On the Road - Dinner at New Orleans

While driving to Florida we decided to spend the night in New Orleans! We found a really cheap hotel, and decided to walk over to Bourbon St. for dinner! It was a sunday night, so we weren't expecting a large nightlife scene, not even open restaurants, but we were wrong. There was a huge party there. The street was closed for drunk people to zigzag all over, and you could hear music in every corner. I can't even imagine what this place is like during holidays! 

I had Cajun food for the very first time. (Don't laugh at me, but I had no idea that cajun food was from Louisiana.
I thought it was probably from some country far far away)

It was smokey and very movie like. 

Artsy in My Free Time!

A long long time ago, before I became a super busy engineering student, I really enjoyed all sorts of creative activities. I loved trying new things like knitting, sewing, painting, drawing, and anything else I would hear of. This stopped. But recently I have had more free time than usual, and I have found myself going back to these things. This wont last long, as I am starting grad school soon, so I have decided to let myself do whatever I want to do regardless of how silly it sounds.

A couple of days ago I met with my parents, whom I hadn't seem in months. I was feeling creative, and decided to make a small self-portrait for them. I had bought a bunch of paints and a small canvas at Hobby Lobby, so I got to work. The portrait ended up having way larger eyes than mine, and a much rounder face, but I am still proud of it. I'll say it's my sister! 

Iphone Photo. My tiny painting for my parents!
I wrapped it in homemade gift wrapping paper! 

Iphone Photo: my working table

While planning out our move we realized that we had countless hours of driving ahead of us, so we had to find a way to keep me awake. If I'm not driving, I fall asleep within two seconds of being in a car, and this is not good when I'm supposed to be keeping Lilo company. So we decided to find something to keep me awake. Yes, I'm just like a child. We went to Hobby Lobby and found me some Sculpey Clay! its the kind that you put in the oven and it becomes solid. This did such a great job! I was awake for the whole drive from Dallas to Austin, then Austin to New Orleans, and finally from there to Florida. Some of the clay cooked in the car. We left it in there and went somewhere, and when we came back the heat had made it solid. So I ended up with only a snow man which I later painted. But I made many other things that didn't survive! 

The snowman got slightly baked in the car. When I tried to re-bake it in the oven it got all these swirly gray stains. But oh well, it gives it character. 

Iphone Photo: Chicken Drumstick!!! 

Iphone Photo: Some weird dog/snake

And he finds this all amusing. Here he is laughing at me taking a picture of my self-portrait. 

I hope that I can stay entertained for the rest of our trip! next we will be driving from Dallas back to Santa Fe, then to Salt Lake City, and finally San Francisco!!!

On the Road - Texas (Part 2): Austin

After spending some time in Dallas we went to spend a couple of days in Austin with our friend Gavin.

Austin was a bit out of the way, but we decided to do it anyways, because who knows if we will ever get another chance? 

We tried to do a lot. We ate all over the place, hung out in bars in every corner of town, waited for the biggest colony of urban bats to come out from under a bridge, and visited Barton Springs (a very strange but cool 'natural'ish pool that I had heard of through Joanna from A Cup of Jo). 

Here are some pics! 

On the road.

On the Road - Texas: Caddo Lake and Dallas World Aquarium

This August I will be starting grad school in California, so within the next month I will be going crazy with moving plans. I drove my car to Florida to visit my parents, and I am sadly selling it since I will go back to being a full time student (= full time poor). While driving here from New Mexico, we stopped by Dallas, TX to visit Lilo's parents. We went to Caddo Lake, and to the Dallas World Aquarium! Here are some pics of those days!

It was soooo crowded

Cutest

Awesomest

Ugliest

New Mexico: Hike to Lake Peak!

This is my last post from my New Mexico Series. Hopefully one day this will help someone find a little bit of information about things to see in this amazing state. I am starting to feel very nostalgic, after just a week of moving away. New Mexico really is a magical state.

For out last weekend we were just going to go to Abiquiu Lake, and pack up. But at some point Lilo got it in his head that he wanted to hike up to one of the peaks surrounding Santa Fe. He spent days researching about it, even though I told him that I was not physically capable of going up those mountains. He insisted and insisted, so in the end I had to do it. It was extremely exhausting, but such an amazing ending to my life in New Mexico.

