Sit up straight, don't fidget!

Since we were pretty much done with the house business we decided to take a day trip up to Santa Fe. It only takes an hour to get there on the interstate. On the way up we saw the Rail Runner commuter train running in the highway median. That looks like it will be a good way to go once I get moved.

Once you in Santa Fe it is a little confusing. The place was laid out in 1610 and they didn't believe in the grid system and probably never thought it would be as big as it is. After a few wrong turns we finally made it down to the plaza and found a place to park near the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. The church is covered with plastic because they are doing some sort of renovation work. It is not like the other Spanish-style churches....this is in a Gothic Victorian style because when it was built they were trying to step away from the Spanish-ness of everything....so now it usually sticks out like a sore thumb but only more so being covered in plastic wrap.



We went into the Palace of the Governors and looked around. It is the building with the Indians selling their crafts under the portal. The palace has existed from the earliest times but has been reconfigured and renovated a bazillion times. It has been restored to the Spanish colonial look now but it even went through a period when they were trying to be less Spanish. One interesting thing they have is a couple of old paintings - mural size - drawn on animal hides. These depict Spanish colonial military expeditions and battles with the Indians...one in what became western Nebraska. The paintings ended up in Switzerland in 1728 and the state brought them back a few years ago.


The restaurant T-shirt of the day: We had lunch at the Plaza Cafe in Santa Fe. This is a long established restaurant that probably catered to the first tourist that showed up in town and has been at it ever since. The welcoming sign at the door says "Get In Here!" Once you are in you begin to wonder if there is a fire marshall in Santa Fe because the place is so crowded that it would be hard to get everyone out in one piece if they had to in a hurry. Paul thinks that the fire marshall owns the place and that's how they get away with it. Some of the waiters have T-shirts with a postcard type picture of the place on the back. The front says: "Sit up straight; Don't talk back; Chew your food; Elbows off the table; Don't fidget; Be nice; Say thank you". They must have known our mother but when Paul asked, the guy said she had never been in there. The food was good. I had huevos rancheros and Paul had a burrito and both were good. The green chile was milder than the red. They offer Greek food but Paul was a little wary of trying it.


We paraded around the plaza and then headed back to the car and tried to get out of town. Our plan was to find highway 14 and follow the "Turquoise Trail" back to Albuquerque. Getting out of Santa Fe is almost as hard as getting in.


The Turquoise Trail runs south from Santa Fe but goes on the east side of the mountains through some little towns. Paul had a good time driving because it is a two-lane blacktop mountain and desert road with not a whole lot of traffic. We stopped in Madrid, an old ghost town that found new life as the Woodstock generation began to move in and open up coffee shops and craft and art galleries. We wandered through a couple shops and got some coffee at Java Junction. The whole place is laid back but it seems to be growing and losing some of its ghost town charm. People still live in boxcar houses but it looks like it is having some growing pains.


We got back into Albuquerque by late afternoon and relaxed a little at the motel. We decided to try going to a brewpub for supper so we ended up going to Kelly's brewpub back on Central Ave. We don't actually always gravitate toward Central Avenue, it is just fairly convenient and it doesn't close early. Albuquerque seems to go to bed at about 9 PM.


Kelly's is in an old car dealership building....they have lots of room for indoor seating and they have a large outdoor area. We ordered two of their beers and were carded. We haven't been carded in a long time but here it seems to be happening more often. Either we look so young or some of the young people here look pretty old and wrinkled. Kelly's offers 19 of their beers on tap, which is pretty ambitious. They also have a 'brew on premises' operation where people can come in and brew their own beer but the smallest amount is 15 gallons which costs about $105. The food was good -- we had 1/2 pound hamburgers. They managed to sneak some sweet potato fries into the french fries. Sweet potato fries are a little too sweet for my taste.

After Kelley's we went back to the motel and relaxed.


We leave you tonight with the image of Marshall Gene from Madrid reminding you to slow down.

Would you gentlemen, by any chance, be brothers?

That seemed to be the question of the day....Would you gentlemen, by any chance, be brothers? I wonder how they can tell? Both yesterday and today we were running into people who looked at us a little funny and then popped the question...are you brothers?

We started the day conferring with my builder and house designer. Betty, my builder, has a long history of building quality houses and Max, the designer, has done a good job with my plans. We spent an hour together and covered all of the changes I had and Max will provide some new plans in a day or so.

