Day 1
We drove straight through from Austin to Lubbock to Albuquerque resisting to urge to stop at Billy the Kid's grave in Fort Sumter, NM. We did stop in Lubbock to eat at
Triple J Chophouse and Brew for some pretty good food.
We got in to ABQ as it's known here and forever will be known in this blog. That's also the code for the airport here (or Sunport as it is called).
We found our way to Paloma Landing - a retirement community where Shellie's mom works. Kids are staying in Grandma's apartment with her and Papa John. We two lovebirds have a guest apartment on the third floor. :)
We just went to a local pizza place Dion's which serves generous pizza portions and is pretty good - only downfall is no beer... For that I stopped at the local Trader Joe's and got my favorite Dutch beer Oranjeboom which I have loved since going to the Netherlands in 1989, but is hard for me to find locally.
Day2
I worked while the kids went to a movie. They went to a huge 24 screen theater (the Rio) that also only cost them $7 and they got recliners. Daytime on Thursday I expect cheap, but recliners is bonus (they saw the Mummy, as if you care).
After we dropped off the kids, I swung by the Breaking Bad house where they lived in the TV show. It's just an ordinary house in an ordinary subdivision, but when we got there, the poor residents had signs and cones warning people to stay off their property. They were in chairs in the garage watching out as well. Maybe they were anticipating a legal tour, but I felt sorry for them having to hang out and go to such extreme measures to defend their property.
After work we went to the Sandia Tram - a 2.7 mile tramride up the Sandia mountatins that border ABQ on the west side. The lift was only about 5 minutes away from our place and the rides depart about every 30 minutes. In the winter, the mountains get a lot of snow and are skiable, but in the summer, the west face is all desert and craggy rocks and some trees.
The view as we ascended was very good and even though the visibility was only average, we could see clear across ABQ for abotu 50 miles. Since it was hot, we didn't see much large wildlife, just chipmunks, squirrels, and bugs.
Last time my family visited ABQ without me and Bix needed oxygen at the top. It was a little rough when we were scampering around the various decks at the top of the mountain, but everyone was fine and we recovered ok.
After descending, we tried a new restaurant called El Patron. It's one of those that when you walk in it looks like an outdoor village - someday I will make my house look like that. Anyway we had lots of green chiles and margaritas and Brooke had "Happy Birthday" sung to her my New Mexican mariachis, which were different from the ones in Texas because they wore plaid shirts.
At night we went to the Sandia Casino and I lost money (like normal) and Shellie won money (like normal).
Day 3
Today I only worked a half day and then we left for the Buffalo Thunder resort north of Santa Fe. The kids spent the day at a place called the
Hinkle Family Fun Center and they had a blast. For $30 they got unlimited attractions including Bumper Boats, Bumper Cars, Mini Gold, Laser Tag, rock climbing, Arcade, and more.... they said they could have spent four more hours there.
We drove about an hour and 15 minutes north to Santa Fe, bypassing the stoplights in SF by taking hwy 599. When we got to
Buffalo Thunder, we changed into swimsuits and went to the pool. They have both an indoor and an outdoor pool. Then we hit the buffet and casino for the rest of the night.
Today is our last day in ABQ. After breakfast, we headed to the Albuquerque Biopark (Zoo) which was really, really good - I recommend it. Unfortunately, a new penguin exhibit is under construction for 2018, but we got to see elephants, a new baby giraffe, gorillas, leopards, parrots, and really great amphibian and reptile exhibits. The zoo features an outdoor amphitheater in the middle with a large grassy park, so there was plenty of shade and places to beat the heat.
