Albuquerque, New Mexico

We were scheduled to go to Cortez, Colorado via Gallup, New Mexico, but low temps and a forecast of snow caused us to change our course.  Instead, we migrated over to Albuquerque in seach of a little warmer climate since YOLO is not weatherized for winter. We did find slightly warmer weather, however, it came with a price.  Wind.  Wow!  Days and days (and nights) of winds that were akin to the Santa Ana winds in CA (albeit these were bone chilling cold winds).  Nevertheless, we decided to hang here for a few days, see the sights, and do a little maintenance and upgrading to YOLO while we wait for Colorado's weather to figure out it's spring already!

Albuquerque is home to the famous hot air balloon festival every year in October which must be quite a sight.  Even now, if you get up at sunrise (and I try not to most of the time) you can spy a few balloons drifting along the morning sky.  Such was the case when Winston and I were taking an early morning walk on Saturday morning.  We visited the old town area of ABQ which was comprised of shops and restaurants geared to tourists mostly.  Mark picked up some styling new buffalo moccasins which are super comfy and we ate lunch at a great authentic southwestern style restaurant - Church Street Cafe which we would recommend if you're ever in the area.

We went to the Petroglyph National Monument.  A chain of fissure volcanoes spit up these very dark/black rocks that the Spanish Settlers and Pueblo Indians used to carve images on.  There are literally thousands of images on rocks scattered throughout 17 miles just west of town.  No one knows if these carvings were some sort of communication system utilized  by the people inhabiting the area or if they are merely the grafitti of years past.  Hmmm...

Next stop - Santa Fe, New Mexico.



                                        View of the wide open spaces outside our window

                                                           at the American RV Park

 

Evening View