A lot has happened in a little bit of time this Winter. We celebrated the holidays in Gilbert, then camped near Tucson around New Year’s Eve with our friends. We perched Lady Loam atop a hill after an hour down a mountainous dirt road on Redington Pass, AZ in Coconino National Forest. Our friends met up with us at that spot and spent a few nights with us; hiking a part of the Arizona Trail, playing games, and enjoying the campfire under the stars peaking from the glow of the city. Isaac and I drove into Tucson for NYE and it took an hour to get to the city itself… although the valley of the city was in eyesight most of the time, driving on a really primitive road takes time, even with 4WD and a high clearance car. We had adventured along Redington Pass when we lived in Tucson, and it was refreshing to pass some spots we had been to before. Even in the dead of winter, the beauty of the desert is still so refreshing. Big sky, hardy oaks, rocky cienegas, monumental saguaros, and the backdrop of the sparkling city we love.
After our week-long camping trip in Tucson, we made our way back to Gilbert. I sold art at a flea/vintage market in Phoenix, then made a trip to Jacksonville, FL for a few days to be with family. 12 hours after leaving the PHX airport after arriving back from the East Coast, I returned with Isaac to visit Seattle where we stayed with my best friend Mina and her partner Ben. We adventured through the Capitol Hill and West Seattle neighborhoods, took the ferry to Bainbridge Island, and ate at some delicious restaurants. It was so much fun to adventure through a city as an adult with free will, and refreshing to spend time with my best friend (we hadn’t seen each other in 4 years!).
With two weeks of airplane travel kicking off the new year, and we settled into our truck for another road trip. This time, heading east. We spent our first night away from Gilbert at a campsite we have camped at before, in Superior, AZ on BLM land. This spot is easy to get to from the highway, and curves gently around canyons to create little pockets of private campsites amid tall saguaros and the lovely sky islands.
The next morning, we had a quick farewell to the lush Sonoran Desert and entered the high desert in Cibola National Forest, NM across from El Malpais National Monument, among the red-streaked canyon walls and snow-spotted piñon pines. This campspot was closest to the town of Grants (30 minutes away), so we drove into town a few times to eat Blake’s Lotaburgers with green chili. We also visited Albuquerque (1.5 hours away), where Artie had a vet appointment. There, I walked around Old Town and visited the San Felipe de Neri Church and many shops with local art, many of which date back to being built 300 years ago upon Spanish colonization. Isaac and I enjoyed a classic New Mexican meal of chilaquiles and a breakfast burrito at a spot downtown called Es Que Market, where the chef is a retired public school cook who sources his ingredients local and uses his family recipes. To no surprise, the meal was so flavorful and colorful! To us, Albuquerque felt similar to Phoenix, with a business oriented downtown surrounded by strip malls and suburbs in a valley amid desert mountains. Nights were cold in Grants; the lowest being -9ºF! It is the coldest Isaac and I have ever experienced, and we established a good routine of having a warm dinner and getting into bed when the sun went down, cozy up with our electric blanket, insulated blanket, sleeping bag next to the window, and Artie curled up at our feet. Isaac bought bright red long johns for us to wear as a base layer, and although we both looked like silly little elves, they kept us warm. Most mornings, we woke up to our electric blanket turning off automatically, our sink water pipes frozen, and the composting toilet solids chamber hard as a rock. It was a challenge I was up for, and although Isaac was worried about it, we made it through. One morning, we spotted icicles hanging off the side of Lady Loam!
The main reason we were camping in New Mexico was to join a workaway with a host family near Santa Fe on their small orchard/vineyard named Caminante Farms in Española, NM. I worked about 35hr/week (and Isaac helped clean up after dinners) in exchange for breakfast and dinners, a bathroom, a place for Lady Loam to park, and water/electricity hookups. During our time staying on the farm, I worked on the land doing mostly orchard/vineyard work, organizing, seed planting, and cleaning up inside and outside the main house. On the weekends, Isaac and I explored the old town centers of Santa Fe and Taos, the Taos Pueblo, and enjoyed the wide open spaces connecting these destinations. Adobe buildings, frito pie, chilis adorning turquoise painted doorways, snowy mountain peaks, cozy art museums, fresh hot sopapillas, breathtaking Rio Grande views…this is quite a beautiful area with rich with history and an artsy flair. We thoroughly enjoyed admiring the ancient buildings around NM and learning about the Native American presence on the land for time immemorial. Spending the winter days working peacefully on the land was much needed for me; independent work with lots of time to think, feel, and listen. I listened to a total of 6 books, and many hours of music and podcasts, keeping up to date on one of my New Year’s resolutions. Artie explored all this with us, as just before leaving Gilbert, Isaac installed a bench seat to replace the center console in the truck. Artie has been a really good road trip dog from the start, and this makes it even more comfortable for him to travel with us.
Isaac and I celebrated being together for 5 years by visiting the beautiful Ojo Caliente Hot Spring Spa, Georgia O’Keefe’s house in Abiquiu, and a fancy dinner at Nosa. It was quite a mature celebration, and it felt totally deserved after the many hours I spent raking and hauling sloppy fruit and spiky bushes in the winter chill. The meal was a 5 course experience, featuring American classics using seasonal, local ingredients. The wagyu tartare, lamb shank, and drink pairings were spectacular.
To conclude a month of exploring New Mexico, we hitched up and headed west through Petrified Forest National Park and spent the night near Show Low, AZ in Sitgreaves National Forest. On the edge of the Mogollon Rim, we enjoyed a vista perched atop the plateau and had six muddy tires to show for it. The next morning we entered familiar territory as Lady Loam traveled west by the Salt River (stopping for some fresh fry bread on the Fort Apache Reservation) and past our frequented campspot in Superior that we had kicked off our journey a month ago. To conclude our NM to AZ trip, we spent another cozy week in Gilbert, AZ to recharge and say goodbye to Isaac’s family before making the trip out west back to Three Springs Community Farm in Bodega, CA.
Big Takeaways:
- There is such relief and pride that comes from driving onto pavement after a long, bumpy dirt road
- Revisiting campspots and being familiar with so many places helps us to feel more comfortable traveling, and it’s happening more often
- Every extra minute of sun as Spring arrives is appreciated
- A good pair of leather work gloves, leather boots, and sharp hand pruners is essential for winter farm work
- New Mexico’s chili pepper obsession is understandable
- A vista into a canyon will always make me enchanted
- It is so delightful to observe the new buds form on fruit trees, and spring tubers grow their first leaves
- Having new off-roading tires are a worthy investment