Turquoise Trail

We got a late start this morning but went on a circle drive up to Santa Fe on Hwy 14 -- The Turquoise Trail. We, of course, didn't go directly but made a stop in Bernalillo at a wild bird food/pet supply store and bought a New Mexico bird book. I'll be able to figure out who is eating all of my birdseed.

Our first stop on the Turquoise Trail was the Tinkertown Museum. This is a crazy place to see.  Imagine never ever throwing anything away an maybe doing that for a couple generations and then going out and collecting other peoples' stuff. Then you build a rambling museum out of beer an wine bottles....thousands of bottles...and then you organize and arrange the stuff and charge admission....AND PEOPLE COME AND PAY TO SEE IT.

Much of the museum is miniature scenes that move but there are dolls and toys and coin operated fortune tellers and coin operated music machines.

Much of the stuff dates to the 1950s but some goes back to the early 1900s.

We decided to drive up to the top of Sandia Mountain....up to about 10,600 feet. The temperature dropped to about the 40s and it was clearly fall weather up there. We took some pictures and walked around a little and then drove part of the way back down and stopped at a picnic area and ate some lunch provisions that we took on the trip.

The top of the mountain has a radio antenna forest that I can see from my house at night due to the red lights on the top of the higher towers.

We drove on to the town of  Madrid...once a coal mining town that became a ghost town. It was rediscovered in the hippy era and now is an artist colony. There are lots of shops and galleries. Lots of people to watch. There are a few  bed and breakfasts and a nice coffee shop. We picked up some coffee and then went on a stroll through some shops.


The next stop is Cerillos...a small Hispanic style village. It was pretty much asleep when we got there and we just drove through. There were several movies made there and it looks like  natural movie set.


We drove on to Santa Fe and picked up some long sought after Monks' Ale which we will sample later.

At home we had a nice spaghetti dinner and relaxed and read for  while.

Tinkertown bottle wall

I Don't Need No Stinkin' Map!!

We started our day at the Flying Star in Bernalillo -- we ran out of coffee at home so it was an emergency. We stopped at the local grocery store -- a nice Albertsons -- on the way home and picked up some provisions.

We had a short list of errands and a few stops we needed to make but our plan was to go to the Old Town Plaza for lunch and walk around and then spend some time at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

Our first stop, though, was in Corrales because I wanted Donna to see the old San Ysidro church and the restored hacienda across the street. We got there and the hacienda was closed....of course...and there would not be any tours until 1:30. The old church was recently damaged in the huge rain storm that hit the area the night before we got to town. Some of the mud stucco was sloughed off the exterior and laying in a pile on the ground. They will need a mud party of locals to get it re-mudded. We were greeted by two women on horseback who were very chatty and would have talked for a long time if we would have been willing to stay there for a few hours. They are both archaeologists and the one offers free horseback riding lessons to adults. They were very informative about the hacienda and the church and some of the Corrales traditions.

Our next stop was at an antique mall --- I was thinking that I needed a small table for the bedroom. I didn't find one but I did find a rug that I like and think would be great for my house.  I'm still thinking about it and might go back and pick it up.

I had to stop by my builder/agent's office and drop off some paper work. She called me to say she was too sick to meet with me....she sounded really bad...I hope she gets better soon.

We were now free to head to the Old Town plaza. I drove to the general area but kept missing the street. We drove by the same museum three times but couldn't find the right street to get into Old town. Donna was getting "worked up" about my driving and navigation skills when I suddenly found the right place and...ta-da...there we were.

We walked around looking in a few shops. They have some very nice Indian jewelry and some great Mexican rugs if you want to spend the money.   We ate lunch at La Placita Dining Rooms, which was probably a mistake. They are not getting any better and I was hoping for an improvement. We regretted our lunch -- mainly because it was too much food and not that good, anyway. They have a very obvious sewer problem that takes away some of the ambiance of an early 1700s building. (Note to self: find another place to eat in Old Town.)

We walked (more like waddled) over to the oldest church in Albuquerque...San Felipe de Neri, which dates to 1793. It was renovated several times and restored to it's appearance back in the 1800s. This church was not the first one in town. Earlier churches were destroyed and this one was relocated and built from some of the remains of the previous church.  We went into the small gift shop next door and looked at some hand carved saints and retablos. I found a couple saints that might look good in the nichos that I have on my fireplace.

We stopped off at the de Colores Galleria shop just off the plaza and looked at some of the santos and retablos made by Roberto Gonzales. He is a Santero, or a saint maker, and his shop is full of icons and images of various saints. If you are into saints, this is the place to come.  I got a small picture of San Pasquale, the patron saint of the kitchen, offering your choice of red or green chiles.

