Albuquerque, New Mexico

It's only two hours down I-40 from Gallup to Albuquerque, our next stop on this great adventure.  We got the motorhome parked at Enchanted Trails RV Park, and headed into the city.  Denisa had made a long list of things she wanted to see and do since we have never visited Albuquerque before.  Since it was a beautiful day, we started off with outdoor activities.

Albuquerque is very proud of its Paseo del Bosque Trail.  It's 16 mile bike trail that runs north-south parallel with the Rio Grande River all the way through the city.  Much of it is shaded because of the large trees that grow around the river.  That brings us to our new word of the day--Bosque.  We didn't know how to pronounce it or what it meant when we started this bike trail.  But we now know that it is (boh-skay), and that it means "a forest along a river."

We started at Central Avenue (also known as  Route 66) and headed north.  We were riding beside the Albuquerque Gardens at first, and then the BioPark Aquarium, so it was especially pretty.  Other times the river, and thus the bike trail, twisted toward the east so that we got a view of the Sandia Mountains.  There are some serious bikers in Albuquerque, and most of them seemed to be on this trail on a beautiful afternoon.  Denisa determined that she was riding the oldest and cheapest bike on the trail, so she didn't take it personally that she got passed by all those bikers.  She was setting the pace for this ride, so Mark was forced to stay behind her slow speed.  However, we did manage to pass one guy that was walking on the trail.

One of the side trails off the Paseo Bosque goes to the Rio Grande Valley State Park.  They have a visitor center that overlooks a pond filled with water birds.  We especially enjoyed these turtles, and a mother duck and her six babies.

Another item on Denisa's list was visiting Historic Old Town Albuquerque.  The center of this revitalized area is a tree-shaded town plaza complete with cannons and a gazebo.

Across the street is the San Felipe de Neri Church.  Built in 1793, it is still an active church in the community.

 


The rest of Old Town is filled with art galleries, shops, and restaurants.   This shop caught Denisa's eye because it had beautiful hollyhocks blooming outside.  Her Grandmother used to have these old-fashioned flowers, so there was a sweet memory picture taken.  If Denisa looks like she is about to cry because the sun is in her eyes, it's because she is about to cry because the sun is in her eyes.

Since we don't have room in the motorhome for trinkets and souvenirs, we only stop at the eating establishments.  We found a wonderful frozen yogurt place across from the plaza, and we were pretty excited to see they were celebrating "Marvelous Monday."  On Mondays, you can fill a large waffle cone with as much frozen yogurt and toppings as it would hold--all for $1.  You can tell that Denisa is pretty pleased with her yogurt cone creation! She felt compelled to replace those calories that were burned off in the 20 mile bike ride.

Because we always enjoy a free attraction, we also took a hike at the Petroglyph National Monument.  There are three different locations in Albuquerque where lava fields have been preserved because of the ancient petroglyphs carved into the black rock.

We hiked the 2.2 mile trail at the Rinconada Canyon site, and took some pictures of the best petroglyphs.  It was a little like an Easter egg hunt, trying to find the carved pictures amongst the mounds of boulders.  The hunt was made harder because we were kept away from the boulders by a cable fence.

This rock art was carved between 400 and 700 years ago, and there are supposed to be 1,200 petroglyphs in Rinconada Canyon.  We found something closer to 12 petroglyphs.  Some of them looked a little like space aliens.





 

This was my favorite group of petroglyphs.  In the lower left corner are two crosses, probably carved by Spanish sheepherders at a later date than the "space alien" on the right hand side, or the foot on the rock on the upper left.

We must say that the highlight of this hike was meeting Norbert and Rosi from Germany.  They were starting the hike as we were finishing and we struck up a conversation.  They fly to the United States on a regular basis, and rent a small airplane to fly themselves to different locations that they love in the western part of our country.  They have made 30 trips here so far, and gave us lots of information about their favorite hikes.  We thought it was very interesting to get good travel advice in the United States from Germans. We wish we would have thought to take a picture of them on the trail! We hope to keep in contact with them for future advice, and we will be making the La Luz hike that they recommended here in Albuquerque.

Our next stop was the Balloon Museum.  Albuquerque holds the International Balloon Fiesta in October, and this museum chronicles the history of the first successful flying machine all the way to the record setting balloons of today.  It also has some interactive displays that allowed us to pretend we were flying in a hot air balloon.  
There were other displays where we could sit in larger balloon cockpits that even included the lawn chairs, sleeping bags, and soup cans used in their record-setting journeys.  It was a great museum!







Our next stop was the University of New Mexico campus downtown.  We enjoyed our picnic lunch at the Duck Pond, then headed to the Meteor and Geology Museum in Northrop Hall.  We enjoy being on university campuses, and the University of New Mexico has some beautiful gardens.

In our quest to buy only edible souvenirs, we also visited the Popcorn Cannery and Buffett's Candies.  They pop and flavor delicious popcorn at the Cannery, and we had to try several different flavors before we made our purchase of cherry popcorn, and the Christmas mix of Red Chili and Green Chili Cheese popcorn.  Then we went to Buffett's, started by Warren Buffett's less wealthy but better looking cousin.  Their specialty is home-made candy made out of pinon nuts.  The woman that we talked to has been working for the company for 35 years, and she educated us on all things pinon.  For example, who knew that pinon nuts sell for $45 per pound?  That could explain why the small pinon/caramel/chocolate bar we purchased costs about 10 times more than a similar-size Baby Ruth bar would cost. Our shopping stops led to the following treasures.  We can report that they have been tastier than our purchases at the Gallup flea market.

We also explored the east side of Albuquerque, where we tried another bike trail.  The problem came when we attempted the side trail to the Gallegas Park in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.  It might not look like a steep road, but it certainly felt like it.  That beautiful view was encouragement, but biking up steep roads when you are at 6500 foot altitude is tough. We did a short loop hike on some foothill paths, and Mark managed to twist his weak ankle on a stray rock on the trail.  Just about the time we feel like we are getting into great shape, a day like this puts us in our place.


We consoled our injured egos with another trip to Yay Yogurt in Historic Old Town.  It wasn't Marvelous Monday, but it felt pretty marvelous to share that big dish of yogurt and toppings!

Yogurt might not technically be one of God's wonders, but it tastes like He had a hand in it.