Kevin and I had gone from opening presents on Christmas morning in Santa Maria to opening more presents the night of Christmas in Albuquerque. We were staying at my mom’s house, and she had picked us up from the airport. We unwrapped presents, ate and drank, and watched a few things on TV. It was nice to relax after another full day of travel.

Christmas continued the next day over at the in-laws’ house. It was a second Christmas morning as Kevin and I hung out with his parents and sister, opening gifts and listening to Christmas music. We watched some wedding show as well as A Christmas Story, which I had never seen before that point (Yeah, I know). We played board games, too.

It seemed like we had just been in Albuquerque, and that was pretty much true. It felt like, after Thanksgiving, we turned right back around and headed home once again. Yet we had already made the leap from east to west; it made sense to stop in Albuquerque while we were at it, since it was on the way back. It was a lot, I’ll be honest. That much travel in such a short span of time is overwhelming, and going to two different states didn’t help.

But, of course, I’d do it all over again. We’ve done longer trips through more states in two weeks’ time. Nut up, or shut up.

You’d think that a whole year had passed instead of a month. I itched to see everyone once more, even though we had visited only weeks prior. Kevin and I scrambled to get in as much time with our families and friends as we could, especially when they had their own families to see. Despite spending a few days prior with my dad in California, we had lunch with him before we left New Mexico. We got ice cream with our friends and went to a board game café.

However, on New Year’s Eve, we had a really special night with two of our friends. We hung out at my best friend, Emily’s, apartment, and we played poker and listened to music. We talked about everything. Right around midnight, our friend, Elias, brought out some gummy bears that he had bought. He explained how it was a tradition to eat grapes at midnight and make New Year’s resolutions. It’s actually a thing, which is amazing. We didn’t do it exactly as it’s described, and, well, we didn’t have grapes. So, with gummy bears in hand, we sat at Emily’s kitchen table and went around one at a time, speaking a resolution and eating a gummy. We kept chatting and laughing until 2 in the morning.

Little did we all know that there was a chile drop going on in another part of the city. Apparently, this has been happening for 3 years, yet it was news to us! A 30-foot metal frame, covered in red and green lights and shaped like a chile, was hoisted up by a crane and “dropped” at midnight, just like the ball in Times Square. This is… such an Albuquerque thing, and I absolutely love it. Now that I know about it, I want to see it one year.

After New Year’s, Kevin and I looked to our trip back to Manchester, and lo and behold, that’s exactly when Winter Storm Grayson hit the entire East Coast. New England got slammed with blizzards, flooding, and hurricane-force winds. We kept seeing the tiny speck of Manchester getting completely covered in colors on the Weather Channel. Our first flight was cancelled, so we spent one more night in Albuquerque. Then, the next day, we eventually made it to Baltimore, and we endured an 8-hour layover. That flight was delayed twice. Thankfully, it wasn’t cancelled.

We landed in Manchester around 12:30 in the morning, and luckily, we somehow managed to get an Uber back to our place. The driver seemed like the sole person on the roads in those conditions. And he told us that he had thought about calling it a night before picking us up. I kept repeating how happy I was that he didn’t.

It was another wild roller coaster ride flying across the country. It was another incredible trip. Though it’s probably the last time we’ll head home for a while to come. But I want to continue this series and post about different locations, activities, and other aspects of Albuquerque and New Mexico. I’ll keep detailing the experiences of living and visiting that city, even if I’m not able to go there. It’ll be a great way to put Albuquerque in the spotlight. It’ll give me the opportunity to write about my hometown as much as I can!