Alas! Poor Yorick! I need a brewpub. I tried stopping at La Cumbre brewery last night but there was no place to park. But today I'll succeed...
First things first. I had a breakfast date with some friends. Anna and her fiance, Andy, are visiting in Albuquerque (Andy's dad lives here). Anna is actually Jill's friend from way back. I've known Anna for a long time so we made connections and decided to meet for breakfast at the Golden Pride restaurant where Andy remembered the breakfast burritos were really good. We had a good visit and the burritos were pretty good. They were off to hike the Petroglyphs today.
I decided to go up and take a good daylight look at my land. I was discouraged by my discussion with my builder. There is apparently more prep work that needs to be done before I can build. More than I anticipated. I wish I had known that before I fell in love with the place. I walked round a little. Much to my surprise, my footprints were still visible from when I was here last July. They must have had almost no rain or snow since then...at least on this little piece of land. what little vegetation cover there is looks really bad. It usually looks bad...this is desert vegetation but it looked unusually bad. The Prickly Pear cactus looked the worst. Cholla cactus looked bad but showed new growth. The Yucca looked OK and the Junipers were doing fine but other stuff looked stressed out. Maybe it's the effect of Winter. There were lots of birds singing in the Junipers.
The developer...the guy that subdivided and sold lots...took a loss, gave up and turned the remaining lots back to the bank. The bank is trying to sell them at much reduced prices. I thought that was a good thing because I could buy a 2nd lot adjoining mine. Actually, it turned out to be not so good... at least while he was engaged the place was monitored and people didn't take advantage. Now people are beginning to dump old furniture, landscape material and other trash up there not far from my spot.
I still love the place but I'm seriously questioning whether it makes sense to build when I can buy an existing house that has most...but not all...that I need/want at less cost. Another take on it is that buying an existing house is "greener" than building another house. What to do...what to do.
I grabbed a quick lunch and headed back to Albuquerque with plans to meet my builder at the bungalow house on 12th street. I got there a little early and walked around the neighborhood a little. This is Albuquerque's "Downtown Neighborhood" which is designated as a local Historic Zone. From what I can tell this is more like our Conservation District status than a real Historic District as we would define it.
The neighborhood is well maintained...streets and sidewalks are in good condition. There are mid-block speed bumps in the streets to control traffic. The homes and yards are all are well maintained. It is a mix of stately Victorians, Prairie Style, Craftsman Bungalows and Spanish/Mission Revivals.
The house that is for sale is empty and has been vacant for some time. When someone says the house has "good bones" this might be what they mean...but I haven't been inside. A scheduling mix up caused us to miss our connection so I couldn't get inside. It looks like the outside is in reasonable shape. I has a new roof, The stucco looks OK (real stucco) and the sidewalks and front stairs are in good condition. I'm afraid to look inside because I think the pigeons have gotten in...one of the windows is broken and there are pigeons roosting up in the exterior corbels and rafters. I took a bunch of pictures that I'll post later if the inside is in decent shape. This could be a money pit. I'm going to see the inside tomorrow.
I finally made it to a microbrewery!!! I stopped off at La Cumbre brewery on the way home. This is a relatively new microbrewery that I found about a month after it opened. It was a true beer geek spot with customers who knew their beer and brewers who knew what they were doing. Alas...success has a tendency to spoil things. They entered some of their beer into the Great American Beer Festival and won several medals so they became famous. Instead of having maybe a dozen customers at one time they now have fifty or sixty. A Roach Coach is parked in front to provide food.
They now have other awards and expanded seating and harried waitresses. They have a three beer maximum. Once you have three beers, you're done. They are located in an industrial manufacturing area and only have about 8 or 10 parking places in their lot. Everyone has to find a place on the street and it is jammed for about a block on both sides of the street.I had a hard time finding a spot at 4 PM and at night you can't find anyplace to park. Sometimes city zoning laws are written so that microbreweries are viewed as factories and have to locate in industrial areas. Other cities view them as a bar or restaurant and they can locate in commercial districts. Looks like Albuquerque favors the factory view.
Looks like I need to find someplace else...but their beer is really good -- maybe the best microbrewery I've visited in terms of their beer. That's why they are so crowded. (Yogi: It's too crowded; nobody goes there anymore.) I had a Pyramid Rock Pale Ale and a Malpais Stout. Both were good. I got ten-ouncers so it only cost me $6.00.
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| Waiting for a beer |
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Mmmm...Good eatin'
The Roach Coach |
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