Breaking Up Is Hard to do

Plastic Peppers ...leave an awful after-taste

I have been increasingly crabby and in a bad mood on this trip. You probably hadn't noticed, right? Nothing seemed to be going right once I got here.  I complained a little but I had a lot more that I didn't burden you with, dear reader.  Was it me? Was it Albuquerque? The local uber-laid back attitude of the local "service providers"? What?   (...oh God...here he goes again!)

I was coming to the realization that my plan to build a house on my ranchette-ette was not going to happen. there were too many obstacles. Some were related to the land....the well and the septic system were going to run somewhere around $20k before we ever started on the house. That's assuming the well hit water on the first try.  Then we needed to haul "engineered soil" in to mix with the sand where the house was going to be built. My builder says that is standard practice and not a big thing but it was just one more thing. Then there was the issue of trash dumping and the nearly impassable road. Then there was the cost of material going up...etc., etc.

I was pretty emotionally attached to the idea of building on that lot and being sort of a pioneer with no close neighbors...you can hum the theme from Davy Crockett while you read this. All in all, it came as a hard decision to walk away from that plan...at least for now. That's really why I was so grumpy. It wasn't any one's fault...I was looking for something to complain about other than what the issue really was.

I began looking at other houses and options earlier in the week. I found some  houses for sale that were maybe OK. I looked in a completely different direction at the bungalow rehab (which dropped $35,000 in price this week, btw) but it was still going to cost as much as the selling price -- or more -- to fix it up.

Yesterday's trip out of town cleared my head a little. It was good to get away and do something entirely different. I enjoyed tramping around among the lava flows and the sandstone cliffs.  This trip was feeling too much like work.


Today My builder was able to get inside a couple houses that I saw earlier. the first one was OK but just that. It seemed poorly laid out with a good deal of wasted space. It was well maintained but just didn't excite me very much.

The second house was just about everything that I was looking for. There were a few things that I would change but not right away. It was well maintained but was a foreclosure. There are a few repairs and maintenance things that need to be done but these could be a project for me to do. The price was right or almost right. Location and size were great. So I'm pondering what to do. I have some time to consider...but not a whole lot of time. This seemed like it fell into place and is a good fit to what I want at the fraction of the cost.  So am I on a rebound from a lost love?  I don't think so.   Stay tuned.

I'm going home tomorrow. My train leaves at about noon. I came on a week-long trip but only packed for six days so I had to break down and do a load of laundry. The motel provides a pretty nice coin-operated laundry so I spent an hour and a half watching my clothes flop around in the machines. They came out clean.

I decided to walk 1 1/2 blocks to Rudy's Bar-B-Que....voted the best BBQ in Albuquerque in a recent "best of..." poll. That Golden Pride restaurant from Thursday was voted best breakfast burrito so I'm livin' the high life while I'm here. Rudy's is actually a small Texas chain of BBQ restaurants. I use the term "restaurant" very loosely. This is more like a meat market but when you think of it most of the really good BBQs are a little off the bubble, as it were. Rudy's sells about seven or eight kinds of BBQ meat by the pound so you need to buy the right amount for a sandwich, get a couple slices of bread (bread is free but buns are twenty-five cents), decide what sides you want and pick them out of the cooler, then decide what you want to drink. Soda or water is easy. If you want a beer (I did) you have to go over and "talk to the little lady at the trough". So, you decide what beer you want, pay the man (he checks your ID) and then swagger over with your bright red tray to the lady by the big cattle trough full of ice and beer.  You show her your receipt and she pulls the beer out of the trough......but she won't give it to you. Why? Because your beer has to be delivered to your table. So then you decide which picnic table you are going to sit at and she follows you to your table and hands you the beer. By this time you have forgotten to pick up your plastic fork and knife so you have to swagger back over to the service table by the trough and get your stuff. There's no napkins..... The napkins are in dispensers on the wall -- like in a public restroom -- so you have to stop and grab a few. Rudy keeps a couple kinds of his own "sause" on the table plus a few commercial brands of hot sauce. Rudy can't spell but he can make BBQ. I opted for pulled pork just because I was lazy and didn't want to think outside the box....Rudy's is already out of the box.  It was good.

So that's about it. Time to pack up and then tomorrow take my train back to winter. The weather has been great here although it got very windy yesterday....like 35 mph sustained wind. This is the windy season so I lucked out with only one windy day.

El Malpais - Badlands

I decided to get out of town today rather than go looking for green beer.  It's early...I might still go but probably not.

I headed up the street to my coffee shop for coffee and a scone and then filled up Black Beauty with gas and headed west in I-40. I've been just about every direction out of Albuquerque but never drove west very far.  I decided to go to El Malpais National Monument out by Grants NM...about 75 miles west.

