Christmas 2016 Highlights

I broke my promise of writing this post last week, but better late than never. Work was extremely busy last week so I didn't have much time to do other things. Here are a few highlights from our nine day trip to California over Christmas break. We drove from Albuquerque to California and then back.

Drive - Part 1

The drive from Albuquerque to San Diego is roughly 12 hours so we broke it up into two days. We traveled to Tucson on Christmas Eve and then on to San Diego on Christmas Day.

Attempt at a Nativity Scene photo with the pups in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. This was the best they could do!

River of Lights at ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden

Celebrating its 20th year, Albuquerque's River of Lights was recently named one of The 15 Most Spectacular Holiday Light Displays in the U.S. by MSN. Last weekend, hubby and I decided at the last minute to visit the holiday display for the first time. It was relatively warm (in the mid-40s) and we wanted to get out of the house for a bit.

Meow Wolf's "The House of Eternal Return" in Santa Fe, New Mexico

In 2016, no trip to Santa Fe is complete without a stop at Meow Wolf. Meow Wolf is an art collective based in Santa Fe. In March of this year, its permanent art complex opened in a former bowling alley, with help from George R. R. Martin (yes, that George R. R. Martin), the city of Santa Fe and a Kickstarter campaign.

Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta 2016

The biggest annual event in Albuquerque is occurring as we speak! That's right, it is Balloon Fiesta time. The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, which began in 1972, is a hot air balloon festival that happens over a nine day period every year. With over 500 balloons participating, it is the largest hot air balloon festival in the world.

A Dog-Friendly Trip to Santa Fe

Hi! It's me, Carson! I wanted to tell you about a trip that my mommy took me on last month to one of our favorite cities - Santa Fe, New Mexico.

My mommy likes Santa Fe for its arts, culture and food. I like it because everyone there loves doggies!

Activities at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa

Our weekend at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa was super active. There are tons of things to do on property to keep both adults and kids occupied all day long! In fact, Tamaya was recently named one of the "10 Best Family Friendly Luxury Resorts" by USA Today.

Here is a look at some of the activities available at the Hyatt Tamaya.

Walking / Running / Biking Trails
The resort is home to an elaborate system of dirt trails that run along the Rio Grande and throughout the surrounding area. The first thing we did when we arrived at Tamaya was borrow two beachcruisers and bike helmets and enjoyed a 2-mile bike ride along the trails.

I loved biking among the cottonwood trees.

We had a lovely view of the mountains and the river.

Along one of the trails are a series of exercise stations (like chin-up bars, climbing walls and ladders), I remember playing on similar equipment when I was a child, so we had some fun on our bike ride and stopped at the ones we came across to have some vacation silliness!

Pools
The resort has three pools and a whirlpool for all of your outdoor water needs. The Plaza Pool is the main pool with its two-story water slide. There are plenty of lounge chairs as well as a bar adjacent to the pool.

Secondly, there is the Oxbow Pool, which looked to be a shallow depth kiddie pool.

Finally, the Kiva Pool is the adults only pool. This is a circular pool surrounded by a high circular wall, which is supposed to protect from the wind. I spent all of my pool time at the Kiva Pool because I wanted quiet, away from the screaming/splashing children, and it was heaven!

Outdoor movies are shown on a big screen at the Plaza Pool during the evening. On our first night there, they were screening one of the Toy Story movies. 

The Stables at Tamaya 
When we booked our trip to Tamaya, we purchased a package that included our hotel stay plus either two rounds of golf or two horseback rides at The Stables at Tamaya. Since neither of us enjoy playing golf, we decided to do the horseback rides.

Before our scheduled trail ride, we met at the concierge desk and were shuttled to The Stables.



In addition to the horses, there were lots of other friendly animals like these goats.

The horse I was assigned to is called Hollywood. He was gentle but loved to be at the head of the pack! We enjoyed a roughly two hour ride on the grounds of Santa Ana Pueblo. The brush was much taller than usual because of all of the rain we had been getting. It was like walking through a salad bar for the horses. 

After our ride ended, we headed back to The Stables. Look who else has visited! Jessica Alba!

I'm not one to have celebrity crushes, but if I were, my celebrity crush would be this guy: Tom Hiddleston! 

