August Trip to New Mexico - 2010 - day 10

Monday - After my walk we went back to The Range for breakfast - the food was not as good as we remembered but was OK. Seemed like they didn't get enough sleep last night and couldn't quite get things right.

We had no heavy plans for today. Jill wanted to go to the vintage clothing store over by the university on Central Ave. We had a little delay while trying to find it but eventually got there. The place had some amazing stuff. When you think of buying used clothes from the 1950s or earlier you would expect to see some pretty grungy and somewhat worn out stuff but this place had nothing that wasn't almost in brand-new condition. You could tell it was all used but none that I saw was worn, stained, frayed or abused in any way. Some of it looked like it could be costumes (waitress uniforms)and some were vintage formal wear - tux with tails. They had top hats and some spiffy neck ties. I expected to find a zoot suit but there weren't any that I could see.

We drove up to see the Sandia Tram -- we didn't want to take the tram up to the mountain top but just see it in operation. they let you in for $1.00 per car to access the property. They have a deli that serves light meals and drinks and there are some trails around the area. The elevation is over 6,300 ft. and the tram takes you up to over 10,000 ft. in only a few minutes. We watched a couple cars come down and head back up and they move at a very fast pace. The weather was unsettled again and cooler than the last couple days. The top of the mountain was in the clouds so I'm not sure it was a good day to go up anyway. We took a few pictures and then drove back down.

Jeanne wanted to find the big cowboy statue that she had heard about...supposed to be in front of a motel on Central Ave. We had covered all of that and never saw the cowboy so I did some research and discovered a tall lumberjack at a Vietnamese restaurant and a concrete bust of a cowboy over on the Pan American highway. We found the lumberjack but he wasn't what we wanted so we eventually found the cowboy...or his top half..and Jeanne got some pictures. We all had our picture taken with the cowboy.

We went to the St. Clair Winery Bistro for some wine tasting but none of their win measured up to what we had at the Ponderosa yesterday. It was OK and I bought some to take home but it was not really as good as we hoped.

We went up to Luigi's Italian Restaurant (on 4th street at Solar) and had a late lunch/early supper. I had the gnocchi with pesto while Jill and Jeanne had some huge sandwiches. The food was just as good as the last time I ate there with Paul.

We were pretty well exhausted and had to get packed and ready to leave tomorrow so we called it a day and stayed in our rooms and rested up.