Volume I : Chapter XVI
Leaving Arizona was tough. I could go on forever about how much love we have for that place and those people but I won't. We kept saying we were going to leave, once a day for three weeks in a row. We had to get moving though, we had promised Jen in New Orleans that I'd be there for Halloween and that had come and gone. We still had New Mexico and Texas to get to, states I had been so excited about prior to our stop in Arizona.
It was hard to leave such a good thing when we weren't sure what to expect next. We decided to all ride down to Tucson, we'd all spend one last night all together for the all souls procession, walking it together. One last night in a perfect place with perfect company.
We headed towards New Mexico next, I had been to White Sands earlier this year and I was dying to get back and spend the night. We wanted to check out more of the state too, camp where we could and kind of reset ourselves after the whirlwind. We got really comfortable in Tempe, it started to feel like home and that wasn't what we were trying to find on the road. We took some lesser known roads, headed up towards Truth or Consequences, and saw the worlds largest pistachio among other weird americana shit.
We started to pick up the pace, we were seeing new things every day. We made it to Roswell, hit a cold snap and stayed with our first couch surfing host. Her name was Karen, she rode a motorcycle, worked a a secret shopping and liked to eat uncooked hotdogs. She took good care of us when it hit below freezing, we stayed an extra day and met more travellers. She hosted travellers full time and everyone had little jobs to do. We headed into town and checked out the UFO museum, which is maybe the world's most culturally significant museum.
New Mexico surprised me, there was a lot here to see. Too much even, we only got to see a small bit of it and we promised each other we'd come back. We had gone from being stuck against our will in Utah, to leaving Arizona kicking and screaming to realizing we needed to move faster.
Words by: Kyla Trethewey
Start reading from our first day on the road or see all of our travel posts.