Evening with the Artist

On our first night at Tamaya, we attended this happy hour of sorts, only that we got to view beautiful sculptures by a local artist and speak with him, if we wanted to. It was near the tail end of the event, so after we looked at the art, we decided to grab some of the refreshments and enjoy them al fresco.

Pueblo Bread Tasting

Our last activity of our stay was attending the traditional bread tasting, freshly baked in the outdoor oven.

Along with the bread, delicious butters, like cinnamon, red chile and green chile, and jams (my favorite was the apricot) were used to accompany the light and fluffy bread.

Fitness Center
Located next to the spa, the fully-equipped fitness center is open 24 hours. It has everything from treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes, free weights, kettlebells, stability balls and exercise mats. I stayed in the fitness center for two hours and no other guests used any of the equipment. There were a few people who stopped and poked their head in but no one else worked out.

Yoga classes are also available for a fee, but I was not able to attend any of the classes.

Other Activities
There is so much to do at the Hyatt Tamaya, and we definitely were not able to do everything. The weekly Tamaya Times  details all of the activities for the week. Many require an additional fee and include cultural and art classes, like leather stamping and jewelry making.

As I mentioned before, golf is available at the Twin Warriors Golf Club and there is a full-service spa.

With so much to do, you will be at a loss for how to spend your time at The Hyatt Tamaya!

Dining at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa

When one is on vacation, one sometimes cannot be bothered to look far for sustenance. Since the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa is somewhat removed from civilization, and by removed, I mean less than 15 minutes away, we enjoyed some of our meals on property. There are several options for a meal, which range in price and ambiance.

The Corn Maiden
Raisin Bread and I enjoyed our first meal at The Corn Maiden, which is the property's fine dining restaurant and only open for dinner.

Everything from the dishes to the decor are heavily influenced by the Southwest. 

Our meal began with a selection of homemade breads. There was a garlic Parmesan breadstick, blue corn bread, and a jalapeno cheddar muffin, served with tomato jam and whipped honey butter. The jalapeno cheddar muffin was amazing! I had two of them.

To start, we shared the Local Goat Cheese and Tamaya Bees with petite flowers, dates, candied pecans and crostini. The "Tamaya Bees" was a bee pollen drizzle from the bee colony on property. So delish.

For my entree, I had the Lobster and Pasta (forest mushrooms, Campanelle pasta and English peas in a Champagne lobster sauce). The dish had huge pieces of lobster in it and was probably one of the best lobster pastas I have ever had.

Raisin Bread has the Lamb Umido (Apricot Nopalita Tortelloni, garden herbs in a peach-Grigio Demi). The server described the dish as more of a stew than a sauce and that is exactly what it was. It was a little too rich for the hubster and he wound up picking the pieces of lamb out of the sauce.

We were so stuffed by then that we could not have dessert. The server, instead, offered us desserts to go since we were celebrating a special occasion. We took a green chile apple pie and a lemon chiffon cheesecake to go. We also packed up these little chocolate with espresso bean truffles to go.

Dining Pool Side
I spent a few hours on two of the days we were at the resort by the pool. Dining poolside is super convenient. There are servers who make their rounds to take drink and food orders. I ordered a virgin strawberry daiquiri and a chicken avocado wrap for lunch one of the days. They were both just okay, but I loved the convenience (i.e. not having to move from my pool chair).

Santa Ana Cafe
On the second night of our stay, we dined at the Santa Ana Cafe. This is a more casual option, which is open three meals a day and has both indoor and outdoor seating.

We went with the dinner buffet because it actually looked very tasty. They had salads, soups, fried chicken, tamales, veggies and the best mac and cheese I have had in a long time. There was also a variety of desserts to choose from. I, of course, chose the chocolate cake a la mode!

Other Dining Options
For one of our breakfasts, we grabbed some food from the Trading Post. It contains a Starbucks with the usual offerings like bagels, yogurt and muffins but also a wide selection of burritos.

Two options that we did not try were the Rio Grande Lounge, which serves bar food and also has indoor and outdoor seating, and in-room dining.

I was very happy with the quality of food and the range of alternatives available on property. While we did not have every meal at the resort, there were plenty of things to choose from and they were all tasty and enjoyable meals.

