We got home at 1am on Tuesday night from New Mexico. I hope you enjoyed your first trip out West! It wasn't that easy to get out to New Mexico. As we told you before, we were supposed to leave to New Mexico Saturday morning. However, our flight was cancelled twice because flights weren't flying into the Dallas/Fort Worth airport (our connecting airport). It was okay though because we got to relax and go to Jalil's birthday party and sleep in the next day.
On Sunday, we were supposed to leave Hartford at 4:05pm. When we got to the airport we found out that our flight had been delayed an hour to 5:00pm and because of that we wouldn't make our connecting flight in Chicago. When I checked in the customer service rep didn't say anything to me about that but luckily Daddy asked if we'd be able to make the connecting flight. She said we wouldn't and booked us on a Delta flight that was leaving in less than an hour and got in even later to New Mexico (almost 11pm). The only problem was that we were in Terminal B and Delta was in Terminal A and we had to get over there, get our tickets, check our luggage, go through security and get to our gate in that time. Mommie is waddling these days so it wasn't looking good. On top of that for some reason Mommie decided to wear her cute shoes that day and so it was even slower. We got to the other terminal though and checked in and proceeded to the security checkpoint. I handed my boarding pass and ID to a security personnel and she said, "Jennifer (?), I mean Johanna...is there anyone else traveling with you today?" I knew that couldn't be good so I said, my partner is also traveling with me. So she said, "it's your lucky day, you've both been selected for screening." The lady behind us said ha ha ha...good luck! Your Daddy turned around and said ha ha ha and gave her the evil eye. They had us go into this machine that blew puffs of air at us to make sure we didn't have explosives and then they thoroughly checked our bags. I looked back as I was getting my things and saw that the woman who had laughed at us was also getting screened. Karma at work.
We got to the gate and were quickly off to Atlanta. I was excited to be in Atlanta because I met your Daddy in that city and it brought back good memories.
Speaking of which, I remember seeing your mommy at the airport in Atlanta when I was leaving and wondering if I'd see her again in Massachusetts? I really hoped so and couldn't wait for her and I to get back to Massachusetts to call her. That night, when I thought she would be back in her home in Massachusetts I sent her a text message to make sure she was alright, already I was caring about her!
Back to the airport, in Atlanta, we ate some fries and Daddy was sad because they were limiting the amount of ketchup he could have and Daddy loves his fries with ketchup. I wonder if you will like ketchup as much? Some of your aunts on both sides of the family, love ketchup too! While waiting for our flight, Daddy "watched the Patriots pull off an upset and beat the San Diego Chargers in a last minute game winning drive led by the NFL's best quarterback bar none, Tom Brady. " (Daddy is playing NBA Live right now but wanted to make sure that he got that in) We also had to call our car rental company and hotel to tell them we were getting in later than expected.
Our plane ride from Atlanta and Albuquerque felt really long to me. We were seated all the way in the back because your Daddy got us seated together and those were the only seats available. By this point I was getting really hungry because all I had for dinner was fries and lemonade so Daddy asked the flight attendant for an extra snack for me. Awww...nice Daddy. Your Daddy then pulled out cards and I beat him really bad at Rumy. Poor Daddy. At the end of one of the rounds (one I had won) there was a bit of turbulence and this woman that was walking to the bathroom fell to the ground right next to Daddy. She actually made some of our cards fall to the ground. It was kind of scary but she was okay. We arrived to Albuquerque and clapped again when we landed. We got off the plane, got our luggage and then went to pick up our rental car.
We had booked an economy car but when we got there, the agent said that it had been snowing in Santa Fe the last few days and that we should get a bigger car. We said we didn't need it but he ended up giving us a better car for the same price. We ended up going from a Dodge Caliber to a 2007 Chrysler Sebring. Yay! That was very nice of the man. Here is our car:
After we left the car rental place we headed for Santa Fe, about an hour away. It was about 11:30pm so we were both getting tired. We drove up 1-25 the whole way. The speed limit is 75 mph so Mommie was going fast and scaring Daddy because Mommy loves crusie control and was having a hard time figuring out how to use it on the car! When we got into Santa Fe we had to drive into the downtown (Plaza) area to our bed & breakfast, Dancing Ground of the Sun. Your Daddy said Santa Fe was creepy because it was so dark and no one was out on the streets and also because some of the streets didn't seem like real streets.
We had to go get our keys from another hotel a few blocks away because our hotel's front lobby closes at 8pm. At this point it was about 12:30am and we pulled into the hotel, Fort Marcy Suites to find the front office closed and the lights off. Uh oh. Luckily there was a phone outside and Daddy called the front desk and this nice man named Tom opened the door for us. I told him that we wanted to check in to our bed & breakfast and had come for our keys. He said that no keys were left for us and so he called the manager of our bed & breakfast but no one answered. Your Daddy and I kind of looked at each other wondering what we were going to do. Tom said that he would put us up in a room at his hotel since we had already prepaid the other hotel, "it is too cold to have you sleep in your car for the night," and wouldn't charge us anything. We were so excited, without having seen the room...
Daddy was really hungry at this point and everything in downtown Santa Fe closes early so there was nowhere to eat. We saw that next to the front desk was a little store for the hotel with snacks and Daddy asked Tom if he could open it. He was really nice and opened it and we got snacks and he only charged us $5. Your Daddy asked if there was a place to heat up the food (he had gotten a burrito) and Tom said, "oh, you're in a one-bedroom condominium, there's a full kitchen." Your Daddy and I smiled and we went to our room. Oh my, O...it was so beautiful! It was huge and so Southwestern and warm!
Yes, warm. See, your Daddy and I had packed a lot of sweatshirts to sleep in because I read on the online reviews of our bed & breakfast that the heat didn't work in the rooms and it was really cold. Why would Mommie book a hotel without heat in January in northern New Mexico where it was 15 degrees? It was really cheap, that's why!
Our hotel room had a kiva (fireplace), full kitchen and living room, huge bedroom and beautiful tile in the kitchen and bathroom that your Daddy and I really liked. Here are pictures of our hotel room the first night:
Your Daddy and I ate our snacks, Mommy didn't eat enough to make Daddy happy but he knows better than to make an issue of it and went to bed around 2am, ready for day #2.
