Life in Albuquerque

When we arrived in Albuquerque, we weren't sure how long we'd be staying.  We arrived Easter Weekend and stayed at 3 different Walmart's.  Monday we started calling around to different parks to see if they had weekly rates.  When Gary called Enchanted Trails RV Park, they offered us a full hook-up spot in exchange for 11 hours of work a week.  We ended up staying here for a month!  

The owner has 5 Vintage Trailers that she rents out.  My job was to help clean them.  Gary signed up with a company that subcontracts the assembly of Bicycles and Grills at all the Walmarts and off to work he went!  A group that was to stay in them our first week never stayed, so I wasn't able to get my hours in - Gary did a couple days helping put in an irrigation system and it worked out.  Very nice group of people here!

Meanwhile, I was the stay at home Mom taking Tucson to the Doggy Park every day and usually a 2nd time after we picked up Dad from work.  Jackson, the Shepherd was one of Tucson's favorite buddies, here they are beating on a sweet pit bull.  Notice that Tucson is the only dirty one - he would find a mud puddle and lie in it.  Albuquerque has about a dozen great dog parks.

Central Avenue, the original Route 66,  runs right through town.

Albuquerque has several distinct neighborhoods.  Besides Old Town, along the original Route 66 (Central Ave) there is Nob Hill.  We ate twice at Kelly's.  The Tuna Steak Sandwich was excellent.  We brought Tucson the 2nd time and he was very well behaved.

 The Downtown University area has the well known landmark the Kimo Theatre

Eclectic Shops

and Bars

The Uptown area is the site of two of the city's major shopping malls, Coronado Center (the state’s largest) and ABQ Uptown an outdoor mall with national boutique chains. All we saw of Uptown was the ABQ Brew Pub where we tried the Green Chile Cerveza and were pleasantly surprised!

Albuquerque sits in a Valley at the base of the Sandia Mountains.

At the top there is a ski resort as well as many picnic areas and hiking trails.

Tucson really enjoyed the snow

We took a winding dirt road to hike to the Man Cave

The city has great museums.  We visited the Gutierrez-Hubbell House.  It was the private residence of James L. (Santiago) Hubbell and Juliana Gutierrez-Hubbell and their twelve children; it later served at various times as a trading post, a stagecoach stop and the local Post Office.

They offer open houses on certain days, the day we went we were the only ones there and got a private tour.  Tucson was allowed to tag along 

The West Side of town has the Petroglyph National Monument which we viewed when we passed through last year and Volcanoes.  When we stopped this time at the Petroglyph Visitor's Center they were doing a talk on Wolves.

The Wolf seemed a little bored and hungry 

Since Tucson wasn't allowed on the Petroglyph Trail we hiked the Volcanoes instead

There is also  an 18 mile walking/biking trail along the Rio Grande.  We stopped at the Pueblo Montano Picnic Area and Trail head and did a short hike to the Rio Grande. 

There were several chainsaw carvings on the dead trees

While here guess who we ran into?  Art & Sue the couple traveling the country on horseback.

We didn't get to visit long, they found a place to stay that night and then got trailered out of Albuquerque the next morning. 

We've enjoyed our time here though we've both had enough of the seemingly constant winds, blowing sand and the temperatures are rising - the sun feels very hot at 9 a.m.


Albuquerque is a great little town, wouldn't mind living here (part-time).  Meanwhile, we are due to start work in Colorado in 2 weeks so it's time to mosey on down the road!

Till Later!

Meanwhile, we keep on Trek'n

Melissa, Gary & Tucson