Continued from Pagosa Springs Part 2.

Our morning routine. The kids wake up super early, so we ask them to watch their ipads until we wake up. Which really means they watch their ipads for a little bit while repeatedly bother us.

Somehow, we’ve accumulated more stuff as the trip went along. Turned out we really did need all the extra space in the Defender 130.

Got in the car this morning after everything had cooled down over night and noted that our tires weren’t quite fully inflated from yesterday. No problem.

Time to hit the open road.

Crossed back into New Mexico.

More plateaus and less mountains here.

Wish I knew more about geology.

So cool, it’s like an oasis fed by the river.

Made a stop for gas, and both of the girls were feeling a little funky. We fed the kids dramamine prior to all long drives, so don’t know why they are both feeling a little sick right now. Fortunately, they sat here for a while, and about 5 minutes later, they were fine.

This one was fine.

Oh, they have cold brew here. I can use one of those.

Yes please.

So attractive eating a sandwich.

Interesting balanced rock.

We are not going back to Santa Fe, just passing around it.

Here we are, Madrid, NM. Our friends, who are living in Albuquerque, suggested that we visit this little artist community. Quite a bit of people visiting this little one street town in the middle of no where, I guess it’s a thing.

Found parking, and first thing would be lunch.

Cool bar/restaurant. This was also recommended to us by the same friends.

We all ate a little something in the car since we knew it was gonna be a late lunch, so we ordered one BBQ plate for everyone to share. Food was yummy.

Time to visit some art galleries and shops.

Parks like an asshole.

For a tiny tiny town, I think I counted 3 dispensaries. I am guessing a shakedown will happen and many of these dispensaries will close.

I told RL to go look around by herself, and I’ll watch the crazies for a little bit.

Oh look kids, popcorn.

Oh look, ice cream. It’s actually pretty hot outside, I think in the 90s.

Mama’s back, so we moved outside to eat thw ice cream in the heat.

Found this little assassin hanging out here.

Interesting, also connected to a dispensary.

Top center…talk about a third leg.

I am guessing a gay artist made much of these.

Look, more dispensaries.

Alright, quick lunch time stop at Madrid over, time to head onward to Albuquerque.

Here’s Albuquerque. It’s not exactly a pretty city.

At our hotel lobby. We got here at 2:45pm, and they said that our room won’t be ready until 3pm. Ok, we’ll just go ahead and unload two bell cart worth of luggage and wait 15min.

Still waiting. Then at 3pm, I went to check to see if our room was ready, and the employee told me that maybe they don’t have our 2 queen bed suite that we had reserved months in advance after all…WTF. He made some calls and then informed us that our room had been given away to another guest that had extended their stay and they can either get us two side by side rooms with no pass through, or a king bed suite. Neither of those would be great options for us. Why would they give priority to someone who last second decided to extend stay vs. someone who had booked a specific type of room months in advance? So stupid.

Me calling other hotels to see if another place has connecting rooms or a two queen bed suite. As it happens, Embassy Suites has a two bedroom king bed suite with two king beds for about the same price. Sweet.

Doesn’t take a genius to guess what word I’m saying. Arrived at Embassy Suites, went to check in only to be informed that their reservation goes through a call center and they don’t know what they are talking about. The two bedroom king suite only actually has one king bed, so it won’t work for us either. The worst part is that they were not very apologetic about it. Good thing we knew better to check first than to unload all of our luggage again. I’m already not feeling Albuquerque.

A few more calls later, we finally found a Hilton Garden Inn with two connecting rooms. OK, that’ll work…if they actually do have connecting rooms.

As promised, they do have connecting rooms here. This is what $201 a night gets you. Two connecting rooms! It’s like stepping back in time in pricing.

This will be great, me and RL having our king bed and the kids share 2 queens. Finally, third time is a charm.

Let’s burn off some energy at the hotel pool with the kids.

Someone before us had probably dumped soap or something into the hot tub. It immediately foamed up when we turned on the jets. I was skeptical of what’s in it, but the kids loved it.

After that hotel ordeal, we just walked to Bucca Di Beppo for dinner next to our hotel. This is towards the end of our trip, we are exhausted and the kids are driving us crazy.

This is what I feel like.

Food makes everything a little bit better though.

I kind of enjoyed the food to be honest.

I did not, however, enjoy having to be in the stall with LKL while he took a shit.

Not quite Olive Garden, but it’ll do for tonight.

To be continued in Albuquerque Day 2.