Nevada

I thought of the idea for the trip last fall, one of dozens of adventures I’d dreamed up and noted for “whenever things get back to normal.” My list got stupid long. I floated the idea to a friend: “I want to visit the three Meow Wolf locations in Denver, Santa Fe, and Las Vegas in one week.” He responded immediately with “Let’s do it.” Kurt was in too.

This trip ended up having a theme, which was seeing the world cracked open. It’s fitting considering we’re living through this time in history in which the landscape shifts constantly; a new dangerous variant emerged and circled the globe within the brief window of time between buying our plane tickets and embarking on our trip. We move forward, thrice Pfizered, twice shy.

Colorado

Song: “Mountain Song” by Jane’s Addiction

And so we arrive in Denver in late January, a Ziploc full of fresh KN95s in my purse, and a box of rapid tests in my carry-on in case of the worst. We spend two nights in an AirBnB in Boulder, the broad expanse of the Rockies visible even from the windows of the garden unit. As a Midwesterner, I can never get over seeing the mountains from one’s house. You can just, like, walk outside and see the Rocky Mountains while still wearing your house slippers? And while getting in and out of your car in the CVS parking lot? It’s wild.

On our one full day in Boulder, we hike the Mt. Sanitas trail, a 3.2 mile loop to the summit at 1,256 feet. The first half of the trail to the summit is steep, with a good amount of rock scrambling close to the top. There’s fresh white powder on the ground, dusting the pine trees, and cool drops of condensation drip onto my head. I work up a sweat, stepping up logs and boulders as high as my hips. I’ve got flatlander’s lungs and I’m breathing hard in this high elevation. Meanwhile, locals trail run past me in light athleisure wear, barely breaking a sweat. I even see a dog with corgi legs scramble over the rocks like it’s no big deal. My hair is a damp mop on my head and I’ve peeled off my sweaty gloves, shoving them into the pockets of my puffy jacket now tied around my waist. But we make it to the top, and bask in the view of the city of Boulder laid out around us. I can never get over a good view. A change in perspective. Man, I’ve missed traveling during this damn pandemic.

On Sunday morning, we arrive at the first of our Meow Wolf stops in Denver, Convergence Station. None of us have been here before. Kurt and I visited the original Meow Wolf in Santa Fe in 2019, and I loved the trippy art fever dream experience of it. The Denver installation is over three times bigger, located in an industrial area where the highways converge, lending inspiration to the intergalactic travel theme. The last real-world moment is when we are told of their mask policy (must stay on, fully covering one’s nose and mouth at all times, removing the mask even for a quick photo could result in being asked to leave). With our KN95s on tight, we enter the elevator and are whisked away to another world.

Here are my tips for visiting Convergence Station:

If possible, plan your visit on a weekday or early in the day to avoid crowds.
For $3, you can pick up a QPass card for an interactive ‘game’ within the installation. If you’re exploring with a group, you only need one card (but keep in mind you’ll need to stick together). When you boop your card at a reader, you accumulate ‘mems’ which piece together to tell the story within the world.
If you don’t feel like solving the game, don’t worry about it. It’s a blast just to explore and interact with the art and the space itself (especially if it’s your first Meow Wolf visit).
If you’ve previously been to House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe, prepare yourself for an experience three times bigger (60,000 square ft of exhibition space compared to 20,000). We spent about 3 hours in Convergence Station, and could have stayed longer if we didn’t have tight schedule.

I love Meow Wolf because it feels like everything I longed for as a kid–a gigantic, fantastical funhouse full of secret passages and portals and wormholes to the next spot. One world is ethereal and melancholy, with a reclining mermaid tucked high on a ridge, her luminescent hair draping down the wall. Another looks like a futuristic street out of Blade Runner, with neon graffiti, an intergalactic bus, and a story about a rat antihero. The next looks like an ice planet with a show-stopping glass cathedral nearly touching the light show sky.

I’m starting to settle into the rhythm of traveling again. With so many new landscapes and experiences to explore, I push my anxieties to the back of my brain, trying not to worry about things until they are a reality.

