Our Baby-Moon!

All of the newsletters from baby sites that they send now-a-days all tell you that you should take a baby-moon.... aka a mini-vacation for just you and your partner before the baby is born and your lives change forever (as if they haven't already!). At first I thought the idea was a little silly... but then after thinking about it, I decided it was a great idea and a perfect excuse to spend some quality time together! Darren and I have now been married for over three years, and as I said before, the last vacation we took by ourselves was our honeymoon. We never got to go on a trip after our one year wedding anniversary like a lot of couples do. So, I told him - we're going! I picked the location, Cloudcroft, based on the fact that it was within 6 hours driving distance, relatively cheap lodging, we had never been there, and it was in the mountains! It turned out to be the perfect little get-away.

We left Friday around 2pm from Garden City and were in Cloudcroft by 8 New Mexico time. We checked in to our room and then headed out to eat. We ate at a little cafe/bar in downtown that was ok.... supposed to be better judging from the internet reviews but our food mostly sucked. haha. It was still fun to be out in downtown, per say. After dinner we stopped by a convenience store so I could buy really expensive hot chocolate packets, haha, and then we went back to our room and enjoyed the evening!

Our room location at The Lodge, separate from the main hotel.

Saturday we got up bright and early (since it felt an hour later to us, hehe) and headed out to breakfast. We ate at another local place that was ok.... nothing great. After breakfast we headed back to the downtown area and did a little shopping. We found a coffee place that we should have been going to all along while there! It was great! After shopping in downtown we went to our hotel to check out the gift shop there... only because they give you a coupon at check-in. We found a cute little shirt for baby boy, and while checking out we began to talk to the lady running the store. She was so excited for us that we were expecting and kept telling us that we were the cutest couple. She then told us we had to have another present for our baby, so told us to pick out a onesie. Darren and I kept thinking we didn't want to pay for anything else, but ok! We found one we liked and then she told us we had to have this door knob thing that says something about being new parents so don't disturb us. She then gave both to us as a gift!!! We couldn't believe that a complete stranger had just given us over $20 in baby gifts! She wrote down her address for us so that we can send her a baby announcement when little boy makes his entrance!

At an overlook point on the way to the observatories

After shopping we headed out south of town to the National Solar Observatory and the Apace Point Observatory. Both had giant telescopes which of course excites Darren. At the solar observatory we actually got to go in where they were working and see them seriously watching the sun.... waiting for something to happen. It was pitch black in the room so that the reflector dealies would work. It was pretty cool to see science under way!

Really big telescope, and half of it is underground!

Darren loveeeesss the telescopes!

After our science-outing we headed out to find a place called Bluff Springs Falls. I had read about it online but forgot to print out the deal that told you how to get there exactly. We followed a road which turned in to a dirt road and I nearly made Darren turn around. There were all of these signs saying private property and I thought for sure some Mountain Man was going to come out and shoot us, lol. After about 5 miles of off-roading in the jeep we finally came up to the falls. They were GORGEOUS. It was just a small spring fed waterfall, but it was still so nice outside and fun to hike around out there.

At the bottom of the falls

We hiked up the hill to the top of the falls as well, super pretty!

We spent a good amount of time just enjoying nature out here before heading back to our hotel. We got there in time to watch the first quarter of the Aggie game before having to head to dinner. It was pretty funny to see us in our hotel room hovering around the laptop and cheering as the Aggies BTHO ou! We wanted to leave our room early to make it back to main lodge in time to watch the sunset from the tower. It was really pretty!

Before dinner in the hotel tower

We had reservations at the fancy hotel restaurant for 7:30 but since we were there early we just sat around in the bar watching the Tech game and checking the Aggie game. Our meal was amazing and well worth waiting around. You could either order off of the menu or do the "Chateaubriand" which was a 6 course meal that you really didn't choose much from. It was still amazing! We had smoked salmon for our appetizer, then soup, salad, our palette cleanser of sorbet, and then our main entree was a table side prepared beef tenderloin which was DELICIOUS! You got to pick your desert too which was awesome, so I had tiramisu and Darren had chocolate cake. We were there eating for over 2 hours, hehe... it was wonderful to eat great food and sit and relax!

After our anniversary dinner

Sunday we got up and had breakfast at our new favorite coffee shop. Much better than anything else we'd had in town thus far! We decided to drive down the road to Alamogordo and stop at an old apple barn store on the way. The drive was really pretty! You seriously go down the whole mountain. Cloudcroft is at 9000 something feet and Alamogordo is at 3000 something.

At a lookout point on the way to Alamogordo

In Alamogordo we didn't have enough time to go see White Sands, so we decided to go to the National Space Museum... yes, another Science place for Darren! But, I like that kind of stuff too! They had all kids of cool rockets there and space memorabilia. It was right up Darren's alley for sure! ;-) After the space museum we drove back up the mountain to Cloudcroft, had lunch at a great little pizza place, and then started back on our way to Texas! It was such a great and relaxing weekend, and we certainly feel so blessed that we were able to do it. Even though we probably should have saved the money, it was nice to do something for ourselves...a rare occurrence! We know we'll always treasure this babymoon!!

On our way home.. New Mexico gave us a nice parting gift!