Just two weeks ago, I texted my sister: “I’ve been feeling a little down lately. Kinda depressed. So thinking I’ll do a road trip in New Mexico over Christmas break.”

I admit this text point-blank might’ve been slightly alarming. In retrospect, I should have segued into the topic more gracefully, because immediately I sensed the sirens go off in my sister’s head. She sent a slew of messages: “What’s making you feel depressed? Is traveling a substitute for running away from real problems? Is it just temporary relief? A band-aid solution for something deeper??” 

Oops, commence damage control. I assured her I just wanted to make this trip because it would help me take my mind off everything going on with family, at work, in life. Not to get into details, but life has recently been — in short — rough. And I was seeking some semblance of happiness.

“But will solo travel always be the solution for you? Are you only going to be happy when you’re traveling…?”

“Good question. I don’t actually know.”

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I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of happiness: in particular, “happy” vs. “unhappy”. It doesn’t take a genius to know that – by definition – these two words are complete opposites.

And yet, it’s never that simple. It’s not like Happy is on one end of the spectrum, then Unhappy is on the entirely opposite end, glaring back from afar. No siree. I’ve noticed there is but the finest razor’s edge separating these seemingly opposite states of mind. And in 2017 in particular, I’ve see-sawed between the two many-a-time. One week I’m fully content with the state of my life; the next week, I’m in a panicked Abort-Mode trying to find where in the world I went wrong.

Now I don’t necessarily mean those daily mood swings where one moment you happily walk into Starbucks, and the next, you’re irked that Susan the barista put actual milk in your soy chai. Again. Darn it, Susan – how could you.

No, not the fleeting mood swings caused by every day trivialities.

I’m talking that intrinsic sense of fulfillment and happiness with life.

_________________________________________

In any case, despite not knowing the answer to my sister’s question whether or not travel was my solve-all, I still ventured to New Mexico. I wasn’t sure if I’d find what I was looking for, but given my momentary struggle – it wouldn’t hurt to try…?

The trip was off to a great start, when I freaking almost missed my damn flight because I mistook the “new delayed departure time” to be the “new delayed boarding time”. Luckily, I decided to head to the gate [bunny fingers] “a bit early” to scope out the situation, and lo and behold, I was met with a panicked “MISS, PLEASE COME IMMEDIATELY WE WERE WAITING FOR YOU” as they hastily ushered me through the jet bridge.

Oopsies. Sorry, fellow passengers. My sincerest b.

[Walk of shame down the aisle, dirty stares galore.]

But whew, made it onto the flight.

Always the Type A planner, I opened my TripIt app to see where I’d be picking up my rental car. Given I had booked this trip just days before, I opted for the lowest price car rental from a place called “Payless”. Ironically, the car was going to cost even more than the flight itself because it was so last minute. $500 – FOR A SIMPLE COMPACT CAR. Sigh.

I don’t know what compelled me to do this, but I then decided to Yelp the “Payless” in Albuquerque.

…. GOOD GOD A 1.5 STAR RATING. I’VE NEVER SEEN A SCORE SO LOW. Pretty sure even Bates’ Motel could’ve locked in a solid 2 stars. What have I done.

All the reviews spoke about sketchy hidden fees, poor customer service, etc… I had half a mind to treat this reservation as a sunk cost and pay an extra $700 (yes, it had now gone up to $700 for a 4-day car rental in Albuquerque) for another car.

Alas, Mendi, you are not swimming in gold coins like Uncle Scrooge in Duck Tales. Let’s just pay extra attention when you “initial here, here, and here… and sign here” on the rental agreement to see you’re not getting jipped with hidden fees. 

Needless to say, I was still worried.

Once I got to Payless though, everything seemed …fine. The man was nice enough, and had me sign a price quote for the original reserved cost. Crisis averted. Now to make sure this car wasn’t a lemon and could handle the 1,000+ miles in 4 days. (foreshadowing…)

Now was my straight shot 220-mile (4-hour) drive to Las Cruces, a town in southern New Mexico, where I’d be staying a couple of nights.

The drive was not particularly eventful, especially since sunset is at 5PM. I did enjoy the pretty colors of the desert sky, though.

The next morning at 5:30AM (a.k.a. 4:30 Pacific Time): WAKEY WAKEY EGGS AND BAKEY TIME TO DRIVE AN HOUR TO WHITE SANDS FOR SUNRISE.

