Stuff we did in New Mexico

Our wedding date was strategically chosen to coincide with spring break and nothing else.

No birthdays, holidays, or celebrations anywhere in sight.
I would highly recommend this to all nearlyweds - plan a wedding date that's without competing celebrations!

When we got married we were busy enough with full-time work, school, student counsel, the busiest church calling of my life, and planning the wedding sans parents nearby.

We knew we were doing ourselves a huge favor then, but nearly six years later we are still thanking our lucky stars for that well-timed wedding date.

Who knew by know we'd still be in school?

And that our anniversary would delightfully correlate with spring break every year?

So we've been lucky enough to celebrate uninterrupted year after year.

A celebration that always includes a trip and two stipulations.

1. We go alone, just the two of us.

2. It's always to somewhere we have never been and doing something we have never done.

Past years have seen us staycationing in our home town and training to San Francisco.

(If we had better train systems here in the U.S. taking a train would be our third anniversary trip stipulation for sure.)

This year it was a road trip to New Mexico.

It was awesome!
We did lots of stuff, which I will prove to all of you with tons of pictures.

We...

1. Stood in 4 states simultaneously and picnicked in Arizona.

(New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, & Utah)

Ryan attacked the 4 states spread eagle style.

Contrastingly, I ran in circles through them singing "I'm traveling the country."

We were lucky to visit in the slow season so no one was watching us enact these kinds of shenanigans.

Picnic supplies gathered in Moab en route - BBQ chicken, coleslaw, potato salad, and peas.

We ate out of plastic lids.

Ryan is standing in Colorado & New Mexico, I am standing in Utah & Arizona behind.

2. Visited Farmers Markets

 

3. Explored and shopped in Old Town(s)

4. Investigated old churches & cathedrals

5. Stood atop the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge

Ryan has a real thing for bridges, and this one is the fifth highest bridge in the U.S. 

8 seconds down according to the rocks we threw over the side.

6. Hiked in, around, and through Bandelier National Park

this place was amazing.

don't you wish they offered sleep-overs? 

I kept telling Ryan how much I wanted to stay the night and pretend that we lived here.

 Awesomely narrow stairs leading all around these ruins.

7. Biked along the Rio Grande upon cruisers

I let Ryan ride both our bikes across the narrow bridges.

I'm nice like that.

The bike chain gave us a little trouble, but the bikes were free (courtesy of our delightful inn) so we didn't complain.

A tree lined lane lead up to the inn.

8. Traversed the Sandia Mountains on the worlds 3rd longest aerial tramway

The view of Albuquerque as we rode up

A well-timed sunset on the way down.

Six years was looking pretty good from New Mexico.

That kind of makes it sound like it doesn't look good now, from Utah. But it does.

It looks good from pretty much everywhere, because I love this guy.

This was just a nice way to savor the fact. 

Still to come: what we ate & where we stayed.