Usually that is what I’m thinking when I leave for a trip on a whim. I call these ‘impulse drives’. Anything that I put little to no thought into is an impulse drive. Sometimes I spend hours deciding where to go and what to do. Not last week! Last week I decided to go to the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. The only thought I put into it was “where is the office where I can get the stamp for my National Park passport”. That was it. I left at about 10am with the intent to get back before dinner ended here at Philmont. It was only about a 150mi drive. Sooooo how hard could it be?
It had just snowed the night before and I was a bit curious how the roads would be. It was about 30°F out so I kept all the windows closed and turned up the heat. It met the criteria for shorts, but I wore pants just in case there was snow in Questa, NM. That’s where the park is basically at. The first part of the journey through the Cimarron Canyon State Park was easy. Barely any snow left on the road, plenty of road salt, and good weather. There was a lot of slow cars out though. I snapped a picture as I drove into Eagles Nest. 
It was a beautiful sight. The roads weren’t slippery here, but I went slower anyways. I stopped for gas at the bottom of the hill on the assumption that it would be enough for the whole trip. It was about 25°F in Eagles Nest so I put on my polar bear hat and started pumping gas. After that the gps lead me through the mountain pass right before and after Red River. It went well even though there was more snow on the road here. My car got super dirty haha. I hate a bad look on the outside. 
All that stuff in the middle of the road is basically slush and driving over it is a tad risky at high speeds. So I went slow here too, but faster than all the Texan drivers. They drive fast if the roads are clear and slow when there’s snow. Grrrrrrrrr!
Once I got to the park I discovered it was about 10 miles away from the road. Scenic drive time! About 2 miles in I stopped at the “Sheeps Crossing Overlook” (sorry if I get that wrong.) It was super muddy, so I had to be careful not to get the inside of my car dirty. I was going to walk over to the bigger cliff edge to get some pictures when I noticed what seemed to be a mountain lion track. I’m always afraid something is watching me. Especially when I’m alone in the middle of nowhere with no cell service. I closed the gate and headed to the small cliff. 
**Quick note: I couldn’t figure out how to solve the ‘bb8 is too blurry/sunny look without ruining the background when I took a picture.** Once again I laid almost completely on my back and proceeded to look like an idiot to get a good point of view. Luckily no one drove by and I didn’t get attacked by a mountain lion.
The river looks waaaay smaller here than on the google map image. I couldn’t hike to the bottom here so I continued on my way. The rest of the drive was great, but the speed limit was 35mph. Who has time for that?! The roads were like new so I sped on my way at the speed of sound. I eventually got to the Ranger office and met the woman in charge. She’s super friendly and can answer any questions you fire her way. She showed me where the cool spots were and where to hike to the river. I first went to the most visited overlook.
It was amazing! You could see the Red River and Rio Grande rivers meeting, the awesome Guadeloupe Mountain range, and tens of miles of landscape. 
Doesn’t it look more intense here? There was a bunch of people and llamas nearby. I’m guessing it’s some sort of private group thing. The lookout point wasn’t super exciting even though the view was great so I proceeded to head down one of the closed trails to get a selfie from a good vantage point. I didn’t go that far haha maybe 50ft and the trailhead wasn’t roped off soooooo… 
What a glamorous picture. What you can’t really see is that the drop behind me would probably destroy my spine, don’t worry though I was safe. 🙂
The next place I went was the trail to the bottom. It was a bit of a walk so I hopped back in the car and started off. There was a sign at the start that read “Do you have plenty of water, sunscreen, and proper footwear?” That would be a negative to all 3. I actually didn’t have any water with me, but I went anyways. I wasn’t about to drive 15 miles to Questa to buy water. I will risk the dehydration/hypothermic combo! The sign said it was a mile one way with an elevation gain of 680ft. Piece of cake! I was at a starting elevation of 7,575ft. I’m from sea level, but I had been out here for almost 3 months so I assumed I’d be fine. It was a bit warmer at 35°F when I started down the trail. (I’m getting these temps from my car, sorry if they are inaccurate.)
The nice woman at the office said the trail might be snowy and indeed it was. 
Not a problem for my sneakers! Literally the whole time I was thinking: “This is insane! There are mountain lions (ranger said she saw one a few days ago), I’m alone, I have no water, my shoes suck, and I’ve only told one person where I’m going.” Of course I needed to get to the bottom. I’ve made it my mission to explore every national park I go to as well as get a stamp and a patch. That means I need to see everything no matter the risks.
The trail is basically 20 switchbacks to the bottom. Going down was as easy as walking to the bottom of the Grande Canyon. The closer I got to the bottom the louder the river became and the harder it was to detect mountain lions. 
It was about here when I thought “Maybe I should turn around. Noooo wait the river is right there and the trail is nicer here. I got this.” The farther down I went I knew it would be harder to get back up. If it was 10 miles I probably would’ve admitted defeat, but this was just one mile. I was glad it wasn’t snowing. It was supposed to snow a lot later that night, so that gave me a nice window of opportunity. When I finally got to the bottom the roar of the river was pretty loud. I wanted to take my pictures and go. No pictures = no proof I was there. I set BB8 on a rock and laid on the soggy ground in a way that minimized wetness. 