This was such a magical hike. We hiked up 3500 ft. in about 3 miles, and I think that the lack of oxygen made it seem even more magical. Right under the peak was a small lake. A pair of really experienced hikers told us that we could just hike down the huge cliff to the lake, and that we should hike backwards so that if we fall it doesn't hurt much. Yeah right.

Posing with the toilet paper. Who knows why... 

At first I thought that the worst part was the difficulty of hiking on such a steep uphill, but I was wrong. After a certain point, the path went very close to the edge, and down was a rocky cliff. This was when I started dragging my butt on the ground instead of walking on two legs like normal human beings do (it felt much more stable).

The Santa Fe Baldy in the back!

The ending point in the distance.... with the hardest part still to come. 

Finally we made it to the top, where we set up a blanket and took a nap under the burning sun before heading back down. We also ate a whole tub of cream cheese in 5 minutes!!!

The two crazy hikers took our picture right before telling us to jump down the cliff...

Cleaning up after our nap

Finally we hiked back down. For some reason my knees decided to give up, and I was in excruciating pain the whole way down. I still haven't recovered completely, and I have no idea of what happened.

Trying to hide the pain :(

Getting back to the car was one of the happiest moments in the whole trip. I was so proud of having done it, and sooooo excited to get to sit down and give my knees a rest. 

This is just one of the hundreds of GORGEOUS hikes that New Mexico has to offer. I was so sad not to have done it earlier. Maybe one day I'll come back and do many more. But for now, this experience showed me how even the hardest hike can be an incredible experience if you are in such a beautiful place. Thank you Lilo for insisting.

New Mexico: Abiquiu Lake

Abiquiu Lake seems to be a very popular place for people to visit in New Mexico. This is not surprising since there aren't too many large masses of water in the whole state. When living in Illinois, and in Venezuela I didn't really spend too much time in the water. Yeah, I used to go to the beach/lake/river every once in a while, but this was only on special occasions. Because of this I never thought that the lack of water in New Mexico would be hard to deal with. But I was wrong. When living in northern New Mexico you really feel the dryness, and within a couple of weeks of being there you find yourself missing water in ANY form (Yes, even in the form of 85% humidity)

We have been to Abiquiu Lake twice. Once during the winter, and once during the summer. In the winter it is very cold in the area, so obviously the water is just to be looked at. This is a fake lake, and for some reason I thought that its fakeness was pretty apparent (Although this may just be because seeing so much water in New Mexico felt like seeing palm trees in the north pole)

The lake has a dam, and one can go to the back side of it, where there is a river. Lots of people fish here. This is where we mostly spent time during the winter.

In the summer one can swim in the lake. We found a kind of hidden area where one can jump of cliffs of up to 20 feet. We didn't dare, but many people where doing it. 

New Mexico: San Antonio Hot Springs

Yesterday Moved out of New Mexico. Now the slow moving process begins. During the next month We will be driving all over the place visiting Dallas, Austin, New Orleans, Fort Lauderdale, back to Santa Fe for a day, Salt Lake City, and finally arriving at the Bay Area (in that order. Dont ask). But before I stop posting about New Mexico, I must show you a couple more places we visited there. Today: The San Antonio Hot Springs.

This place is about 30-40 minutes from Los Alamos, by the town of Jemez Springs. Getting to the springs is easy if you have an all terrain vehicle or if you aren't worried about hurting your car by driving it over very very rough terrain (maybe you have a rental car and the person at the rental company's desk was rude to you). But i wasn't going to put my car through that, so we hiked there. The hike was supposed to be a bit over 5 miles, but we got lost and it ended up being 7. If you ever come to these springs, just follow the obvious path and eventually you will get to them. We were silly and got off the path, hehe. Luckily, we met a really nice group of people there who gave us a ride back!

This is where we got lost. It was worth it!

Once we got to the springs we were exhausted, but this place is really a paradise, so we got to release all our stress there. We ate some pancakes, and just relaxed. The water is very warm, and INCREDIBLY clear. The springs are on the side of a mountain, so the view from them is amazing. After visiting the not-so-pretty Las Vegas Hot Springs we were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of this place. This is definitely a place to if you are in the area. Here are some more of our pictures:

The nice people who gave us a ride also took our picture! 

TAN LINES. In his defense, he is a road cyclist, so he can't help it. 

He refused to wear a swimsuit. So he ended up soaking in his underwear. 

Now back to this moving bussiness for a second. Does anyone know of things worth doing in Dallas, TX? (does anyone read this?)