On the way the interstate goes past Laguna Pueblo, one of the Keres-speaking pueblos. When I first started coming out here I assumed all of the pueblo communities shared a common language. Not so -- there are several different languages some can't understand each other.  There are seven dialects within the Keres language, The Sandia pueblo people speak Southern Tiwa...a completely different language. The mission church at Laguna Pueblo is pretty famous and dates to 1699. The highway also goes past Acoma, the Sky City, another Keres-speaking pueblo. You can't see it because it sits on top of a high mesa south of the highway. The Acoma pueblo built a small settlement close to the highway where they have a truck stop, McDonald's and a casino.

The route into El Malpais goes south just before you reach Grants. This is a large valley that was consumed by volcanic eruptions about two or three thousand years ago. The valley floor is covered with basalt lava in all sorts of fantastic shapes and jumbles. Much of the area is BLM or Acoma Pueblo land but the major features are part of a national monument, In geologic time, 2000 years ago is less than a blink of an eye and I wonder when the next blow-up will occur. Maybe I don't want to know.

This was my hiking area for the day. I started by climbing up on top of the sandstone cliffs (yes, there was a trail). This is high country, over 6,500 feet in elevation, and today was cool and windy. You can see footprints in the sand from a few other hikers but what was most striking and plentiful  was the huge numbers of animal tracks, and a wide variety of animal poop. Some of the tracks were hoof prints almost as big as a horse while some hoof prints were very small. The Ranger told me that the larger ones were Elk but he wasn't sure about the little one...maybe feral goats but he hadn't seen any goats. There were also smaller tracks...rabbits and something that looks like a cat's paw print. I didn't ask the Ranger about all the poop.

I actually didn't see any elk or deer but there must be hundreds of them in the area. My wildlife viewing was confined to chipmunks, squirrels and birds. There are lots of birds and I couldn't identify any of them.

The drought has been hard on some of the plants. The juniper trees are large and must be hundreds of years old and there are some pines scattered around and a few oaks. Again, I don't see any small (baby) junipers...only very old trees.

There are a few trails that out on the lava field. One goes directly across the valley and was used by the Indians to go over to the Zuni pueblos. The erected stone cairns to mark the trail and the cairns are still in use. It takes eight hours to cross the valley so I only walked a short distance.

In some places you can see how the molten lava flowed across the valley. Most of the lava is very sharp and would tear up any light weight shoes. The lava stones are also much lighter in weight than you would expect. The vegetation grows out of cracks or hollows in the lava where water and windblown soil collects.

The sandstone cliffs on the edge of the valley are eroded in some fantastic shapes. La Ventana (window) is a natural arch that has formed in one of the alcoves. It looks like it might have been a double arch at one time.

I was getting hungry...it was long past lunch time. I headed back to the McDonald's near the Acoma casino and got some fast food. I decided to drive back to Albuquerque on a different route. Highway 6 follows one of the many old Route 66 routes in this area. Seems like the route was changed every so often so lots of roads seem to be designated as historic Route 66. This highway was used way back in the mid 1930s. I figured I would see some traces of the Mother Road but it was empty and pretty desolate.  When I got to Los Lunas I followed the river road north through some of the old farming and bosque communities. (The bosque is the riverside forest on each side of the Rio Grande). I was down this way about five years ago and these were sleepy little villages. Now they are rapidly developing into bustling suburbs.

I managed to concoct a reasonable supper with my frying pan and spoon.  I think St Patrick will have to celebrate without me.

---------

longest spike is 3/4 inch

PS -- one of the least enchanting things about New Mexico is the local version of "beggar's lice" or "stick-tights", as we would call them. I don't know what the local name is for them but I have a few of my own. These are small spherical seeds with long spiky needles sticking out. Some spikes are over an inch long. The spikes are strong and sharper than a needle and can penetrate the soles of hiking shoes. Yikes...How did the Indians populate this place with leather sandals?

What's left after pulling them out for five minutes

Saturday

Here we are at Saturday already. What to do...what to do.

I decided to go make my yearly donation to the Indians via the local casino. This time I went to Sandia Casino instead of the Santa Ana Star...gotta spread the wealth around. This time the ancient spirits were good to me...a rare occasion. There are only about 4,400 actual Sandia Pueblo residents but they have a fine resort and casino. Lots of performers stop there for concerts and there are other "big time" events. I think there are at least four Indian casinos in the immediate area.

