Past few days-- Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona!!

The Past few nights have gone by so fast! After our trip in Arkansas visiting Mark and his family, we headed toward Amarillo, Texas for the night.

A hundred miles or so into our drive we started to hear a loud rattling noise and when we pulled over realized a part of Emily’s car was falling off and rubbing against the tire. We’re not mechanics, so we just cut if off! So far we feel like we made a good decisionJ.

Our plan was to save a little bit of money and sleep in a Wal-Mart parking lot that night, but somehow we convinced each other that “we deserved” a night in a motel. I guess we’re not ready for car-sleeping just yet.

We both got a really good night sleep for a long drive to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We spent our day in the down-town area (which everyone calls Central) and had absolutely TERRIBLE Mexican food… very disappointing. In the evening we got to our Hostel, which was in Cedar Crest, in the Sandia Mountains right outside of Albuquerque. We realized we should’ve gone straight to the hostel, because there was SO much to do! Jim, the owner of the Hostel let us play with his donkeys for a while and offered free donkey rides. I was to lazy to get up at 6:30am and Emily was allergic, so we passed.

That night, we went down the road to a little café and listened to two older men singing old Frank Sinatra songs and play the piano and harmonica. It was a really nice way to end our bad day.

The next morning we woke up early and drove to the top of the Sandia Mountain. On the way there was a place called Tinker Town, were a man had converted an entire plot of land into his own collection of hand-carved wood and art. It was amazing.. pictures definitely don’t do this place justice. The top of the mountain was incredible to. We took a hike along the crest, and we could see EVERYTHING! It was like we were floating. The only bad part was that we were attacked by flying ants.

Before we left Albuquerque, Emily had to have “diner food, diner food, eggs, breakfast, dinerdinerdiner!” Thus, we found Lindy’s Diner. It was really cool and a bunch of famous people had eaten there.

Then, a 6 hour drive to Flagstaff, Arizona. Half-way there or so we stopped at a gas station where we met a guy named Curtis. He had started his own non-profit organization and traveled around the world collecting donations and giving them to needy people. Just talking to him for 20 minutes was inspiring for both of us. We finished off our drive in good spirits and found our hostel.. which was SO cool! It’s called Du Beau Motel and Hostel and privately run. There were a ton, ton, ton of people here to talk to from all over the world!