New Mexico

Song: “Sound & Color” by Alabama Shakes

We drive south through Colorado towards our next stop, Taos in northern New Mexico. It’s about a 5-hour drive, and I love watching the geological scenery change outside the car window. Gradually, the snow-capped Rockies disappear from view, and the rock formations of northern New Mexico dominate the horizon. We pass over the Rio Grande River Gorge Bridge, 600 feet above the river bed, one of the highest bridges in the country. From the vantage point of the bridge, the landscape looks cracked into two halves, like something caused by a pissed-off sorcerer.

Outside of Taos, I soak in mineral hot springs. In one pool with a natural pebble floor, you can see the bubbles come up from the earth and rise to the surface. The night air is crisp, somewhere around 30 degrees, but it’s toasty in the water, heated by geothermal activity deep in the earth. I think that my love of fantasy/sci-fi and my love of nature go hand in hand, because nature really is wild to wrap your head around.

The next day, we make the quick trip to Santa Fe, one of my favorite cities. I get my fix of tamales with green chile and a spicy margarita with a slice of jalapeno floating on the rocks. Next stop: the original location of Meow Wolf, House of Eternal Return.

Kurt and I first visited Meow Wolf in spring 2019. Even after the awesome display that is the 4-story Convergence Station, I am still blown away by the original space. There’s something about the storyline–a family disappears when they begin traveling inter-dimensionally in an effort to find a deceased loved one–that feels more intimate and prescient. I love the juxtaposition of a typical house and another dimension: a washing machine reveals an intergalactic portal, a closet in a child’s bedroom reveals a secret passage to a space wormhole. I love the story of the origins of Meow Wolf as a DIY art collective, creating a space for artists outside of the bougie Santa Fe gallery scene. If you’re new to Meow Wolf, I recommend starting with a visit to the Santa Fe location and also viewing their origin story.

One quick night in Santa Fe, and we fill it with Frito pie. I also swear that our Airbnb is haunted and I dream that a man from the boiler room walks through the room at night while we sleep.

Arizona

Song: “Canyon Moon” by Harry Styles

It’s a 4-hour drive to Petrified Forest National Park, so we get an early start to maximize our day before the park closes at 5 p.m. After making a few stops along the historic Route 66, we arrive at the park in the early afternoon. Starting at the Rainbow Forest Museum, we get the lay of the land and read up on the history of the park. With a few hours to go before closing, we pick a few short trails to hike: Crystal Forest, a 0.75 mile loop around a field of countless crystallized petrified logs; Blue Mesa, a 1-mile loop on a steeply graded trail that takes you into and out of the badland hills; Newspaper Rock, an overlook where you can view an array of nearly 650 petroglyphs created by ancestral Puebloan people as long as 2,000 years ago. This is a very accessible park for families with young children or seniors, as the trails are short but scenic and it’s easy to drive and park at each trailhead.

Being the group of science and nature-minded nerds that we are, we marvel at the striations and variations in the rock formations, piecing together what was once underwater back when Arizona was under an ocean. How wild that a log can still look like wood on the outside, the patterns of bark still intact, while the inside has turned into quartz after being buried in sediment and compressed by pressure then being revealed again by wind and erosion. These elements exist on an entirely different timeline than us humans in our meat bodies.

We breeze through our itinerary and realize it’s a few minutes past 5 as we squeeze in one last stop at Pintado Point. A strong wind whips across the badlands, chilling straight through my nano-puff jacket. I spot a ranger pull into the parking lot and we scramble for the car, but before we can promise we’re leaving, she tells us that we can stay for 30 more minutes to watch the sunset. “It’s going to be a nice one,” she says before driving away. We’re elated over the gift of additional time, and bundle up so we can stand at the overlook in the cold until the sun disappears into the horizon. The sky intensifies into a fiery orange as the low winter sun sets behind the badlands. As the colors cool into a soft, deep blue, we get back into the car and drive to the northern exit.

Another day, another few giant holes in the ground. We grab breakfast then make our way to Meteor Crater National Landmark. The entire drive there, I’m positive that this is where Thor landed in his MCU origin film, but once I look it up I realize that I’m wrong. Starman (1984), however, was filmed at the national landmark.

