May 10 & 11 - Meow Wolf & Rail Runner

We had a long travel day and I’m pretty wiped, so I’m gonna keep this brief-ish and combine two days into one post.  First - Meow Wolf!

Meow Wolf is a performance/installation art collective that’s created several interactive art experiences around the country.  The Santa Fe outpost is titled “House of Eternal Return.”  It was AMAZING and I already want to go back.  It’s like a combination of House of Leaves, X-Files, Rick & Morty, and the coolest jungle gym ever.  You can easily have a great time just exploring the labyrinthine fun-house of interactive art, but there’s also a mystery woven into the entire installation that you could spend all day unraveling if you wish.  By sifting through the belongings of the family who lived in the house, and using your phone to scan QRcodes and collect more evidence, you investigate the family’s strange activities and disappearances in the service of a shadowy agency.  The amount of work that went into making all of this work is absolutely mind-boggling!

My phone takes terrible photos in anything besides bright daylight, and I didn’t want to be distracted too much, so here are some official photos I found online:

Honestly those feel like such a pale impression of the real thing- this is definitely something you have to experience for yourself!

Just a few photos I got:

One of many inter-dimensional portals in the house

Our favorite installation was covered in literal trash!

You’ll never want to throw out another bit of junk after seeing this room.  It was so cool.

We spent a little over 3 hours at House of Eternal Return.  There’s a cute cafe that you can take a break at anytime and return to the House.  If you can swing it, I’d recommend making a day of it!

Afterwards we had a late lunch at Tomasita’s, a popular New Mexican restaurant near downtown.  They’re known for their sopapillas, which were deeelicious.  Dad got a beef & bean stuffed sopapilla, Mom had tortilla soup, and I tried menudo, a beef tripe stew that sadly does not include hearty chunks of Ricky Martin.    

Tuesday, May 11 we started the day with shopping at two nearby thrift stores, The Cat & Savers.

The Cat (here) is a nicely curated boutique that benefits area animal shelters and has lots of animal-themed stuff.  Saver is a chain of enormous Goodwill-Meets-Walmart stores.  Mom and I found a few treasures, including some things we’ll be altering later in the trip when we’re in place for long enough to do some sewing.  I’ll hopefully share them then.

Then we headed back downtown to the Santa Fe Rail Depot to catch the Rail Runner to Alburquerque!

The Rail Runner is the commuter rail for the Santa Fe/ABQ area.  It’s not very busy these days, but it makes for an especially peaceful ride and the trains are very well-maintained.  The staff is also super friendly and helpful.

Don’t tell — we didn’t have anyone close to us so we unmasked for a quick photo.  Snitches get stitches!

The route passes several historic pueblo settlements and some old buildings amongst farmland, mesas, and flatlands.  We even saw some wild horses in the rocky area just outside of Santa Fe!

Downtown Albuquerque was pretty deserted, but Central Avenue had some cute cafes and bars that were just starting to reopen, and there’s some cool architecture.

We only had an hour to kill before our return train, so we wandered into a Food Hall and split a Big-Gulp-size horchata and a Detroit-style pizza from a stall called Thicc.  It’s a lot like a Sicilian pie, but the crust is basically just crispy charred cheese.  It was fantastic.

When we got back to the camper, Dad finally updated the door map with three new states - Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

Next stop, more New Mexico — which already has a sticker, so really, what’s the point?