When you can't ski, the obvious choice is spelunking!

It has been a rough year for snow in the Northern New Mexico/Southern Colorado region. If the sky had graced us just a few times more with those sparkling white crystalline beauties, you can bet we'd be hitting the slopes this weekend. But seasons change, and plans can too...

For this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, we packed a rather full schedule of exploring Carlsbad Caverns National Park and camping and hiking in the Guadalupe mountains into three short days. The weather cooperated, and we stayed toasty warm the whole time.

This is a great trip for a three day weekend for those who live nearby, from Albuquerque to El Paso. I'll spend the next few blog entries hitting the highlights, and giving you the low down and all the gory details, so you can plan a trip of your own.

From Albuquerque, it is about 3-4 hours to Roswell (204 miles), depending on how fast you drive. It is another hour to hour-and-a-half (76 miles) from Roswell to the town of Carlsbad. The Carlsbad Caverns National Park is another 20 miles up the road, just past White's City.

Day 1: You can leave after work, and if you're heading down from Albuquerque, you can have a leisurely dinner in Roswell and still make it to Carlsbad by 11pm. We decided to stay in a motel for the first night, since we were arriving so late.

Roswell eats: The Rib Crib. Let me just say right now that this place gets a lot higher murphitude rating than the motel I am about to review next. Keep in mind, the Rib Crib is a chain, so be prepared for that Appleby's/Chili's/TGIFriday kind of crap on the walls and the same style of menu. Fortunately, I could look past all of that in my weakened hungry state to realize that the food was yummy. I recommend the spare ribs. They are tender and juicy, and most importantly, they have great barbecue sauces to smother all over them. The ranch style beans are hearty and flavorful with a litle kick, and I'd be shocked if they weren't stewed in some kind of pork product, so vegetarians beware. I ordered the chicken strips, which were just your average chicken strips... not amazing, not bad. The service was incredibly attentive, if not overbearing. Twice I had a diet Coke refill brought to me before I had even taken two sips of the first. I would definitely revisit this place (given the limited, but improving, number of options in Roswell.) Last time we were there, for the alien festival (see "Costume Crunch Time" from the September 2005 archives) we ate at Farley's, where the atmosphere was hopping, the live music was good, but the food simply sucked.

Lodging in Carlsbad: Best Western Stevens Inn. I give this place 2 stars out of 5. I was incredibly disappointed. For starters, we get to Carlsbad, we're tired and we just want to find a clean, decent inexpensive place to stay. We drive through most of the town, past seedy little run down motels (which in retrospect were probably just as good as this place, and at half the price), and finally stop at what we assume, or at least hope, will be a nice reputable place. The woman at the desk was an absolute witch, but whatever, I'll chalk that up to her having a bad day. In the middle of January, not exactly peak tourist season in Carlsbad, she quotes us a rate of $80. I was appalled. She asked if we had AAA membership, which we did, and she lowered it to $70. We were too tired to keep looking, a fact she was probably counting on, so we took it.

The room badly needed a renovation. It was spacious, but standard. The bathroom tub needed the enamel redone badly. The bathroom fan sounded like a helicopter that could take someone's head off if you gave it enough time. There was no coffee to accompany the in-room coffee maker. The bed made a taco out of my husband and I. And we could hear every conversation in the rooms on either side of us. I do not exaggerate! Paper thin walls.

The highlight of the place was the free buffet breakfast. There were scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, potatoes, pancakes, juice and coffee. Nothing was gourmet, but a good solid breakfast, at a good price (free). If it weren't for that, I would truly not have one good thing to say about the place.

We got up early Saturday morning, and headed up to the caverns, about a 45 minute drive from the town of Carlsbad.

Stay tuned for Day 2!

Amazing Muffins

In the midst of a severe muffin craving, I hopped onto the Cooking Light website yesterday, and found a muffin recipe that used not only my leftover carrots in the fridge, but also that extra can of yams in the pantry that didn't get used for Christmas dinner. They are so moist, they taste like your average sinfully delicious pumpkin muffin, but these guys are much lower in fat.

I used decorative pans including the hearts pictured below (thanks, Mom!) and the bouquet cake pan (roses, daisies and sunflowers) from Williams-Sonoma.

Top them off with a little powdered sugar after they have cooled. They are great for brunch and would also make a nice gift basket, if you don't eat them all first!


Click here to go to the Cooking Light webpage for the recipe for Carrot-Sweet Potato Muffins.

Christmas Recap

Alas, at this rate I will never be a true blogiste.

But we have been so busy for the holidays, blogging has just not been on the radar. For Christmas, the family came down to Albuquerque and we ate and ate and ate, and then hiked a little out of guilt and remorse. There was also a lot of board game playing in the evenings, since the chances of us agreeing on the same movie were like George Bush having a change of heart and pulling the troops out of Iraq tomorrow. I am one of those geeks who loves boardgames. My sister, on the other hand, was ready to chuck the damn thing across the Rio Grande by the third night.

Here are the highlights:

Favorite hikes:
1. La Luz trail, just north of the tram at the base of the Sandias.
2. Bosque, the "forest" (aka scattered cottonwoods, russian olives and scrubby stuff) bordering the east side of the Rio Grande as it passes through Albuquerque.
3. Walking Olive the dog along the irrigation ditches in the North Valley, Ranchos de Albuquerque.

Favorite games:
1. Cranium. We were pretty decently talented at this game, with the exception of the "zelpuz" word scrambles, which absolutely blew. Melissa, where are you when we need you?! On the other hand, Tom was a genius at "sculpturades". I'd pick him first for my Pictionary team any day of the week.
2. Imaginiff. The box in the store had lots of little gold stickers on it that said they had won lots of awards, so I bought it. The premise is this: everyone writes their name on the board, and when that name is landed on, you use it in the blank on the game card, such as:
"If ____ were a color, what color would he/she be?"
a) beige
b) lime green
c) hot pink
d) royal blue
e) pure white
f) black
You all vote, and those who picked the most popular choice get a point. Some people are shocked at how others see them. I remain shocked at how my dad remains in his own world. When everyone else voted that my sister would most likely spend new year's eve "passed out at 11:59pm at a raging party" my dad was the sole voter that she would "spend a quiet evening at home with the family". Go figure.

Stay tuned for posts on New Year weekend in Estes Park, Colorado.