chile lemonade whilst eating a green chile cheeseburger at the famous Sparky’s in Hatch, landed ourselves on a Youtube channel while hiking the Organ Mountains, met a woman who actually marched in the women’s march with a vagina hat on her head (yes I did), saw Lucas Hoge in the gas station (never head of him until now), pulled a never ending stockpile of goatheads from Puppy’s paws, walked a million miles trying to find a place for her to poop because she couldn’t poop in sand or gravel, gambled in Ruidoso and actually won, climbed to the highest point of the Sandia’s (the crest) and overlooked the city of Albuquerque and witnessed the most amazing view.  And this isn’t even scratching the surface of memories made.

Life IS an adventure.  It’s an adventure worth taking and worth finding.  Every moment is an escapade if you’ll let it be.  But it takes paying attention to the details of your life and it starts with gratitude for the day-to-day and mundane.

I encourage you today, beginning right now, to look at life, YOUR LIFE, as a precarious thrill.  This is not a dress rehearsal, as cliche as that phrase is.  It’s the main feature and you owe it to yourself to explore it with childlike imagination and for the first time find excitement and peril.

Live your life out loud!  Love is a verb and so is life!!!  Live it with a bit of uncertainty and embrace those experiences.

Kelly 🙂