Hoodoos, they're called hoodoos, who knew?

Incredible.... unbelievable... awe inspiring.... These weren't even on my radar when I came down here but I am so glad I didn't miss them. They were the highlight of my trip.
I woke up Tuesday morning thinking I would go to El Morro or El Malpais National Monuments. A quick search of the National Parks website led me to a picture of the tent rocks and I was intrigued, I had to go. The other parks would be on my way to the Petrified Forest which was my plan for Wednesday.
There's really only one trail through the rocks, a "canyon trail". There were times that the foot path was only about 5" across, thankfully the rocks were conical and the gap widened quickly. There was only one way through the rocks and when you get to the top, you turn around and come the same way down. I'm still amazed with my fear of heights I made it the whole way, but I wasn't giving up. Every turn along the way gave a more spectacular view. The rocks are completely formed by nature. Volcanos and wind, but don't ask me how. The wind did pick up as I was coming down and the pumice blowing around felt almost like a facial.

Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Monday my plan was to go up to Santa Fe and see the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. Santa Fe is about an hour away and the drive was beautiful. When I think of the desert I think of sand as far as the eye can see. This was not that way at all. I kept wishing I had paid better attention in earth science so I could know more about what I was seeing. Butte, arroyos, mesas, I need to learn more about which is what. Actually, I probably did pay attention in earth science, but that was 30 years ago. Yikes!
The museum was lovely. I learned things I didn't know about her, like her paintings were never meant to be sexual even though they were thought of that way. In fact she stopped painting flowers for awhile because of that. My favorite thing I learned was that she was born in Wisconsin but didn't like the Midwest because it was nothing but green, boring. I started seeing the colors of the southwest through her eyes after that and can understand why she preferred it down here.
Santa Fe did seem nice, but all I saw to do was shop. I'm so glad I choose Albuquerque.


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Easter Sunday

I decided to stay close to home base on Sunday. I didn't want to go adventuring an hour away only to find half the places were closed for Easter. It felt like a good day to explore the ABQ Biopark. Their botanical center, aquarium and zoo, all connected by a tram. The botanical center was nice. A pretty way to start the day. They have a huge model railroad which the volunteers were sweeping before they started it for the day. I got to push the button to test the Thomas train. The aquarium was tiny. I've definitely been spoiled by the Shedd and Georgia's. Aquarium. I went for brunch before going to the zoo. A breakfast quesadilla was the perfect NM Raster brunch. Then there was the zoo. I'm usually ok with zoos, I even like them. This one just made me sad. I went back to the pretty flowers.

Travel karma

There's one thing I definitely believe in while traveling and that's travel karma. I learned about it in my San Fran trip years ago and I've practiced it ever since. Mostly by offering to takes pics of families so mom/dad/grandma doesn't get stuck taking the pic instead of in the pic. Anyway, what goes around comes around and this lovely lunch/dinner was courtesy of a kindly older gentleman who does this often I'm told. Yum!
I spent the afternoon in Old Town. A few blocks filled with artist galleries, souvenir shops, restaurants, etc. Didn't buy anything... yet.

Pet pics

Saturday 4/4

I spent Friday getting to ABQ, finding my hotel, getting a rental car, and generally getting my bearings. Now it's time to start the adventure. I started out at the Petroglyph National Monument. I love park rangers. The one at the visitors center told me about the three trails, which one would be the best, and even started a movie for me one the history of the place. I decided to go for the longer trail with more Petroglyphs thinking I could come back and see the other trails later if I had time. The third trail actually doesn't have petroglyphs, it winds around the volcanos that form the basalt rock the Indians carved on. Anyhow... It was a quiet hike and you think the canyon is dead except then you start to notice little holes everywhere. Snakes? Lizards? I only saw little lizards but I'm sure others were around. Then I got far enough into the canyon that I started see the petroglyphs. I went from signs of canyon life in the present to signs of the ancient past. How cool.

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Spring break 2015 - Albuquerque NM

Yay! It's finally here. It's been a long cold winter and I'm so ready to get out of the Quad Cities. So why did I choose Albuquerque? Well, it started with my national park quest and a suggestion from a friend, who is further along on his quest, to visit the Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns. I looked into that. Carlsbad is in southern NM and Guadalupe Mtns. is over the border in Texas and El Paso is convenient to both. The problem was a week in El Paso didn't appeal to me. So, then I found out you could fly to Carlsbad from ABQ pretty cheap, meaning I could stay here and bop down there for a couple of days. That evolved into me looking into things to do in ABQ and there was just too much around I figured I'd be coming down here a few times to see everything. So here I am, in Albuquerque for the next 8 days, a list of places to visit, and a craving for good Mexican food.

I should mention that I used points for my hotel and volunteered to be bumped to a slightly later flight. If that had happened my hotel and flight would have cost me $50. No such luck there, but I did manage a free shuttle ride to a hotel that didn't provide shuttle service, not too shabby.

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