Diiiiiiid I mention because NM is all desert, it gets BELOW FREEZING overnight?! Yes, I realized far too late that I did not pack correctly for this trip.

Climbing into the car at 15 degrees F and driving in the pitch black of the night on a winding road…. eh, not too high on my “love-to-do” list, lemme tell ya. Neither is really needing to pee mid-drive and pulling onto the side of the road while it’s pitch black and freezing and not knowing who or what you are flashing while doing your business. Is something/someone grazing your tush or is that the wind….? Then bolting back into the car, heart racing, and locking doors immediately……….. All hypothetical, of course……

I got to White Sands right as the park opened, 7AM on the dot. Unfortunately, driving in and getting to the Alkali Trailhead took far longer than I had hoped and by the time I started the hike into White Sands, the sun had already risen.

CAN I TELL YOU, THOUGH, WHITE SANDS IS ABSOLUTELY AWE-INSPIRING. Even the drive in was gorgeous, and I couldn’t wait to put my brand spankin’ new DJI Spark (drone) to work (of course, battery-permitting.)

I started the hike at 7:50, and the hike took about 3 hours. What I really enjoyed about White Sands was that even though the trail was “marked” by some orange stakes atop select dunes, there essentially was no trail. You could wander ANYWHERE in the entire 143,000 acre expanse if you so desired.

Which…. I did. TO HELL WITH THOSE TRAIL MARKERS.

(Side commentary: You know, I’ve actually started reflecting on this a bit in the last couple of days. The fact that I go places with zero cell service and don’t tell anyone what exactly I’m doing each day – not even family members. God forbid something happened while I was on an “adventure” — HOW WOULD ANYONE EVER LOCATE ME??? I am a walking search-and-rescue nightmare. MARK MY WORDS: In 2018, I will be less reckless.)

I loved loved loved White Sands. Hiking aimlessly through the dunes in search for the next “cool-looking” one to summit was the most liberating feeling – zero boundaries, zero rules. And all in complete solitude, since getting farther away from the trail meant not a soul in sight. The most gratifying feeling was when you stumbled upon an area where there wasn’t a single footprint to be seen. That’s when you know you had ventured into the pristine unknown.

Me and my shadow, for scale.

After about 3 hours of hiking up and down, up and down (causing a gnarly lactic acid build-up in my legs… I, uh, admittedly have not been very active this year….) I rushed to drive 20 miles out of the park to charge my drone at a random run-down Starbucks in the-middle-of-nowheres-ville for an hour……. then around 2PM – BACK IN FOR ROUND TWO, since I had “sort of” missed a proper White Sands sunrise. Next best thing, I decided? Sunset.

At the beginning of round two, I was excited. Conditions looked great and it was actually – dare I say it – WARM, so I shed all my layers. No dull ache in my left hip flexor was gonna stop me from catching sunset in White Sands!

Again, Mendi+Shadow for scale:

That said, as time passed, clouds starting slowly rolling in………. 🙂 ………. 😦 And the temperature seemed to drop exponentially. Within the course of 10 minutes, I went from a tank top, to that and a pullover, to all that and a full winter coat, to all that scarf covering my face. And by the time I realized the entire sunset was going to be overshadowed by clouds, I was already in the deepest depths of the park. Why, nature, why…

As darkness descended upon White Sands, I struggled to locate any sort of trail marker. 20 minutes later, having scrambled up countless large dunes for a good vantage point, I found an orange stake! Good riddance. Glute workout, much?

… Oh wellz, just means I need to come back again someday for sunset (tbh I’m not even mad – I love this place and would love to return.)

Next day was devoted to an 8-hour drive back North, ending up in a town called Grants, New Mexico – west of Albuquerque.

This day was full of “shoulda coulda wouldas”: You know, I shoulda just come up the same highway that I drove down from. I coulda shaved 2 hours off that drive (and spared shortening my lifespan due to stress). I woulda….  not had these dumb stories to tell…… BEHOLD:

… not even gonna comment on this further. fml

(and yeah screw Pie Town.)

That was pretty much the entirety of the day. I will add, though, that midday, the “oil change” light flashed on the rental…. PAYLESS EFFING CAR RENTAL Y U DO DIS?! It was only day 2 of the trip and I had MANY MANY MORE MILES I NEEDED TO PUT ON THE CAR. This was an added stressor in my life, since 90% of the time I didn’t have cell service, so if the engine broke down mid-drive WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE? (fyi i did confirm with my amateur eye that oil levels and color were fine? <shrug>). I just proceeded onwards, hoping Payless didn’t actually royally f-ck me over.

