I live in the Albuquerque metropolitan area and have a Costco membership. I happen to have a jar of flame roasted Hatch Valley green chile in my pantry. I think I'll try this recipe.

@Lion, I recommend you come in early October for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Also around that time of year you will get to smell the incredible aroma of chiles being freshly roasted in tumbling metal cages outside of every local grocery store. Hotels will be a bit more expensive around that time, but you can stay at my place.

I didn't appreciate it growing up here, but New Mexico offers a variety of utterly alien landscapes. It's the reason the end of K-PAX was set here. I think it is also the reason people were willing to believe that aliens visited near Roswell. The following are a few of the things I recommend to visitors.

• Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return is an immersive art installation in which you travel between a mysterious house and alien dimensions, many of which have interactive features.

• Sandia Peak Tramway is the best way to appreciate just how clear the atmosphere can be in a high elevation desert. I've looked at Sandia Peak through a telescope from about 10 miles away and could count the branches on a tree. From Sandia Peak the horizon is about 60 miles away, but is perfectly clear on most days. If the sky isn't clear then the sunsets and sunrises are amazing. Keep in mind that this is while looking over the biggest city in New Mexico. Try seeing that far over any of the various big smog cities of the world. The high elevation, lower oxygen, mostly clear weather, and clean air is the reason cyclists come here to train.

• Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a giant cave network deep underground with a variety of downright otherworldly rock formations. It's almost like hiking through a naturally constructed setting for an RPG dungeon crawl.

• White Sands National Park is full of endless, blindingly white gypsum dunes. They can't be fully appreciated through a photo. When you're standing in the middle of it, your brain starts to trip just coming to terms with the silence, the vastness, the bleakness, the sheer brightness your eyes just can't adjust to. Sledding on the dunes is fun too.

• Speaking of tripping, Breaking Bad wasn't just set in Albuquerque, New Mexico; it was filmed here. I've seen busses of tourists coming just to see locations from the show.

Mhm

Damn it, I should have taken the offer while it was still available 😉 To be fair, it isn't that expensive, just pretty time-consuming and involves a few too many travel days.

I love 505! I'd happily ship some to you if you pay shipping fees (and assuming that it is not illegal for some weird reason).

As an FYI, if you fly to NM there are noticeably better hatch Valley chilis than canned 505!

@RobertCousineau Hey, you can't list a bunch of reasons to plan a trip to New Mexico and then make this offer. That's ethically questionable.

@RobertCousineau Okay, in all seriousness, thank you. I just took a quick look. They even sell it on Amazon (and Walmart), but they don't ship any food items to Germany, the Netherlands, or Belgium. I'm not sure about the laws regarding this at all. In general, I don't think it's a problem with canned stuff. However, the conspiracy population is big enough that there could be laws that prohibit this. So I'll have to do some research.

ooh international chilies conspiracy market

@Lion you can't expect thinly veiled excuses to land with a hyper-rational mind, you'll just end up cutting out all the fun steps in order to reach the goal! (but also, the mail order conspiracy chilies may tide you over but it's the freshies Bill will direct you to in NM that will show you what the soup can truly taste like - there options needn't be in conflict)

The best Dashboard on Manifold 🍲

sounds like a souper trip to me!

@shankypanky The next NM Costco "just" is 4 hours from Mesa Verde 💀 Maybe I should've checked beforehand

@Lion no no don't be silly - I see three (lol) all next to each in Albuquerque, which is also only ~1hr from Santa Fe.

@shankypanky I didn't mean the Las Vegas next to Santa Fe 😂

@Lion oh I'd already transported you straight to NM 😂 Vegas is terrible but there's good vegan food lol

@shankypanky I'm confused. Are we talking about the Vegas in New Mexico or Nevada?

@Lion I have no idea what's going on.

@Lion OIC TIL

@shankypanky In retrospect, I like Vegas, just not after two weeks in national parks.

However, I need a support reason to visit New Mexico/Santa Fe. While the argument buying chilis in a NM Costco might convince me, maybe not everyone.

@Lion I understand that - I've been back in the US for ~18 months after living 5 years in the middle of the forest and I'm still not sure I've adjusted 😂

not sure what national parks you've been to but Utah has a long list of dreamy places - and iirc there are some in the north and the south of NM that would be worth a look? you can pack an icebox for the soup.

@shankypanky Probably the most tourist ones 😂 (not all Utah, but in the area: Arches, Canyonlands, Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion NP and a few state parks)

I'm actually trying to get @billga's attention to get a few tips for New Mexico. ❤

I DON'T NEED AN ICEBOX FOR THE SOUP! I'LL EAT IT IMMEDIATELY!

@Lion While in NM you should be able to score infinite chilies just about anywhere, Costco chile is for us ex-pats with no other recourse.

@billga I'm looking for reasons why to visit NM (and which national/state parks to visit), the Costco chile are just a joke

@Lion (psst @billga that's your queue to give some advice on national/state parks in NM)

@shankypanky @Lion White Sands should be on your list, there’s nothing else like it. I like Petroglyph for the primitive art, and Carlsbad Caverns for the bats. All of those are within driving distance of Hatch. 🌶️

... or the plains of San Augustin where the Very Large Array sits, the aforementioned Mesa Verde, Vallas Caldera outside of Los Alamos, and the death labs at Los Alamos. and Trinity Site if you go in April or October.

@Lion Bill's probably got better suggestion than me but if you like Georgia O'Keefe she lived in north central NM. The drive on the highway going northwest of this is also incredibly beautiful in my opinion!

I do sort of think that about the whole state though!

Si Senor in Las Cruces is genuinely delicious every time I've eaten there.

I'd say the food at random mexican restaurants is almost always delicious too - a higher hit rate for food being delicious than anywhere else I've been.

The rio grand gorge is also gorgeous. Sample reccomendation would be this hot spring - I went and had a lot of fun!

I've also heard a lot of good things about the Sandia tram, but have not been on it myself.

@RobertCousineau @billga Thank you ❤ , this transformed the question of how to find a reason to visit New Mexico into needing to plan an extra trip for New Mexico 🤣