Once you walk outside, the sight of the crater is mind-blogging. Free binoculars are staged at various viewing platforms alongside the crater. The crater is roughly 560 feet deep and 0.737 miles in diameter. The sky is bright blue all around us, and I imagine what it would be like to standing around in the desert when all of a sudden a meteor traveling around 30,000 mph suddenly arrived out of nowhere and smashed into the ground, creating this gigantic hole. Some of the original drilling equipment is set up on the ground level to show where excavations were dug for meteor remnants in the early 1900s.

Another few hours in the car, to the next destination. We pass through Flagstaff, then drive north towards the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I spot pronghorns along the side of the road briefly. It’s a little before sunset when we finally arrive in the National Park. Before even checking in, we park the car and dash to the nearest viewing area. Somehow everyone in our group made it to our forties without ever visiting the Grand Canyon before, so when we reach the overlook, we’re all pretty awestruck. You can look at a million photos of it (and you’re American, you probably have by sheer cultural osmosis) but it’s nothing like being there in person–the scale, the depth of shadow, the way the colors change in real time as the sun moves through the sky, revealing new angles. We walk along the Rim Trail, checking out a few different scenic overlooks.

My acrophobia is mostly OK as long as there’s a substantial fence higher than my waist. A few waves of panic wash over me as I spot people venturing past the railing to stand on a rocky outcrop and take photos. People are out of their minds. Along other parts of the trail, there’s no barrier at all. When I start freaking out, I move further inland away from the rim. I can barely watch the small children and dogs who dart around on the sidewalk.

The next morning, we fuel up on coffee, water, and breakfast burritos. The plan is to hike a portion of the Bright Angel Trail. As soon as I see the start of the trail, panic rises. The path is covered in snow and ice and descends into a narrow curve, then out of sight. I’m honestly not sure if I can do this trail at first; every time I look out over the edge I want to barf. But my group scouts out the trail beyond the curve and reassures me; it’s wider than it looks (4-6 feet across) and full of switchbacks, so even if I fell off the edge, I’d only go as far as the next ledge down. I don’t want to miss out on the views from below the rim, so I tighten the crampons on my boots, grip my hiking poles, and go for it.

We descend slowly, one switchback at a time. I’m a slower hiker on the descent, thanks to my knee injury history, but my hiking buddies are relaxed and no big rush. As we get beneath the rim, the views are stunning. We are up close to the rock face and can see the layers of limestone, sandstone, and shale in detail. The first mile and a half or so are icy, but it’s manageable with my crampons and poles. I’m comfortable in my base layer and nano-puff in the cool 40-something-degree shade. My boots begin to expose red earth beneath the white snow, and soon we’re hiking on sun-dried dirt again.

We rest briefly at the 1.5 mile rest stop, then continue to another 1.5 miles to the next one. My knee is yelling at me that every step down I take, I’ll need to take back up on the return trip. After descending 2,100 feet, I decide I’m good for the day. I wish I could keep going all the way to the riverbed and rest my legs at camp, but we’re only here for the day, and what goes down needs to come back up. The views of the river valley are a dream; I get why people become obsessed with this place and come back year after year. One can only imagine how much time could be spent hiking every trail, exploring every formation and never becoming bored. Caverns and valleys and portals and wormholes, what a theme for a trip. I feel blessed, as the kids say, to have experienced this week’s worth of adventure.

I’m pleasantly surprised by our swift uphill pace; the ascent is easier on my rickety knee joints and it feels good to put my muscles to the test (I’m basically a pack animal). We get off the trail around early afternoon and have a hot shower and a Santa Fe beer in our fridge to look forward to.

On our last evening in the national park, we go to Mohave Point to watch the sunset. The Colorado River is visible, and even from this distance, I can see the silvery water moving through the canyon. I stand back, just far enough from the minimal railing to keep my heart from racing. The temperature drops along with the sun, and I burrow into my coat, but I stand to watch as the winter sun descends lower and lower, washing the canyon in cool blues as a ribbon of tangerine lingers above the canyon walls, then fades away. Finally, I run back to the warmth of the car.

12 hours later, I pull my jeans on over long underwear and my puffy over my wool sweater, hide my bedhead under a knit cap, and run back outside to watch the sunrise. This time, the cool blues warm into soft pink. A rock formation in the distance catches the light first, and the yellow rays dance across its surface.