~I also posted this on the lego subreddit, so in case you notice it there and think I stole it…here you go! It was me!~
I literally was only at the bottom for 10 minutes tops. I wanted to get back to my car ASAP to cure my irrational fear of wild animals. I started hiking back up and started to realize just how out of shape I really was. My heart was pounding, I got all sweaty, and I started overheating. It was freezing out and I wanted to unzip my pants to make shorts! Waaaaa! So there I was taking mini breaks every 500ft because I’m weak. I kept looking up to see how much was left. I also scanned the forest every 5 seconds looking for the elusive mountain lion. Eventually I got to the top and had a drink of water from the super sketchy water fountain. 
This is near the top. See the first couple switchbacks are steep, but as you go down the even out. Like the Grand Canyon, but colder. It also might look like I’m standing on the wall. However, that’s not the case as I was in fact behind it in this little overlook thing. That’s about it unless you want me to narrate the way back to civilization, which I will do anyways.
Long narration short I went to Taos, vacuumed my car, and ate McDonald’s. I completed the ‘enchanted circle’ drive and headed back to Philmont. Boom! That’s my not so thought out journey west. Not that far west lol.
So I’ve been trying to think of a way to explain how I plan out other trips without giving away the whole trip. Originally I was going to walk you through Henry’s step by step plan for Carlsbad Caverns as an example, buuuuuuuut then I wouldn’t be able to write a blog about it so I’ll just show you the fundamentals of a nice Henry trip.
First thing is how much time do I have? Is it a one day trip or 3 day trip? I currently only have 2 days off so that means around 1600 miles total. I’ve decided the most I can pull off safely is 800 miles per day. Anything over that by a large amount means I need to find a hotel for the night. Recap:
1 day trip = 800mi total. 400mi there/back
2 day trip = 1600mi total. 800mi there/back
Ok next! Where am I going? After I figure out how much I can safely drive in a day I then decide where to go. 
This mess is my insane way of showing you what’s available. The blue lines represent the one day highway trips. Basically I could go up to Cheyenne, WY or do a Gallup, NM trip in one day. Everything in the red circle represents everything I can reach in one day from Philmont. The green circle marks the 2 day trips. The yellow circles mark 3+ day trips and the black perimeters mark the impossible/challenging drives in a 3-4 day timeframe where I get to see everything I want. Ok let’s break that down a bit more. 
Most of what I can see in a day is in Colorado. Once again the blue represents main highways. The yellow lines are the highways towards interesting places. The green lines represents a barren wasteland of nothing to see. Ok there’s one or two, but other than them it’s pretty boring in east Colorado. 
Ok so here, each circle will eventually be well planned out trips. The green boxes with flags are part of the national parks and that means I must go there. The blue marks are interesting things like the world’s largest ball of twine or a neat state park. I also found a few nicer restaurants rather than fast food. The hearts are usually houses or my favorite places. The starred stuff is for the best of my favorite places…like the lego store in Denver. I grouped them so you can get a visual of each trip. I made this awhile ago so some trips are a smidge different now. Like trip A for example. That’s a tad difficult to pull of in 3 days for me. Even if I’m going 100mph it would be challenging to see everything fully.
Ok now that we’ve decided where to go and when. I need to think about the weather, what to bring, what music to download, and what fun activities I want to do. Usually for weather I look at each biggish city on the day of the drive. So if I’m going to Denver that would be Raton, Pueblo, Walsenburg, Colorado Springs, Monument, Castle Rock, Denver. Something like that. If the weather suddenly turns awful I will think about changing the game plan and doing Plan B. 
It really has to be horrible like this. One day I tried driving to the top of cellphone hill to get LTE to watch the latest One Piece (anime) episode. There was freezing fog, sleet, and the snow had started sticking to the road. I didn’t think I’d be able to make it up the hill without intense slipping so I turned around. I almost never turn around.
Next is music! I can drive in silence for 400 miles, but I prefer to listen to something. Usually I listen to trance music, but if I’m tired I’ll blast something heavier like metal or dubstep. I typically don’t have cell service, but I have like 50 hours of downloaded music so it’s not a huge problem. The final thing is what to do while I’m there. If I want to go to the arches national park I could do a Jeep tour. Or maybe a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon? Skydiving nearby? Cost usually isn’t a factor unless there are special circumstances.
That’s about it! I haven’t thought about flying somewhere like Alaska or Hawaii on my days off because that would be super expensive and hard to pull off. I’d have to buy the plane tickets, hotel, rental car, food….blah! Too much effort. At some point I will have to go to Guam to see the national park location there <<< good example of a long haul trip.
That wraps up this blog post. Hope that is enough detail. Sorry if it’s confusing! 
Pic drop at the end. That’s Boston!
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