We came back home and had lunch at our place and then headed back to the Al Unser Racing Museum to try our hand at the simulators. We did a NASCAR race simulator that required you to put on some virtual reality goggles but we didn't care for that too much. The other simulator had you doing five laps at the Indy Speedway. There was a total of ten cars in the race. Paul blew his engine and got back in the race but was pretty far behind. I had to do a second start because I spun out into the infield...but I finished 7th after I started again. They should make you go to a therapy session before you leave because you go out in traffic and and still are wired-up and start racing down the street until you realize that you are not in a race.

We went down to explore Old Town Plaza and some of the shops. We made a lap around the plaza and stopped in at a few shops but didn't buy anything except some coffee at a local coffee shop. The most interesting shop had "Day of the Dead" artwork and figurines and religious "bultos" and "retablos" for various saints. They celebrate the Day of the Dead here as well as Our Lady of Guadalupe Day.

Next we headed out on Central Avenue and stopped for a beer at Il Vicino, a local microbrewery. They had a stout that tasted like grapefruit juice...yuk....but a blended amber ale that was good. We sat and talked for about an hour. The bartender was remarkable in that he had a forehead that was twice the length of his face. (Kelly would call this a 6-head, maybe even a 7-head -- but definitely not a 4-head.)

We ran back home and did some laundry. Now we can go on for a few more days.

We wanted to get some good Italian pasta for supper so we found Luigi's. I had gnocchi with pesto sauce and Paul had spaghetti with sausages. This came with minestrone soup and fresh bread and a carafe of montepulciano wine. I think we made friends there. Luigi came out and asked how things were and said that his momma made the pesto and the gnocchi and the sauce and they brought out some of momma's lemon cookies to share when we were done.

We had a full day so we headed back to the motel.

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.

Checking out the Pueblo Mud Huts

We started the day by getting lost in Rio Rancho. We were way over on the west side of town close to the volcanoes before we realized that we were lost and had to come back and find our way to some display houses that we were looking for. sometimes we get caught up in conversation and miss the turn-off. The architectural style here is essentially Stucco -- keep moving or you will get stucco applied to you. Normally, a house has stucco walls but the roof line might give some variation. If it has a peaked metal roof it is northern New Mexico style. Flat roof is pueblo style. A tile peaked roof is sort of a Tuscan style and then there is a 'fusion' style that has all of it mixed together. We saw one brick house today that somebody insisted on building but everything else is stucco. When you look off in the distance the stucco houses are all earth tones and it all blends together and you don't realize it is anything other than dirt. In fact, they give you about five choices of colors....all subtle shades of dirt color. But no pink which is what people think happens.

We went up to see some display homes put up by Pulte....a national builder that is building homes here. They have about 20 display houses but not a whole lot of people looking at them on a beautiful Saturday. Some of the houses looked OK but nothing special and they are all slammed together with about 4 or 6 feet between the houses. You can pass the salt and pepper between some of those houses if you are out on your porch.

We went for lunch at an Applebees and then went to find a display house built by my builder. There is a world of difference. My primary purpose was to look at room sizes and kitchen styles. She is 'gung ho' on dressing up the interiors of her houses and I'll have to rein her in on much of that. She does granite counters and custom cabinets and I don't want much of that. I don't want granite anything. She has a lot of good ideas but a lot of those ideas cost a lot of money.

After we left the display we went to the Casa Rondena winery up in Ranchos de Albuquerque and tasted their wine and had a bottle of their 2008 Seranade which Paul said was the same as "Himmelswein" (Heaven's Wine) in Missouri and sort of between a dry and sweet white wine. It was pretty good. They are doing the same thing here with chocolate sauce and Port wine that they do at other wineries. Sadly, they don't make a Grappa.


We headed back to our motel and then went out for supper at the Two Fools Tavern over on Central Avenue. Central Avenue is old Route 66 as it headed through Albuquerque way back when and there are some of those old motels with the outlandish neon lights still there. We were in the "Nob Hill" part of Central Avenue which is close to the university and sort of Albuquerque's version of the Delmar Loop in St. Louis. Two Fools Tavern is an Irish pub so we had "proper" fish and chips (as Paul says) and some Irish beer. We walked around a little looking at the various sushi bars and micro-breweries and then came home.


"Home" is an extended stay motel that is where I usually stay when I come into town. This time we have had a little entertainment provided by the other guests. We aren't sure what is going on but people are walking back and forth carrying mattresses. There are people driving around the parking lot looking like they are lost. The street is torn up....well, there is actually a large pipe about eight inches in diameter running down the street that has traffic messed up so you have to carefully figure out your coming and going.