Is this traveling in middle age? I’m into this vibe of waking up early, hangover-free, to quietly watch a sunrise, then head back to bed to do my daily word puzzle.

We’re at the point in the trip where my packing cubes of dirty clothes start to outnumber clean clothes. Only one more state to go, and I get that wistful feeling where I don’t want vacation to end, even though I’m excited for the remaining plans that lay ahead. Onward.

We cruise through rural western Arizona. The desert gets more sparse and brown, far from the thickly wooded landscape in the northern end of the state. We make a stop at the Grand Canyon Caverns in Peach Springs. I first heard of this place on Atlas Obscura, with its grotto and hotel suite located 200 feet below ground. We go on the guided tour, which features the rentable open-air hotel room, a mummified bobcat, and a cache of emergency supplies that’s been sitting there since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Song: “Lost in the Supermarket” by The Clash

I haven’t driven to Las Vegas from Arizona since college, and I reminisce over the familiar scenery of Lake Mead Recreation Area. Good ol’ Las Vegas, my home in 1999. This final destination calls for a big-ass beer and a fresh KN95 up for a challenge.

The grand finale of our trip is our final Meow Wolf destination, Omega Mart. It’s located in Area 15, an immersive arts district inside a giant warehouse. The theme of this location is a grocery store where something went cosmically sideways. As with the other locations, wormholes and secret passageways abound. It’s easy to spend a ton of time in the grocery store entrance, where the attention to detail is extraordinary. Everything from the signage to the products to the tiniest details on their labels has an otherworldly, often hilarious twist. And you can buy many of the products; we purchased a snack pack of Dragon Arteries (red licorice bites) and a soda can of Gender Fluid (lemon-flavored sparkling water). As with the other installations, there’s a large main “world” that the passageways take you in and out of. Omega Mart also features three large metal slides, in case you’re looking for a quick getaway from the third level. Some of the rooms here, such as the Infinitizer, are a prime example of how Meow Wolf has grown in leaps in terms of merging technology with experience. I also discover my favorite room out of any Meow Wolf installation, a piece called “Pulse.”

Similar to Denver, there is a (free) card you can pick up to play the interactive game, which unlocks pieces of the storyline. And occasionally the story breaks through to the public; while we shop around the grocery store, the lights cut out and the television monitors are taken over by a group of insurgents looking to take down DramCorp, the evil family-owned conglomerate within this universe.

Omega Mart fills 52,000 square feet of exhibition space, closer in size to Convergence Station than House of Eternal Return. Once we’re satiated on our fill of parallel universes and trippy groceries (and I’ve spent enough at the two gift shops), we check out the rest of Area 15. A highlight is Birdly, a VR experience where you can get strapped into wings and soar through a virtual Chicago as a pigeon, or my personal choice, put on a wingsuit like in the Point Break remake and race through mountains trying to collect rings.

We’ve reached the end of our trip. I couldn’t have asked for a better time exploring alternate dimensions via immersive art and awe-inspiring wonders of nature. From Denver to Vegas, we’ve traveled up to 7,490 feet above sea level, down to 200 feet below ground. I’ve hiked on sacred lands as a grateful visitor, and enjoyed a collective vision of hundreds of artists’ rendition of an altered reality. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to travel, one that I do not take for granted, and I can’t wait to do more, as safely and responsibly as one can.

Final tips:

If you’ve never been to a Meow Wolf, I recommend visiting in chronological order (Santa Fe, Las Vegas, Denver) so you can see the scale increase with each installation. But also, time is precious and life is wild, so go in any order if that’s what it takes to get out there.
I spent days after our trip reading more about each exhibit, and learning the stories of the individual artists enhances the whole experience for me. For example, I loved learning about how Arapaho translations are incorporated into Convergence Station, and Erika T. Wurth’s vision for incorporating Native imagery into the story behind the room “Help Save My World.” And also learning that the room “Wheelchair Space Kitchen Time Portal” pays homage to the disability rights movement. You can visit each location dozens of times and still discover new meaning and insight.
The world is chaos. Stop and watch as many sunrises and sunsets as you can.