Albuquerque, NM (10-14-13)

After taking a day or so to recover from the non-stop activity of the Balloon Fiesta, we were ready to see what else there is to see in Albuquerque.  We’ve been here before and have seen all the stores in Old Town, so we elected not to go there. 

The Federal Shutdown has had an impact on our itinerary.  In fact, the next place on our path to Arizona was going to be Malpais National Monument, but of course, it’s closed.

We wanted to do some hiking in the Albuquerque area, but again, most of the hikes are on federal land and are not open.  We did find a trail that is open because, although it’s on Federal land, it’s maintained by the City of Albuquerque, so off we went.

 
The area is called Piedras Marcadas, which in Spanish means “Marked Stones”.  This is an area that contains hundreds of petro glyphs. We walked among the rocks for about 2 miles or so, checking out all the “art”. They have estimated that these petro glyphs have been here since the year 1300 A.D.  It’s amazing that they are still so vibrant.

When we look at them we think in terms of people just drawing pictures because they want to, but in reality, this was a major form of communication before the written word.  This particular area was a major crossroad for ancient tribes.  One picture was of a man with an arrow in his head.  Not sure what that was communicating!

For our last night out together, we headed first to a pizza place. It’s been months since I’ve had pizza and this stuff was really good! 

We wanted a quick meal because our real goal was to get to the Sandia Peak tram in time to see sunset at the top of the mountain.

We made it with a little time to spare.  We didn’t mind cutting it close, because it was so cold at the top, that it was snowing!

 

The snow made for some really interesting sunset shots!

  Finally, the sun was all the way down, and we headed down the mountain.  We found when we got to the top that you can actually hike up and just take the tram down.  Maybe next time!

Sadly, it was time to leave Mike and Julie, but we’ll see them again in January, and I’m sure the time will go by pretty fast!

  We left Albuquerque, heading towards Tucson, and stopped about halfway, in the small town of Deming, NM.  We knew another friend of ours is staying there so we stayed at the same park, and the three of us went out to dinner.

The restaurant Lee suggested is called Adobe Deli, and it’s one of those restaurants with lots of character. It’s out in the middle of the desert, in what used to be a school.
Paul’s ribs showed up on a sword type of thing, stuck in a chunk of wood.

Even the ladies room was interesting- a parking meter is in front of the stall doors, with a sign telling you to deposit 5 cents to use the facilities!









After a great dinner, we took off the next day for Tucson.  Tucson is at a lower elevation, and further south, so its much warmer there.  Unfortunately, at the moment, we only have one working air conditioner.  Our main  AC unit, in the living room, is broken.  It’s the one that has a heater, as well as an air conditioner.  Its not heating or cooling, which is not good.  It’s also not good that it’s 3 months out of warranty.  Seems like an air conditioner should last longer than two years.  Paul has spent a fair amount of time talking with DRV, Dometic, (the manufacturer of the air conditioner) and multiple repair places.  Apparently there’s not much that we can do, other than replace it, but Paul is going to try and see if the issue is a lack of refrigerant, and he’s ordered a tool to be delivered that he’ll use to check it.  Then we’ll see where we go from there.  In the meantime, we have a fan pushing the cold air from the bedroom to the living room, because it was 87 degrees here today!