Traveling is one of my favorite things to do. When I was a child we could not travel very far from home because we lived on a dairy farm. We took day trips and every other year we would go see relatives that live out of state. I did not get to start traveling until I was out of college. Since that time I have taken many trips and would like to visit all fifty of the states in the United States in my lifetime.
When I was first out of college I had very limited funds to use for travel. My girl friend and I would drive to different states, because at that time gas was cheap. We would stay in hotels one night and camp the other night so we would save money. We did not camp every night because we did not get very much sleep, and it was a hassle setting up and tearing down a campsite everyday. We went to several states during our two years of traveling together. Then we each got married and started having children so our traveling together cam to an end. Now our children are grown so we have more time to spend renewing our friendship. She called me several weeks ago and asked if I wanted to go on a road trip. I thought this sounded like a great deal of fun. One trip we had not gotten a chance to take was to New Mexico. It was one of the few western states that I had yet to be in. We decided we would look into New Mexico camping. My husband and I have a pop-up trailer that is quite comfortable. It is lightweight so it can be towed quite easily with a car. My girlfriend and I met for coffee and I brought along my lap top computer so we could look up New Mexico camping sites. We decided that we would go in early May so that we would not be gone during the time when the campgrounds would be crowded. By picking May we avoided families with school-aged children, spring breaks and snowbirds.
We located several interesting places that we wanted to visit. We made reservations at one site that recommended having them and we thought we would do the rest of our New Mexico camping at random sites that looked interesting. Our husbands thought we were crazy to stay in campgrounds. They both advised us to stay in hotels instead. They thought hotels would be safer and we would not have to haul the camper and all the gear with us. My girlfriend and I discussed this and decided that it would be simpler and more comfortable staying in hotels. We could still see the same points of interest without having the hassle of camping. We have assured each other that we did not change our plans just because we are getting older!
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