Cruizin' Albuquerque (more pictures below)

We had a couple stops to make still related to my house building efforts. Tomorrow we meet with the builder so that part of the trip should be almost over. I got some pretty good news today but I'll still need to work out some of the details and find out what the city's plans are.


We decided to go to the Al Unser Racing Museum. The Unser family is based in Albuquerque and one of the main streets is Unser Boulevard. (We have been lost on Unser Blvd. a couple times.) We got to the museum a little late so they gave us a two-day ticket and even charged me the 'geezer' rate so we both got in at a discount. The museum isn't all that big but it is full of Unser family race cars and some that other drivers used. They started out way back in the 1930s with the Pike's Peak races and then went on through several generations wining just about every kind of auto race. This is a museum where you can touch the stuff that they have on display and they have several race simulators that you have to get into to try. We didn't do the simulators but we were pretty much all over the cars. The driver seats in the cars are really pretty small. People with normal size butts can't be race car drivers. We didn't try. There are a bunch of video stations located around the museum where you can see one of the Unsers or Mario Andretti talking about the specific car. They have an interactive station where you can design your own racetrack or a car. Since we have a two-day ticket, we can go back tomorrow and do the simulators.



We had lunch at a Blake's Lottaburger. This is a local hamburger chain that sells made-to-order hamburgers (and a bunch of other stuff) and you can get it with green chiles on it. I went with the chiles and it was pretty good....not hot & spicy...but with a green pepper semi-warm sort of flavor.


Being Sunday afternoon we decided to cruise Central Avenue. Most of the streets in town were relatively empty except for Central Avenue. So Paul and I, in our Outback station wagon, fell into line and began to cruise down past the bars and hot spots and the Harley-Davidson guys in sort of a slow-motion "New Mexico time" parade. We were behind some low-rider guy in a Lincoln Continental with the hydraulic bouncing rear springs. You could hear music coming from some of the cars. We had the Mamas and the Papas going so we didn't exactly fit in....but we tried.

We had a late supper at Little Anita's a few blocks up the street. This is real New Mexican cooking....not the tourist version...but it is really good. We had our food with green chile sauce, which is milder than the red sauce at Little Anita's -- (always ask!). Paul had beef and bean burrito and I had a beef stuffed sopapailla. Yum. By the time we got out they were trying to close. I think Albuquerque goes to bed early, especially on Sunday night.