New Mexico

Another work trip. This time to Albuquerque, Taos and Carlsbad, New Mexico. 

 During our trip, Maynard (my supervisor) and I had a lot of opportunities to try a lot of cool ABQ restaurants (thanks to my extensive Googling and the fact that the Food Network has featured a lot of these restaurants on their shows before). Our first meal, after stuck on the plane from Dallas for 2 extra hours, was at the Standard Diner. It was a perfect place for lunch.

 In the evening, we met with a pastor at The Flying Star Cafe, which is another restaurant that features local foods, (which is my favorite type of restaurant).

I know this post is going to make it look like we did nothing, but that is not true. We just made really good use of our pockets of down time. Another lunch that we had was at Farina Pizzeria. I had a fire oven pizza with goat cheese on it. It was amazing. We also spent working in a variety of places. That afternoon, I spent some time getting caught up on work emails from this "dirty hipster" coffee shop called Winning near  the University of New Mexico (so I was probably the oldest person in there). The coffee was excellent. That evening, we met our colleague, who lives and works in Albuquerque, in Old Town for supper. 

On Friday (a week ago) we headed up for a meeting in Taos (which is actually the picture below) but not before stopping at the car wash that was used in the show Breaking Bad. (Our hosts' home was actually very close to the location). The place were we stayed the night before we flew home was also near another location where they shot Jesse and Jane's home. Yep. It was amazing. 

 On our way down to Carlsbad, we got stuck a major traffic jam due to an accident. While we waited, I took some pictures of this train that was passing near us.

 On Saturday afternoon, Maynard and I had more down time. So we used it to go to the Carlsbad Caverns, which is this massive cave under the dessert. It was amazing.

On the way up to the caves

The entrance 

Down we go

They called this one the mouth of the whale. 

It was a good trip overall. (That fresh lemonade is from The Cube in ABQ. awesome!) But I am so happy to be home. And so grateful that the prairie is not the same as the dessert.