All-boo-cur-key

Well, it does sound like that. I wonder if the Duke of Albuquerque ever had anybody beheaded for spelling his title wrong.

Albuquerque Is the largest city we have stopped at since, well, I’m not sure. Maybe Edmonton Canada, way back in June? And it took much longer to get here from Roswell than we had expected, due to construction zones and an accident (not involving us). But we eventually arrived, and this stop was our last touristy stop of this long journey. The end is nigh.

Our first day in town was spent at Petroglyph National Monument. Most National Parks/Monuments are far outside of urban areas, but this one has urban housing right up to the border. And until the Monument was established in 1990, people could freely wander through all of the rocks. We saw a few petroglyphs while we were in Dinosaur National Monument, but here there are thousands of these. Most of them are completely undecipherable (to me at least), and probably are not much different than other graffiti through the ages, that says “Look! I was here!“

The next day we headed to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. The center had some very interesting exhibits, art, and history of the local area, and a “kitchen” (café) where we had a nice lunch featuring some of the local ingredients.

After two days in the big city of Albuquerque, we decided to flee and headed north to the less big city of Santa Fe. And we avoided the highways ( a day of rest for Ruby) and jumped aboard the Rail Runner, a local train that runs between the two towns, at an incredibly low price: for the two of us, our round-trip ticket was $4.50. Yes, that is correct. No driving, no parking fees, and no diesel fuel. Oh, and on Wednesdays, old people (like me) are free.

Santa Fe was an enjoyable town, with lots of cultural and arts sites. After arrival, we wandered about, checked out some of the local shops. then stopped in at the New Mexico Museum of Art before hunting down some lunch. We then went to the Loretto Chapel (and the amazing floating stairs) before walking over to the The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, before heading back to the train for the return trip.

So we are done, tourist’ed-out. Tomorrow we start heading back east to start the search for a house that doesn’t move on wheels. I have one more post pending, a wrap-up of sorts, so stay tuned!