I'll Have My Usual

I got a slow start today. I decided to go back to some of my usual favorite spots. I already hit the Flying Star in Corrales and in Bernalillo (Flying Star is like Panera with beer) and also hit the Starbucks in Bernalillo. Basically I was looking for wi-fi yesterday for my house hunt. I also made it to O'Neills and might go back for St. Paddy's Day.

Today I went back to Napoli coffee shop after finally doing some grocery shopping at the local Walmart. I got my coffee and had a bagel for lunch. Past blog readers will recall that this is the meeting ground for a group of retired Geeks...guys who retired from Sandia Labs or the atomic energy work up at  Los Alamos. I've written about them before. It's been almost a year since I was here last but they are still here. It kinda gives you a feeling of stability to know that they are still here drinking coffee. One of them is on oxygen now but he still shows up. I wonder if this would be like the guys from Big Bang Theory (Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj...maybe a few others) when they are in their seventies.

I went in search of bocce courts today. the word on the street is that Rio Rancho installed two bocce courts in a city park. My quest is to locate that park. It turns out that I drove past it while looking at the jaw-dropping Intel factory. I somehow managed to miss that until today...I don't know how. What are they making in there???   Anyway, the park is across the street from Intel and I finally found it. I parked Blackie in the lot and strolled over to take a look....those are horse-shoe courts....where are the bocce courts? I strolled around the park looking in various nooks and crannies until I seemed to be making the toddlers' parents anxious. Then I checked out the basketball courts...nothing. Finally a guy rides by on a three-wheeler and I asked him. There over behind the tennis courts...of course. So I made a bee-line to the tennis courts and there they were: two pristine bocce courts upholstered in AstroTurf.  Why AstroTurf when they probably had to remove some of the best bocce surface material...the native gritty sand...to install it?  Oh well, it looks playable and is well maintained.

I went and looked at an older neighborhood my builder talked about. There is a house there that looks to be from the 1920s maybe, which fits in with the neighborhood. She was thinking that maybe I could take on a rehab project. These homes are mostly bungalow/craftsman style with a few grand Victorians...not what I'd expect in Albuquerque. It is a very stable and desirable neighborhood...doctors, lawyers, etc. It is close to downtown, well kept with lots of trees. The house is a big frame one-story bungalow. Might have potential.

Canyon Rinconada

Some kind of a cat

I decided that I needed to get off my butt and out of the car so I took a three mile hike up Canyon Rinconada over on the west side in Petroglyphs National Monument.  West of town there is a high mesa that was eroded into a canyon where huge chunks of lava spilled down the slope from the volcano eruptions many eons before.

A bird (turkey?)

The Indians pecked out hundreds of pictures on the dark lava rock. The trail went up along the edge where there were lots of petroglyphs.  The problem is that modern folks have also left some of their own petroglyphs. I see this as a bad thing, generally, but they should set aside a place for people to go do that if they want. The park rangers protect the Indian images as well as some that were placed there by early Hispanic shepherds. Why not designate a place where I can go and peck out "Ken Was Here".

Once I started up the trail I realized that I was here once before. Deja vu all over again. Way back in the mid 1970s Joanne and I were on a trip west and I had heard about some petroglyphs somehow and I persuaded her to stop and let me find them. She agreed but wasn't about to tramp through snake infested rocks so she stayed with the car while I disappeared over the edge of the canyon. I was only gone for about  half hour and I found several examples that I profusely described. She was mildly impressed. This was long before there was a national monument or any protection of the images.  So...I guess today's theme of revisiting places I've been before still works.

I was hell-bent to see Comet Panstarrs tonight so after cooking something in my single pot and eating it with my only clean fork, I headed out to the Volcanoes on the west side of town where you can get a clear view of the horizon without city lights. When I got there I found about a dozen other folks with the same idea, Some had seen it the night before so they knew what to look for and where. Well, I saw it without using binoculars...barely. It is very faint and close to the horizon. My camera tried to get a picture but it isn't powerful enough. One guy had powerful binoculars and we passed them around and it is very striking with a fan tail. It is supposed to move higher in the sky over the next few days but will also grow fainter. I'll have to settle for a web page photo. The picture shows how the comet appeared in binoculars.

I was also hell-bent to make it to a brewery but, once again, I didn't make it.