What’s In Between

We packed up the cars and said goodbye to our Airbnb. 7404 Laster Ave NE was a lovely spot to spend two nights. Great location, locally owned and when there was one small mechanical issue, the owners father was there within 20 minutes to fix the issue. We headed to the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway to take the 15 minutes tram ride to the crest of the Sandia Mountains. It is the longest aerial tram in the Americas and was the longest in the world from 1966 until it was surpassed in 2010 by the Wings of Tatev in Armenia.

Albuquerque is New Mexico’s largest city with a population of 560,273 (2023). The entire state of New Mexico has a population of 2,130,256 (2024). This explained why there is so much seemingly unpopulated land out here.

This photo shows the demarcation between the city and Native American land. The winding road is on Native American land, while all the homes are on city land.

On our way to Moab, Utah, we stopped in the little town of Cuba to have lunch at the Cuban Cafe. Our servers daughter makes the tamales that the cafe serves so of course we had to order those. After we filled our stomachs, we filled the cars with gas and headed north.

Beth had seen information about a secluded place called Valley of Dreams. It is between Cuba and Farmington, New Mexico, VERY off the beaten path. So much so that at one point, Google maps said it would take 1 hr 17 min, Apple Maps said, 1 hour 40 min, and maps.me said 2 hr 17 min. Each showed slightly different ways to get there. So we took a gamble and went with maps.me, because that is what Beth’s information said to use. Once we turned on to one of the recommended roads, the time went down to 18 minutes. We were overjoyed. This was short-lived. A winter storm, that we knew about but were hoping to beat, started right when the app said we were off the map. So we turned around and took the right where we took the left. We were still off the map. So we took the left again, the snow coming down harder and staring to stick (mind you we were on poorly paved roads with potholes and ruts) and we were magically back on the map, but our time to arrival was now 44 minutes. Afraid we would possibly 1. Get stuck in the snow, 2. Blow out a tire in the potholes, 3. Not see anything due to the snow even if we found it, we decided to abandon this little adventure. We drove 6 miles going 25 miles an hour to the highway and headed to Moab, again. This is what we were hoping to see.

If it is a clear day, you have heaps of time, and you are between Cuba and Farmington New Mexico, I hope you can find it. It looks extraordinary.

Back on the road, the snow stopped within 30 minutes and the drive was uneventful. Except for the sunset. There are not words to describe this beauty.

This is what it really looked like. No filters, no processing, taken out of the window of the rental car. Here is another from a different car:

This is through the windshield of my car. Again, no processing at all. Glorious!

We made it to Moab, hauled our stuff into the VRBO, and went in search of dinner. At Antica Forma, we ate salads and split a pizza between the 6 of us. And then we came home to bed. It was a long day, many hours of driving on the highway and off and we were ready to sleep. It was dark when we arrived in Moab. I have been to Moab and Arches National Park before. But no one else in the group has. I can’t wait to see their reaction when they see the landscape.