Four days of winter for Christmas

Originally we had planned to go to Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico for Christmas. Also called Rocky Point (mostly by Arizonans), it’s our closest beach. It’s only 3 hours away and it’s an easy drive. Rocky Point is a small town, and isn’t much different than many of the little half-Spanish towns in southern Arizona, except it has a beach. It only has a little airstrip with no commercial flights, so the only tourists are mostly from Phoenix and Tucson and other smaller towns in the region.

In early December they closed the Lukeville border crossing. Lukeville was a good crossing – easy and fast. Our other options were much further away, and add about 4 hours of driving to a three hour trip. Ugh. But we still planned to go, because our second nearest beach, San Diego, is 6 hours away and a lot more expensive. And we already had our lodging reserved in Rocky Point. And I thought they would reopen Lukeville any day.

But then the crossing times at the alternative routes got slower and slower. Not only were the other crossing points absorbing the Lukeville traffic, but some of the officers from the other crossings had been sent to Lukeville to deal with the unexpected influx of migrants. So our alternatives, San Luis and Nogales, are understaffed and over utilized.

Depending on the time of day, wait times are ranging from one hour to 4 hours, with 2 and 3 hours being common mid-day. We added the estimated few hours waiting in line at the border to 7 hours of driving, and we were looking at 9-10 hours on the road. Factor in the fact that the solstice was a couple of days ago, we would end up driving through Mexico after dark. Which isn’t really that smart. Even if it were perfectly safe, which it’s not, there’s often road hazards – flooding, drifting sand, wandering cattle. None of which you want to hit in the dark.

John has a friend at work whose brother-in-law owns one of the big restaurants in Rocky Point, so he texted him. The restaurant owner told us that there were no tourists so he closed his restaurant! He plans to stay closed until the Lukeville border crossing opens back up. He said that all the tourist restaurants were closed, and only a few markets for the locals were still open. The lure of empty beaches was definitely dampened by the prospect of having to bring our own food. Not that we couldn’t. We could go down in our camper van and be completely self-sufficient. But it didn’t sound very Christmassy.

John and I started talking about whether we wanted to stay home, or if not, where else would we go? We were scheduled to leave in a couple of days and it felt very last-minute to be planning a vacation. We made a long list of options but we were nowhere close to deciding by bedtime that night.

The next morning on a whim, John looked up our favorite Airbnb in Albuquerque. They always book up way ahead, and as expected, they were completely booked up – except – wait, look – there’s an open gap that exactly matches our dates! Someone had cancelled at the last minute, and our hosts, Mark and Steve, were happy to have us. And that is how we came to be spending Christmas in Albuquerque.

You’re all like, Albuquerque? Yes, we moved out of Albuquerque because the winters are cold and we’re not into cold winters. But 4 days is just enough to appreciate Tucson when we get home!

Also Albuquerque is easy and familiar and doesn’t take any planning ahead. We already know a bunch of fun things to do. Albuquerque is actually beautiful at Christmas with all the luminarias. I admit, I was surprised that John was happy to drive that route again after all that commuting he did for 3 years! John’s driven that route so many times he could do it in his sleep. But it’s been 6 months and he’s no longer sick of it. So as John said, New Mexico instead of Old Mexico for Christmas this year!

I’ll be sorry to miss all my great friends in Albuquerque, but we’re just going to do a quick little vacation together without trying to visit everyone. You all know how that is. Sometimes all the socializing during the holidays can get to be a bit much. We’ll be back again soon and catch you next time.

Merry Christmas everyone!

To send me a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

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