To add insult to injury, I mentioned I booked everything just a few days in advance of this trip, and that meant a limited supply of hotels for me to choose from. Luckily, my aunt is a Marriott employee so I get sweet Marriott hotels at a whopping rate of $35/night! SPLENDID.

That said, I don’t think Marriott believed the random town of Grants, NM to be a lucrative location to set up shop… and ergo, I was relegated to the only Motel that had vacancy there. I don’t know what it was with me checking accommodation ratings this trip, but as I was browsing reviews for this motel……. there I saw – my worst nightmare: BED BUGS NOOOOOOO. And by the time I read these reviews, there was no turning back – no other option.

I had to pray and pray and pray that I’d be spared…… and luckily *scans entire body again* I’m good. Crisis (again) averted.

You can betcha bottom dolla I bolted out of that motel the next morning REAL QUICK…

…… like 3:45AM-quick. Not just because I wanted to get out of there ASAP (though that was certainly a contributing factor), but because I wanted to make it up to my next destination for sunrise again.

Yeah, did I mention I basically slept an average of 3.5 hours every night? An unhealthy combination of insomnia, fear, migraines, and an unsatiable desire to see sunrise. The fact that I was a fully-functioning human being (well, level of “function” is debatable) on this trip is honestly a minor miracle.

Next stop: Bisti Badlands. My first exposure to this place was through a few Instagrams by famous photographer Chris Burkard. What. a. cool. dude.

And what. a. cool. place.

A 2-hour drive from Grants, I got there a little before sunrise and GOOD GOD IT WAS FRIGID AND WINDY. Again, I was not prepared for this climate and my fingers and toes were among its first casualties.

Bisti Badlands is like if Jurassic Park and Mars had a baby (there is honestly so much wrong with this analogy but I’m far too lazy to put any more thought into it — DON’T THINK TOO HARD AND IT WORKS I PROMISE)

Some more photos and you’ll know what I mean.

A common theme of this trip was that the two “hikes” I went on – White Sands and Bisti – were essentially trail-less.

Bisti was 45,000 ACRES OF PURE POSSIBILITY. If I didn’t need to return to Albuquerque that day, I would’ve spent 10 hours exploring every corner. There are certainly more impressive landscapes at face value like the Moab or Grand Canyon, but the charm of Bisti is that “where there’s a will [to climb], there’s a way”.

The accessible height of each of the Bisti cliffs, despite the slightly worrying crumbling precipices, made each vantage point fair game, should you want to risk it. I basically fulfilled every childhood dream of climbing up steep ridges without anyone chastising me for it being too dangerous. Score.

Jumping pic fail:

Additionally, I was there for 3 hours and didn’t see a single human being except when I was finally 200 meters away from the parking lot. If you want solitude in the badlands of Bisti, YOU GOT IT, DUDE.

Btw, I do want to put together a compilation video of my drone footage from this trip. But it will take time. SOON. (zero promises on timeline)

After leaving Bisti, I had done everything I had wanted on this trip. The next day and a half were devoted to this-and-that activities. A $20 Chinese massage in a sketch part of Albuquerque, random road trip to Santa Fe to see an awesome haunted-house-art-exhibit-installment-thing (THANK YOU FOR THE REC, VANESSA!), returning the rental car (which made it, thank god), and then, of course, personal reflection.

Reflecting on my original intent for this trip: Did I find happiness at all coming to New Mexico?

Short answer: ……. YUH DARN TOOTIN’ I DID. 

But I guess that’s just my knee-jerk reaction. Yes, I emotionally feel happy, but to dig deeper, what exactly needed to happen to get me here? If I’m able to derive the specific reasons, then I could potentially replicate that in my daily life – yes?

My personal realizations, in light of everything that has happened on this trip:

Happiness is when you spend time expecting the worst to happen…… and yet everything still works out in the end. Realizing that life has a way of working things out despite everything that “could go wrong”. And then feeling gratitude for receiving these blessings.

From nearly missing my flight, to sketchy car rental, to bed bugs motel scare, to border patrol debacle, to pie town fiasco, to getting lost on the daily without cell service, to not falling off a cliff, the list goes on – I’ve been extremely blessed that even when I fear the worst, things always seem to work out. I mean, that’s not to say the moment something bad actually happens (which it inevitably will), I’ll be ruined. Even when it does, just the simple act of knowing you can and will overcome it brings its own sense of solace.

