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Last updated 08/29/2018
Albuquerque gave us our first taste of the southwestern high desert with colorful adobe dwellings sprinkled over scrubby mountainsides. Longingly, wistfully, I approached ready to be romanced by the place. Poor Albuquerque couldn’t live up to my preconceptions; I was a bit let down to find it basically a big, sprawly city, missing the soft strumming of sombreroed guitarists in the drowsy breezeways of my imagination. But to be fair – big cities have a lot to offer, and we only sampled a bit during our short time in The Duke City.
We visited Piedras Marcadas Canyon (one site of the Petroglyph National Monument) to hike a short trail and view various petroglyphs. Surprisingly for us, the trail was just right there – unguarded, unfenced, a few hundred feet behind housing in a pretty urban area. Aside from obviously being used as a dog walking area, the grounds and petroglyphs were amazingly unvandalized and well-preserved.
I fully intended to spend an afternoon soaking in the history and culture of Native Americans at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, but somehow the center’s hours and our schedule never synched up. What synched up much more easily was the Center’s evening “Party on the Patio,” where for a nominal fee we listened to a live band cover favorites like Look at Miss Ohio and enjoyed an all-you-can-eat pizza and taco bar.
I was charmed by our busy waitress, whose duties somehow extended to getting soaked in a spectacular and much-needed thunderous downpour that produced the pictured rainbow (barely visible above the right of the patio) . Thusly I took her recommendation to try the Infinity Stones Board treacly drink quartet, much to Dorian’s horror. He was right – these beautiful concoctions were essentially undrinkable – but the order made our waitress happy.
Historic Old Town Albuquerque matched up closely with my romantic notions. Pictured are some colorful shopping arcades where we purchased red and green chili-flavored chocolate, and the San Felipe de Neri Church, which has been in continuous use as a house of worship since 1793. Whimsical touches abounded in the Old Town Square – including the pictured Madonna-in-the-tree, and a bouquet of watchful sunflowers.
We were disappointed to miss riding the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway up to the 10,378-foot peak of the Sandia Mountains, but the forest was closed due to fire hazard. The tram was operating, but we’d only have been able to reach the top of the mountain and then return; so we saved this for another visit when we could enjoy hiking in the forest.
I’m sure we made perfect idiots of ourselves snapping dozens of pictures of the prairie dog villages in our campground. But prairie dogs are cute as buttons, so alert and inquisitive, so quick to pop up and dart back into their little holes…which are everywhere. By the time of this writing, we’ve seen like a kazillion of them – but we saw them first in Albuquerque.
An unexpected and delightful addition to our itinerary was the trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe along the Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway. We stopped in artsy, quirky Madrid (pronounced MAH-drid), a town that loves its dogs, so much that they have their own menu at The Hollar. Pippi chose the Milk Bones and received an unusually generous portion for twenty-five cents. She HIGHLY recommends it!
More Madrid pictures which one of us insisted on keeping.
We believe that these mailboxes represent the entire permanent population of Madrid, NM.
I couldn't read anything as close as this menu, but Pippi must have no presbyopia at all.
Would we come back?
Would we come back?
Albuquerque was nice and had lots of hiking nearby. At least, we think there was a lot of hiking. Due to fire restrictions, a lot of the forests were completely closed. We'd certainly come back and probably spend a few days if it was en route, but probably wouldn't choose it as a destination anytime soon.
The Turquoise Trail RV Park in Cedar Crest, NM was nicely situated at an elevation that kept things cooler than Albuquerque itself. Although we prefer state parks, BLM lands, or what have you to the crowded situation that one gets in private parks, there didn't seem to be a lot of alternatives close to where we wanted to be. Given all those constraints, we'd stay at Turquoise Trail again.
Would we live here?
Would we live here?
One could certainly do worse than to live in Albuquerque, but it wouldn't necessarily be high on our list. One thing we appreciated right away after coming from Texas was that New Mexicans decorate their highways. The overpasses had blue zig-zag stripes along the side, presumably reflecting Native American designs, and occasional, nicely landscaped median areas. In contrast, Texas kept most everything unadorned--except their rest areas. Main and secondary highways in Texas have designated picnic areas and rest areas. The picnic areas aren't much to look at but their rest areas are very nice, imaginatively decorated, very kid-friendly, and always worth the stop. Whether this minimalism vs flashes of design is a reflection of what you get with state taxes (New Mexico) versus no state taxes (Texas), I'm not sure. In any case, we moved on, our hopes set further North, in Santa Fe.
Where we stayed at the Turquoise Trail RV Park in Cedar Crest, NM, just outside of Albuquerque. It was the typical sardine situation that you get in private campgrounds. About 50% of our stays are at private places, many of which are this crowded.
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