Sorry for the major hiatus!! We are of course home in Boston by now, and we did not mean to leave everyone off in New Mexico. Re-learning how to work, stay in one city for more than 12 hours, and eat vegetables again has been tough, ya know?! But we've made it work. Now on to what's important...the remainder of our trip!

We drove through the entirety of Texas (almost), arriving exhausted in Austin at about 11:30pm. It would have been oh so easy to fall asleep in the glorious air conditioned hotel room (our first real bed in quite awhile, mind you). But we were in Austin on a Saturday night! So out we went.

The nightlife there is seriously awesome, and just like everyone says, the live music scene there is unbelievable. We bar hopped a bit amongst the masses and then settled in at a place we liked: fun band + BLLs + hilarious people watching = good time.

The next day we woke up for some sightseeing and shopping, and though we couldn't do too much with the short time we had, we still got a great feel for the city. We swung by the capitol building, drove by Barton Springs, visited the Longhorns bookstore (where we both picked up burnt orange swag) then checked out South Congress Ave. Shopping in SoCo (as they call it) was amazing (for Allie) - don't go anywhere else for vintage cowboy boots!

Again, with the live music, and again with the food carts! Both of these things must make more of an appearance in Boston.

We had to say no to the puppies, so we cheered ourselves with some delicious BBQ snacks at Stubb's BBQ. The fried green tomatoes were hoovered too quickly to make it into a picture :) 

We finished off our visit with cold beers & free live symphony in the park.

Verdict: We'd love to visit it again. The city has such an awesome vibe, and it actually reminded us of Boston in some ways. Speaking of - can anyone think of any state capitals that are also awesome cities? Besides of course, Boston & apparently Austin? If I were to guess, maybe Honolulu...oh and sure, Santa Fe can sneak in there.

Next stop: New Orleans!

White Sand Frolicks

Welcome to New Mexico! We entered NM with some ideas in mind but with zero actual plans, so as usual we winged it and had an awesome time exploring around. After leaving Telluride we made it almost all the way to Albuquerque and camped for the night at the Coronado Monument campground, right on the Rio Grande. Allie was freaked out by the campground's creepy silence, wide openness and light-less bathrooms but we were tired enough to get some sleep!

We then woke up for a long day of driving and exploring, up to Santa Fe, down to the White Sands south of Alamagordo, then back up to Roswell to sleep for the night.

  

When we arrived at the White Sands National Monument, our minds were blown. We had no idea it would be this amazingly gorgeous! 275 square miles of pure white sand, plopped in the middle of the desert?? Here is a sampling of the approximately 1,256,433 pictures we took at this place.

 The gorgeous, vast dunes called for a lot of running, dancing, gallivanting and yoga practicing.

Loved it.

Then, we made it up to a little place near Roswell to sleep for the night. This time, Jim was the one who was freaked (the aliens, you see...). Nonetheless, we made it through the night and woke up for another day of trucking it through the New Mexico desert! Through Roswell, Carlsbad and everything in between, before crossing into Texas.

By 11pm, we'd made it ALL the way across western TX and into Austin. Stories and pics from Austin to follow!