Albuquerque, NM...day 1

Day of the Dead
skulls and skeletons

A little alley with chiles on a gate

On Monday, we took in the sights of Albuquerque. We began, as normal, with a stop at the visitor center, in the Old Town section of the city. We walked around the 300 year old buildings clustered near the traditional Spanish central plaza. We found art galleries, souvenir shops, restaurants and old trading posts. We ducked into a bunch of little shops, many offering items to celebrate the Day of the Dead, November 2, a day that Mexican culture celebrates loved ones who have died. We saw huge strands of dried red chiles hanging in lots of places, and little courtyards tucked away behind storefronts and down small alleyways. The atmosphere was enchanting and the weather was exquisite.

After a couple of hours of window shopping, we fought our way through a lot of traffic toward Historic Nob Hill, the old Route 66 section of Albuquerque. This area has been updated and restored, offering lots of quaint old neon signs and vintage motels in their original 40's and 50's exterior decor. We found a vintage diner for lunch, the Route 66 Malt Shop and Grill. This little diner oozes charm and character, set back from the main street with colorful vintage patio sets out front. Our friendly server, Sara, even offered to take our picture before we dined on tasty sandwiches and sweet potato fries. For dessert, she mentioned that they make their own homemade root beer...so, naturally, we had a Homemade Root Beer Float, made and hand-delivered by a very hospitable cook, whose name we failed to get. Wow. We were both in heaven...that was the best root beer we have ever tasted, hands down. What a fantastic restaurant (they even had a 1950s era Wurlitzer jukebox)!

Scorpion weed

Birds, 4-Pointed Star and other glyphs

Lil' bunny stalker

To round out our day, we decided to take our chances with the impending rainstorm at the Petroglyph National Monument on the outskirts of Albuquerque. We noticed a roadrunner just outside the visitor center, but he was too shy for pictures and ran up the hill away from us. After stopping at the visitor center, we chose three very short trails at the Boca Negra Canyon, an area that overlooks the city and beyond to the Sandia Mountains.

Birds

After a brief bit of rain, we ventured out to see the petroglyphs and found hundreds of them. A little bunny, who at first seemed a bit shy, began posing for pictures like a little ham. So cute. We also found Scorpion Weed, a low-growing ground cover plant with bright purple flowers, a nice bit of color in a mostly black and gray area. The weed is made into a paste by Native Americans to relieve the pain of scorpion stings. We trekked up the two shorter trails and saw lots of the petroglyphs, then walked over to the longer trail, up a steep side of the canyon wall, to see more.

Four pointed star
with appendage

The basalt rock, from the volcanic lava that flowed through this area during a series of volcanic eruptions about 150,000 years ago, is between 5 and 50 feet thick. Over time, the basalt rock developed a dark patina caused by the weather, oxidation, and other forces. The Ancestral Puebloan people used sharpened stones to chip off the dark patina to create the petroglyphs, revealing the lighter color of the rock's interior.

View of Albuquerque from on top
of the mesa

Once up on the top of the mesa, we could see all of Albuquerque in front of us with the Sandia Mountains and a giant rain cloud beyond (and above us). The view was spectacular and we saw a bunch more petroglyphs.

Lizard with a lollipop?

Some of the petroglyphs defy obvious definition, but they all have a spiritual or cultural significance to their creators. Each image also has many possible meanings, or even complex meanings, depending on the placement of the images. Modern Indian peoples believe that the petroglyphs are as old as time, though archaeologists have dated them to between 1000 BC and the 1700s AD. So fascinating!

There's a storm a brewin'

As we drove back to Santa Fe we could easily see the edge of the storm system that passed over us earlier. The landscape was so beautiful with the storm moving south and east of the highway.

What a fantastic day!