-Mei Mei, 2 weeks after returning from New Mexico.
I lived in Albuquerque, NM, when I was my kids’ age, and I have core memories of attending the International Balloon Fiesta. I’ve wanted to go back and see it as an adult for years, but life always got in the way. This year, we made it happen. We originally planned an epic 2 week road trip to include Moab, UT and a few other sites along the way, but we decided our little family wasn’t quite ready for that adventure and scaled it back a bit, spending a couple nights in Santa Fe, then finishing the week out in Albuquerque.
We live in the Pacific Northwest and spent many years in Florida before that…. we were not adequately equipped for the desert. Next visit, we will drink way more water and bring a portable humidifier if we go the KOA route again. I loved the Santa Fe KOA, and being “almost camping” in the camping cabins there, but the dry air kinda wrecked our lungs and got us off to a bit of a rough start. Also, since we ended up flying instead of driving, we didn’t bring some of the basic comforts we’d prefer to have in a camping cabin with young children (pillows, thicker blankets, snacks from home). That being said, the trip was wonderful overall.
Santa Fe, NM
We explored Santa Fe for our first couple of days. The kids let loose at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum, each found an area to explore that filled their buckets, and we loved watching them learn and explore. We ate delicious green chile at nearly every meal. I introduced Arthur and the kids to real sopaipillas – sadly, that word does not mean the same thing outside of New Mexico. When the kids fell asleep in the car after lunch, we drove around and ended up at Bandelier National Monument. We were there exactly long enough for the kids to go potty, get their National Parks Junior Ranger books stamped, and take a family selfie. It would have been fun to explore the actual park a bit, but the kids weren’t having it, and it’s not fun if we’re not all having fun. So we headed back to our little cabin at the KOA and enjoyed some quiet family time. Later that night, I was walking Mei Mei to the bathroom on the other side of the campground and told her to look up – the sky was filled with more stars than she’d ever seen at once, and it blew her little mind. I’m pretty sure that was her favorite part of Santa Fe. Might have been mine too.
The Santa Fe KOA was just outside of Santa Fe, so it felt like camping but still close enough to civilization to quickly drive into town and explore. The staff was wonderful, the bathrooms were clean, and they sell Hunt Brothers pizza that they will deliver to your cabin, which made for a very welcome, low-effort dinner our first night there (much-needed after flight delays and little sleep the night before).
We also had at least a half dozen recommendations to check out Meow Wolf in Santa Fe. It looks like a lot of fun, and I hope we get to check it out sometime. However, we decided to skip it this trip. Our family has some sensory processing difficulties that we’re still figuring out, and from what I could find online, and what we know about our needs so far, Meow Wolf would either be a perfect environment for our sensory-seeker, or completely overwhelming. With all of the other new, exciting things on our agenda, we decided Meow Wolf might be a better fit for another trip. Again, it’s not fun if we’re not all having fun.
Albuquerque, NM
In Albuquerque, we had a pretty set list of things we wanted to do, mostly centered around my childhood favorites that I wanted to share with my kids: the balloon fiesta, Rattlesnake Museum, Petroglyph National Monument, and Explora! Children’s Museum/Science Center. We made it to all these places (and a few more), and everyone had fun. Explora actually got a few visits (yay for reciprocal memberships – it was free for us because we’re members at our local museum).
This is a lot, and we knew we wanted to also try to get some parent-only time during the week, so we leaned on our extended family, and we had 2/6 grandparents join us for the ABQ leg of the trip. This meant our first trip to the Balloon Fiesta was just me and Arthur, and we got up well before the sun to experience Dawn Patrol and a Mass Ascension together. It was beautiful and even better than I remember. I’m so grateful for the members of our village that loves our little family and allows us these moments.
We also met a new member of our village in Albuquerque: Kulture City. As we’re learning how to make experiences more accessible given our family’s sensory needs, sometimes we try things, and it just doesn’t work. If it’s too loud or too busy, or if we’re just having a day and need to regulate, for our family, this usually means we leave and at least some of us miss out on an experience. On our grown-ups only trip to the Balloon Fiesta, we stumbled on Kulture City and their mobile sensory space. Apparently, they’re a large non-profit that we really should have heard about before now, and they’re everywhere – even back home. They exist to make spaces more accessible for people with invisible disabilities, and they had sensory tools available for check out, and a mobile sensory room, right there at the Balloon Fiesta. When we brought the kids for the evening event the next day, we were quickly overwhelmed and very “melty” and having a hard time recovering. Because we already knew Kulture City was there, we quickly popped in to the mobile sensory room, and soon, we heard “this place is awesome”, and “go see balloons now”.
As always, we also build normal activities and down time into our trips with the littles. We spent a lot of time at children’s museums and playgrounds during our visit. We spend time at “home” and read books and watch shows and do some of the things they do at home too. Usually, this isn’t much to write about, but we stumbled on a really amazing playground: A Park Above in Rio Rancho. This park is huge, fully fenced, and built to be accessible for all kids. It was really spread out, so it never got too hectic. It’s fully fenced, so we could relax a bit knowing our runner couldn’t bolt into traffic if we weren’t fast enough. And there were kids of all ages and varying abilities playing every time we went. It was beautiful, the kids loved it, made friends, and keep asking to get on an airplane and go back to that playground. Kudos to Rio Rancho and all who made that park happen. I’m now on a mission to find a place like it near home, or to make it happen if it doesn’t exist.
TL;DR
Lessons learned: bring pillows, drink water, lemons help with dehydration, and bring portable humidifiers. Also, KultureCity exists and is amazing!
Favorite spots:
Go Team Chiang! 
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