After chilling in Texas for a few weeks, Shae and I moved on to Bloomfield, New Mexico – a small city in the northwest corner of the state near Four Corners Monument.
We booked three weeks there as New Mexico had a two week self-quarantine requirement for visitors in the state, although they ended up lifting that requirement a couple of days after we were done self-quarantining. That would’ve been a little frustrating, but it was actually kind of nice having that down time, plus it flew by quickly. It was helped by the fact that we self-quarantined five days in Albuquerque before arriving in Bloomfield, so we only had nine days left by the time we got to Bloomfield.
It was a relaxing and fun three weeks in Bloomfield, although we did miss out on a few things due to both the weather and COVID. Here’s a recap of where we stayed, what we ate and where we visited, as well as a list of the places we didn’t get to visit.
Where We Stayed
Seeing as we were having to self-quarantine, we figured it’d be more fun doing that in an Airbnb where we’d have more space than in a hotel. We found a great three bedroom, two bathroom place on a farm which we had to ourselves.
Another reason we chose this Airbnb is because it had a fenced-in backyard. That meant Truffles was able to chase after her ball outside several times a day which helped prevent her from getting cabin fever.
After a few days it was almost like she knew we were self-quarantining because any time I put my jacket and shoes on, she got incredibly excited at the prospect of going out to play as she knew we weren’t going anywhere else!
What We Ate
Seeing as we had to self-quarantine for about half our stay, we didn’t end up eating out much. Shae and I did get to try some different food to normal though because one of her friends gave us a free trial box for Hello Fresh, a meal kit delivery service.
The box came with three meals for two people and we were both very impressed with the quality and flavor of the meals. We’ve already made two of the meals again with ingredients we bought from the grocery store as the service itself would be expensive to maintain and isn’t really conducive to our living situation seeing as we move all the time.
The first meal I tried was pork and poblano tacos with kiwi salsa. This meal was delicious and is one I’ll definitely be making again in the future.
Shae isn’t a big fan of pork, so I had both servings of the tacos. I don’t like cheese or mushrooms, so the second meal was one that was all hers – cheesy smothered mushroom chicken with mashed potato and roasted carrots. It didn’t turn out as attractive as the image on the recipe card, but Shae loved the taste of the chicken.
The other meals was one that we both liked – beef bulgogi bowl. I made this again the other night with a slight adjustment to the sauce as I couldn’t find the same kind at the grocery store.
We did eat out one night (well, ordered food to eat back at our Airbnb) at Blake’s Lotaburger. This is a somewhat local chain as most of their restaurants are in New Mexico, so we thought we’d give it a try as they had a location in Bloomfield.
They’re best known for their Green Chile LOTA Burgers, so Shae and I both ordered one of those. I’d been picturing a burger smothered in some kind of green salsa, but they sauté chopped green chilis and put them between two burger patties, with a couple of rashers of bacon to top it off. The result is a tasty – and spicy – burger.
There’s a town in New Mexico called Hatch which is where hatch chiles originate from. While at the grocery store, we saw bottles of Hatch red chile wine. We were dubious about how it would taste, but we decided to buy a bottle anyway because why not.
It was….interesting. I’m glad we tried it, but it’s not a wine we’ll buy again. It was like drinking chile, but not. The wine wasn’t overly spicy – it just didn’t taste too much like wine either.
What We Did
Almost as soon as our self-quarantine was over, we drove down to Chaco Culture National Historical Park. This site has remains of numerous great houses build by ancestral Puebloans and was an incredibly interesting place to spend the day. You can read much more about it here.
No sooner were we able to explore the area than we weren’t. A winter storm rolled in, so we spent Valentine’s Day staying warm in our Airbnb.
Truffles wasn’t going to let any pesky flakes come between her and playing fetch in the backyard, so we both put our winter jackets on and headed outside.
The snow started to melt the next day, but the day after that another snow storm rolled in, dumping several inches of snow on the area. We were a little wary of some of the roads we might have to drive on, so we spent another couple of days hanging out at our Airbnb.
The roads had cleared enough a few days later, so we took the short drive up to the city of Aztec to visit Aztec Ruins National Monument. The great house there wasn’t built by the Aztec people but by ancestral Puebloans who’d likely traveled from Chaco Canyon.
A big feature of the site is the reconstructed kiva which has been redesigned in what’s thought to be the same way it would once have looked almost 1,000 years ago. Check out this post for more about Aztec Ruins National Monument.
The farm we were staying on had a couple of horses, so Shae enjoyed going out to say hi to them several times and treating them to apples and carrots.
What We Didn’t Do
One of the places we’d wanted to visit while staying in Bloomfield was Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, a Bureau of Land Management site which has hiking trails with hoodoos and other rock formations. Their website warned about the roads leading into the Wilderness area though, so with all the snow and us driving a Toyota Corolla rather than some kind of SUV or high clearance vehicle, we were wary about getting our car stuck and so didn’t make the trip down there this time.
Update: We’ve since visited Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness and it was great – here’s more about it.
There were other sites we missed out on, but due to COVID rather than the weather. That included Four Corners Monument – the point where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet. It would’ve been convenient to visit Four Corners Monument while in Bloomfield as it wasn’t too far away, but we’re still due to visit the other three states and so it’ll hopefully have reopened before we’ve finished visiting Arizona, Utah and Colorado.
Navajo Lake State Park was fairly close to where we were staying and seemed like it could be a pretty place to visit. However, all of New Mexico’s state parks were only open to residents of the state at the time, so we had to give that a miss.
Salmon Ruins Museum in Bloomfield was also closed due to COVID, so if we found ourselves in northwestern New Mexico post-COVID, I certainly wouldn’t complain as there are still a lot of interesting places to visit.
[…] spending a few weeks in Bloomfield, NM, we headed southeast to Los Alamos. We picked Los Alamos as it was close to several places we […]