Day 22 - A Break from the Trail (Many Zeros)

Date: Thu May 9

Start Mile: NA

End Mile: NA

Total Trail/Alt Mileage: NA

Highlights: R&R in Albuquerque

This morning, Hot Mess and I were up early once again. This time it wasn’t for hiking. And, you would think that since we had gotten a hotel for the night, we would be sleeping in, taking advantage of glorious beds, pillows, and a climate controlled room where we didn’t need to hide our faces from the cold inside our sleeping bags. But no, we were up early, packed and ready to head out.

This time, the wake up call was to catch a bus to Albuquerque. We are taking a little break from the trail.

It just so happened that a Greyhound bus ran from Grants to Albuquerque a couple times each day - though the pick ups were only early morning or very late at night.

And so, we were just next door at the gas station when the bus pulled in just after 7 am. One other hiker along with an additional traveler were also there to catch the bus. The other thru hiker also shared our sentiment: time for a little break from the trail.

The first 300-400ish miles have been rough. While not always the most physically demanding, they were mentally taxing. The constant road walks, often long stretches with less than inspiring scenery, the very cold nights and mornings. Much of this we knew about before we began the trail. But knowing and experiencing are two different things. This, combined with terrible sleep, was leaving us a bit mentally checked out. Neither Hot Mess nor I have had a single good night of sleep on the trail, which has slowly been exhausting us, to the point where I’ve actually felt unwell the last couple sections.

And so, for our health and our sanity, it’s time for a break. And honestly, there is no hurry northward. There is still quite a bit of snow in northern New Mexico and the San Juans, which have actually still been receiving new snow.

We’ve booked an AirBnB in Albuquerque for a week to rest, relax, and reset. I won’t keep daily blogs while we’re here, but will provide a little recap once we’re finished with our respite. Know that we will be spending our days mostly relaxing, watching crap TV and movies and catching up with goings on while we’ve been plodding down the trail. Well also take some time to explore the area a bit. We’ve driven through in the past, but not seen too much. And naturally, we’ll get some quality meals, including some famous New Mexican green chile.

For now, I’ll leave you with a brief summary of our first day of rest:

Boarding the bus, we were onto I-40 by 7:15am. While we’d booked specific seats, most of the passengers already on the bus when we boarded had clearly been on overnight or from some very late/early hour, and were stretched across two seats sleeping. As it was, we simply found two seats where the seat companion had left enough room for us to squeeze in while they slumbered. The journey to Albuquerque was only about an hour and fifteen minutes, so it wasn’t a big deal. The trip was uneventful and we arrived to the downtown Albuquerque Greyhound station around 8:30am.

Since we weren’t able to check into our AirBnB until 3pm, we head straight from the bus station to a cafe, where we had a bit of breakfast and lingered with two giant cups of coffee for the rest of the morning.

Nothing says bougie breakfast like a bowl of Sriracha mayo on the table.

Just before the cafe was set to close at 1:30pm, we moved on, this time to do “old people stuff” at the library. We are now proud holders of (temporary) Albuquerque Public Library cards.

Having expanded our minds, it was time for lunch, which we grabbed just down the street at the 505 Food Hall. I opted for what may have been my first ever Detroit style pizza. Not bad.

Having killed enough time, we head to our AirBnB, located in a quiet neighborhood  short walk from the downtown. Here we plopped ourselves on the couch for the rest of the day, letting full R&R mode kick in. We caught up with Survivor, a Gentleman in Moscow, 1883, and even caught Armageddon (the best of the end of the world movies - and possibly best movie of one-liners ever - don’t fight me on this).

And that’s it! I’ll be back with an Albuquerque R&R recap in another week!