Hot Air Ballooning with Rainbow Ryders

We are back from a short staycation at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa in Santa Ana Pueblo. Since we were not able to properly celebrate our anniversary or Raisin Bread's birthday, we combined those two occasions along with my birthday and took a nice weekend away.

One of our activities for the weekend was to take a hot air balloon flight. When we visited Albuquerque for the first time in 2013, we booked a balloon flight, but it was canceled the morning of the flight due to bad weather. We had much better luck with the weather this time.

We checked into the Rainbow Ryders office at 5:30 AM on Saturday and got split into our flight groups. There were twelve people on our flight, plus Taylor, our pilot.

A short time later, we hopped into a passenger van and drove to our launch site. In addition to our pilot, our two member chase crew also joined us in the van.

Once we reached the launch site, the crew started setting up the balloon for our flight.





They gave passengers the opportunity to assist with blowing up the balloon as well, but we both stood back and watched.

Before too long, we hopped into the basket and were up in the air! Everything about the flight was so peaceful. I was expecting to be a little bit nervous but the flight was so smooth. All we needed to do was take in the views and the sunrise.

Taylor gave us a great experience. He took us about 8 feet above the Rio Grande River. I thought we might be able to reach down and touch the water. It seemed so close!

Then he took us up to 5,000 feet above ground level.

We, for sure, had the best pilot. He took us the highest up and the farthest out of any of the balloons up in the sky at that time. We had beautiful views of the river, the mountains and the city of Albuquerque.

At the end of the flight, we took the brace position and landed smoothly in a bank parking lot, where our chase crew was waiting for us. 

They packed up the balloon and then we headed to a park to enjoy our morning refreshments. 

I had a delicious mimosa to celebrate our successful flight. We wound up talking to some of our flight mates as well! Everyone was in a good mood after our fun morning adventure!

If taking a hot air balloon flight is on your bucket list, Albuquerque is a great place to check it off. Rainbow Ryders has sunrise flights during the summer and sunrise and sunset flights during the winter. If you choose Rainbow Ryders, be sure to get Taylor as your pilot. He was great and is very experienced!

Our sunrise flight was $159 per person and included our flight, post-flight toast and refreshments and a flight certificate. Flights during the International Balloon Fiesta are much more expensive though, so be sure to check their website for the most recent information.

Weekend Adventures: Time to Play Tourist

Hello, friends! Raisin Bread and I had a fun and busy weekend. His friend/ex-co-worker from Virginia came for a visit so we spent the weekend seeing some of the sights of Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

On Saturday, we drove the Turquoise Trail to Santa Fe. We made stops in Sandia Park and Madrid.

I think I need to invest in a pair of cowboy boots. Thoughts?

After lunch, we went to Cerrillos to view Kevin Box's Origami in the Garden exhibition. I forgot to mention that this weekend was the hottest weekend we have had since moving to New Mexico. It was a high of 105 degrees! Being an outdoor sculpture exhibit, it was a toasty one. Carson had had it by the time we were half way through and we had to take turns carrying him.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

The artist working

We made it to Santa Fe in the afternoon and walked around The Plaza. There is so much to see in Santa Fe that we visit different shops each time we are in town.

In the late afternoon, we headed up to The Bell Tower Bar, which is located on the rooftop of La Fonda on the Plaza for some drinks and appetizers.

The pups love how dog-friendly New Mexico is!

On Sunday, we headed to an old favorite of mine: St. James Tearoom. This month's theme was "A Pirate's Life for Me."

In the afternoon, we visited The Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. There was supposed to be an event going on, but we missed most of it. Instead, we decided to see the Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe exhibit, which is something I wanted to do anyway. 

Lady Gaga's shoes

Awesome men's boots

Neigh....

That evening we had dinner at Sandiago's at bottom of the Sandia Peak Tramway. I do not recommend, by the way. We barely made it on the tram for sunset because the service was so slow. 

This was my second time on the tram, but my first time during sunset. The mountains are so beautiful. I guess this is why they are called the Sandia (watermelon) Mountains! 

We stayed on the top until the sun fully set and waited to the city below us to light up.

Lights of the city

It took us an hour and a half of waiting to finally get down the mountain! We had to wait for three trams before we were able to make it on.

So that was the end to our weekend of playing tourist. It is always so great to have visitors!