Happiness is knowing that even when you’re struggling, whether physically or emotionally, “this, too, shall pass”. 

I need to remember this point, not just in travel, but in life.

Happiness is getting somewhere, doing something incredible, seeing something magnificent, and thinking to yourself “cool, I got myself here”.

Back at home, I know that I rely on many people. My family especially. And though I do pride myself on being a fairly independent person, the simple fact that I rely on anyone nags me to my core. It kills me if I have to ask someone to carry a suitcase for me. I SHOULD BE CARRYING MY OWN DAMN SUITCASE. I mean, this is a silly example, but the core of it stands. I seek to be a fully independent human being (admittedly, for better or for worse).

And in a sense, solo travel forces me to reach towards this personal ideal. I am overjoyed when I know I can do it all on my own. So when I summit that mountain to see a grand, sweeping, life-changing panoramic view: yep, that was me.

And also related: Happiness is pushing boundaries of what you think you can do.

Many people ask: “Do you ever get scared while you’re solo traveling?”

My answer: YES. EVERY SINGLE FREAKING DAY THAT I DO IT. Do I sound confident going about my travels? If yes, I deserve an Oscar because I proverbially shit my pants every freaking day. I often forget this feeling when I’m back to my normal grind, but the moment I go on another solo trip, I’m like “yup, right, this is stressful AF.” But every time I get scared or nervous or stressed, I know deep down I will overcome it and emerge stronger and wiser. That’s what keeps me going. Knowing that every experience is constructive and a building block for that next version upgrade of Mendi.

Happiness is knowing you’ve lived a life you can be proud of, teeming with rich experiences. 

This is something I absolutely need to bring back to my daily life. I know in my travels I tell some of the dumbest stories that make your eyes roll all the way to the back of your head. Yes, they are unequivocally dumb, but I do truly believe that later on in life, I’ll look back on these stories and chuckle about how juvenile I was in these glory days. The kicker is that I know these stories mustn’t only exist in my solo-yolo travels. I need to seek out these types of experiences in daily life.

And now to close the loop and answer the question my sister posed to me when I first decided to come to NM:

“Will solo travel always be the solution for you? Are you only going to be happy when you’re traveling…?”

….. The answer I arrived at actually surprises me! (and explains the weird blog post title.)

Driving 1,175 miles in 4 days meant A LOT of idle car time. And as much as my “Top 100 Songs in 2017” Spotify playlist got a ton of love this week, I decided to listen to a few podcasts as well.

One podcast was called The Zoo. It’s a podcast talking about online dating and stories from various unique perspectives. Why is it called “The Zoo”, you ask? Well, the very first episode began with this explanation from a man about why he likens online dating to a Zoo (I’m paraphrasing, btw):

“Is online dating real life? 

Well, it’s certainly safer. It’s the difference between going out into the woods to see a moose, or going to the zoo to see a moose. In the end, they’re both real moose you’re seeing.

One may have a wall of glass between you, and there was a sign that says “this way to moose”, but all that matters is that you got there and saw it. You can spend hundreds of dollars to buy gear, rent a canoe, camp, get lost in the woods, to see this moose. That’s a much better story to tell, for sure. But if all you really want is to see a moose, you run the risk of never even seeing one after expending all that effort. The zoo is pretty much a guaranteed moose-sighting.”

I must say, I chuckled at his entire spiel and I actually found it quite provocative. After some reflection, I’ve also realized that this is why I travel. Travel is my zoo for happiness. I laugh at how corny this all sounds, but this was actually a pretty insightful revelation for me.

Though yes I need to find happiness in daily life outside of this zoo, I may as well periodically UP my damn chances of being happy by putting myself in the exact schema/situation that I know will bring me joy. And for that reason, I will travel.

Travel is certainly not what defines me, though, I recognize that. In the beginning of 2017, I was jobless and traveled incessantly for 4 months. By the end of this stint, I was far too ready to return to real life. Yes, I enjoy visits to this Happiness zoo – but like every trip to the zoo, real life still awaits outside those gates.

And undoubtedly happiness is there, too – you may just have to look a tiiiiny a bit harder. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing! It might also make for a better story. 🙂

2018, I’m comin’ for ya!

With love,

Mendi

31 Dec This entry was published on December 31, 2017 at 7:00 am. It’s filed under New Mexico and tagged Bisti Badlands, New Mexico, solo travel, travel, White Sands. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.