I took my meager winnings and went to lunch at the Il Vicino Canteen, the actual brewery operation for several Il Vicino brewpubs. Il Vicino translates to "the neighbor" or maybe "the neighborhood" in Italian...why Italian? Don't ask, just drink. It is good beer. I had a "Dark and Lusty Stout" and ordered a brat with mustard and sauerkraut...totally ignoring New Mexican cuisine. The brat and kraut were very good. The mustard was good too but it was so hot it made me cry.  I've been eating my share of hot food while here but this was extreme. With the combination of the high/dry climate and the hot and spicy food my sinuses have been opened like never before. (Too much information?)

I enjoyed the stay at Il Vicino much more than my time at La Cumbre. The beer was good...I'm not hung up over beer contest winners. The atmosphere was laid back and not hyper. The waitress was not stressed out. They have a nice outdoor seating area with picnic tables...pretty casual. And they had the St. Louis U. vs. Butler basketball game on their TV...SLU won!

My 3 PM appointment was coming up so I headed back down to see the bungalow on 12th street. My builder was involved with some plans to rehab the house but nothing much happened and it is back on the market. She had a key so we met there and got inside. It has been vacant for five years or more according to a neighbor lady I talked to.

North half of the living room
Those are pocket doors leaning
against the wall.

At one time it was a beautiful house. It still has some relics of a proud past but it is in bad shape inside. It's a shame to see how it has deteriorated. It is owned by a non-profit outfit who seemed to be using some of their clients to work on it. I don't think they were helping any. Some of the work they did would have to be re-done. I'm not sure why some things are missing...like the hardwood floors. I suspect they were sold. There are holes punched in the plaster walls where somebody was trying to find wiring or maybe gas lines. The kitchen floor is in need of total replacement and extra support from below.

Dining room

There is a living room that runs full length across the front of the house, a dining room, library or study, bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and extra rooms in an add-on at the back of the house. It is bigger than it looks. There is actually a basement under part of the house -- something rare in this area.

Kitchen has a nook and side exit

Library could be a bedroom

Hard to believe it was
vacant only five years.





My builder says that there are plans drawn up for a total rehab but nothing moved forward. Somebody with deep pockets -- deeper than mine -- would have to take it on. It couldn't be lived in even if someone would want to rehab it a little at a time.  It would be a beauty once it is rehabbed and the neighborhood is perfect...full of these great old houses.

Here is an example of a new Craftsman house built recently on the last remaining vacant lot. This is a Historic Zone neighborhood so new construction would have to conform to the house styles that already exist.

I headed down to the Plaza in Old Town to walk around and buy some trinkets and beads. I was giving thought to going up to Santa Fe but haven't worked it into my schedule. Going to the Albuquerque Plaza is just about the same thing. I actually want to buy some traditional retablos (Hispanic saint pictures) for a project I am working on at home. A man who makes retablos or santos or other religious art is called a "Santero" in the local culture and many traditional communities have a Santero.  By chance, I stumbled in to a Santero's shop on the Plaza (Roberto Gonzales) and spent about an hour looking at his work. Most of his work is painted images of saints but he does other types as well. He likes to talk about it...his wife brought me a glass of water while I learned all about it. He mixes his own paints and it can take a year to complete one large retablo. He makes an original and then reproduces a limited number of copies for sale. Historically, these were used in house altars and were very ornate.  I escaped with just a few very small ones.

La Placita in the olden days

It was after 5 PM so I decided to get dinner. I went to La Placita Dining Rooms on the Plaza. This place has been here forever. I think Coronado ate here. I remember eating here in the 1970s and several times since. I must say that it has gone down hill since way back then but then a lot of things have...including me. I hate it when things get "dumbed down".  I've heard people complain that you can't get decent Mexican food in Albuquerque like they have at Taco Bell.

La Placita is a rambling place that takes up most of one side of the Plaza. Indians sell their crafts on blankets under the shade of the portal. Inside you might be shown to an actual dining room or to a roofed-over space that once was an interior courtyard - or a placita. I ate in a placita that had a large tree growing up from the brick floor and out the roof. I ordered tostada compuesta which used to be a layered flat tostada covered with refried beans, spicy beef, chopped tomatoes, lettuce and cheese... with maybe some sour cream on top. It was a "taco salad" before there were any taco salads. This time I asked the waiter what the tostada compuesta was like and he said it was like a taco salad...and, sadly, it was except I couldn't find much tostada at all. They have something called a Navajo Salad that is basically the same thing but on Indian fry bread and two dollars more. The chips and salsa were good as was the sopapilla with honey.

I headed back home but had o stop at Walmart again because I broke my sunglasses...picked up a bottle of Chilean wine, too.

Enough for one day.

Get Thee to a Microbrewery (Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 1, Version 2.0)

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.

Waiting for a beer

Mmmm...Good eatin'  
The Roach Coach

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.