The Wal-mart visit yesterday was interesting. Paul says that every time you go into a Wal-mart it is the same people there...no matter whether you are in Florida or St. Louis or in New Mexico...it is always the same people. Maybe they are cloning them down in Bentonville Arkansas.

Bernalillo

We spent the day up in Bernalillo looking over the property and getting more familiar with the area. The building lot has been measured and surveyed and properly staked which is what I wanted. It looks the same as the last time I was there. We trudged around looking at the flora and the abundant signs of various fauna. It was a little hazy so the view was not as clear as before but we could still see most of it. I took a bunch of video walking over the site and trying to estimate distances. Paul says it is not in the middle of nowhere -- it is in the back of nowhere. So I took that as an indication that he liked it


There was not much else happening up near the building lot....it is very quiet. We drove around Bernalillo, the little town nearby, and then drove up into Placitas, a small village across the highway that was originally settled as a Spanish land grant but now is turning into expensive custom houses. We also scoped out the Rail Runner commuter train stop and it looks pretty handy and well used.

Bernalillo dates back to about 1716, more or less, and is an authentic New Mexico river/farming town, just starting to feel the impact of Albuquerque's growth. Bernalillo is about 15 miles north of Albuquerque and is directly in the path of urban growth as Albuquerque and Santa Fe grow together. Bernalillo is proud of their wine making history and is the site of the New Mexico State Wine Festival each year at Labor Day weekend.

We ate lunch at The Range Cafe in Bernalillo. The Range is a local landmark cafe which expanded to three locations but it started in an old adobe building in Bernalillo. The clientele was a broad mix of ranchers, workers, tourists and a few other artsy types. The food and beer (Alien Pale Ale) was OK.

We looked at a few houses and picked up some information and floor plans and talked to one of the builder reps about them building a house on my lot. That was a little encouraging to know that there were other builder options. I went in and talked to some people at an apartment complex close to my building site and I'll be able to get a one-bedroom apartment on a six-month lease with monthly extentions while the house is built.

We came back to the motel, stopping at Walmart to pick up some groceries. Since we had such a big lunch we were happy to have a light supper of focaccio bread, cheese, apple and some red wine. Coffee and cookies for dessert!

Oklahoma through Amarillo to Albuquerque

Today we started off by meeting a guy who offered us pre-paid legal services. We were having sort of a breakfast at the motel and he introduced himself and gave us each his card. We were behaving ourselves and didn't have any visible tazer marks so I don't know why he thought we needed his services. His office is in the Bronx in New York so if he is going all the way to Oklahoma City to find clients either he is pretty bad or things have gotten a whole lot better in the Bronx and he has to go out looking for clients.


The trip west from Oklahoma City was nice. We hit the first of the wind turbine generators about an hour west. I am always impressed with them. It was windy so they were really spinning.


The Texas panhandle is still bleak and looks more deserted than the last time I went through. We stopped for lunch in Amarillo and then went to the Cadillac Ranch. When we got there there was a tour bus and about a half-dozen cars with people trudging back and forth to the 'shrine' of 1950-1960 era Cadillacs. Before we left there was about 100 people that came and went and this goes on all day, every day. The place reeks of spray paint because everyone is painting something on the cars and now they have started painting on the dirt around the cars. (How do you like our matching shirts.)


We got back on the road and headed toward New Mexico. The flat plains finally transition to broken mesas and hills around Tucumcari. Tucumcari has seen better days. It built up around Route 66 but now most of it is dead or dying. Some of it is trying to relocate near the interstate but nothing seems to be thriving.

We got to Albuquerque about 6:30 mountain time and checked in to our motel and settled in. We walked about a block to Rudy's for BBQ and had pulled pork sandwiches and a couple beers. The workers have t-shirts with a saying on the back: "I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain... to eat vegetables".

OOOOOOOOklahoma Where the Cars Come Screeching to a Halt

Well, Wally and the Beav got started on the road about mid-morning. We had a pretty uneventful day. Not much to write about, really. Going through Tulsa always seems to be a challenge but we made the right turns and got into town and then got caught up in a traffic jam caused by some construction. It took us a while but we finally got back on the turnpike and made it to Oklahoma City by about 7:30. The motel is OK and we will be back on our way in the morning. ...Like I said, not much to write about today.