Caroline and I had to take off on a Friday for this trip. We left Phoenix with solid gray skies for the first few hours of our trip east on Highway 60 to New Mexico.

By 3:00 p.m., we were approaching the Arizona-New Mexico border but had to stop to look into the Morenci open-pit mine along the way. While it’s colorful, we have to remind ourselves that something is missing.

Our road turns north as we take the Coronado Scenic Byway because we love hairpin turns in the snow. When it’s approaching 100 degrees down in Phoenix, it’s hard to remember that other places still have snow.

And maybe a lot of snow.

We have possibly found our favorite neon sign in America and one of our favorite restaurants, El Camino Family Restaurant in Socorro, New Mexico. Green chili-smothered steak and chili relleno in an old diner atmosphere at 10:00 p.m. is our idea of perfection.

If it’s cheap, we’ll stay in it. This room was borderline sketchy, but if we are going to travel at least once a month, we need to save money wherever we can. We almost were without a room and needed to backtrack to Magdalena to grab one of the last two rooms available.