We finally made it to the Hispanic Cultural Center and toured the art gallery. They had a special exhibit of resistance needlework from Chile that dated to the days of the overthrow of Salvadore Allende and the dictatorship of Pinochet. The needlework (Arpilleras) tell stories of resistance and memorialize the people who were abducted and tortured or who just disappeared.

We got back home and decided to just sit and watch the colors change on the Sandia Mountains. Sandia is Spanish for watermelon and the mountain glows red at sunset. There were a few clouds spilling over the top of the mountain.  There seems to be a show like this every evening.

We were also entertained by the birds at the feeder and the hummingbirds zooming around the yard.  The rabbits were coming around and we had a squirrel and quail earlier in the day.

Two Fools? Oh, That's a Pub.

I don't have Internet service at my house yet so we have to go cruising for wifi every morning... Oh the sacrifices I make only for my adoring blog fans.

On Tuesday the day started as usual....with my neighbor, Rod, yelling some sort of greeting over the fence. He is outside most of the time so we see a lot of each other. After my fish chores...the Koi Pond requires attention twice a day...Donna and I went in to Bernalillo for coffee and wifi. Today was sort of a casual day. We did some unpacking and organizing so that there weren't so many boxes and piles of stuff all around.

I had to go get my bed springs/foundation thingy from the Denver Mattress place and I wanted to buy a couple counter height bar stool. We went into Albuquerque and had lunch at an Irish pup that I like a lot:  Two Fools Pub, on Central Avenue.  They have good food and a good beer selection. They also have a waitress wearing a kilt who is three days short of her due date. Kilts were not meant to be worn by pregnant women but she was doing the best she could. There were two guys (two fools?) sitting next to us having a deep conversation bad-mouthing just about everything from J. Edgar Hoover to the Catholic church. They were talking pretty loud so it was hard to miss some of the conversation. I tried but Donna homed in on it and was getting a little hot but they left before she did anything rash.

We went to the Furniture Row stores and I got two nice counter stools at a good price and then we picked up the bed springs and headed back to the house.

Our friends from Phoenix, Karia and Tom, were vacationing up by Santa Fe and were driving through Albuquerque on their way home. We connected with them and had a wonderful supper at The Range in Bernalillo (I got that trout again!). [Tom and Karia went to Italy with us for Oksana and Damiano's wedding...for those who have been reading this blog for a while.] The food and conversation were great. After leaving they followed us to the house and were my first house-party visitors....OK, not exactly a party but it was nice to relax and talk.

We ended the night sitting out and watching the sky....it is quite busy at night if you don't have too many lights or clouds in the way.

Sorry, no pictures today.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Rubber Chickens at Cline's Corners

(Obviously, I'm losing tack of time....this is Monday).
We had a restful night at the Safari Inn in Tucumcari and got on our way reasonably early. Traffic on I-40 was light and we made good time. As before, the trailer was a big gas guzzler and we had to stop for gas at Santa Rosa...not very far into the drive.  We made another stop at Cline's Corners to search for appropriate souvenirs.  We got a few.

The road is pretty in a desert sort of way. It winds around and climbs a few hills. The road is always climbing - little by little - and finally, at Moriarty, it is roughly at 7,000 feet. Several mountain ranges are visible but the Sandia and Manzano mountains are straight ahead. By the time we got to Edgewood we started out descent into Albuquerque. In a fairly short distance the road drops 2,000 feet. Driving a fully loaded pick-up truck and towing a heavy trailer down a steep and curvy grade was  a challenge ---only made more exciting by the semi trucks and other U-haul drivers hurtling down the same grade.  The road into Albuquerque is exciting just in a car but today's descent was a little more "white knuckle" than usual.

There are lots of people on the road in Penske and U-Haul trucks and towing rental trailers.  This would be due to college students heading back to school but there seems to be a lot of families on the move as well. When we were at Wichita swapping out the crippled trailer the U-Haul store was totally out of trucks and trailers and the manager was calling people to see if they could bring their trucks back early. I guess we were lucky to get our replacement.

Once we were in Albuquerque it is about a fifteen mile drive north to the town of Bernalillo on I-25 and then about a five mile drive across the Rio Grande and into Rio Rancho and - finally - to the house.  All was as it should be...except for a really huge rain puddle out in the street in front of the house....just beyond the driveway entrance.  We pulled into the yard (the gate worked) and parked the truck. My neighbor, Rod, waved and immediately struck up a conversation.  Apparently we had a heavy rain storm the night before...thus the huge puddle in the road.


We went to work unloading the trailer and truck and were done by 2 PM. We celebrated with a beer and then drove the empty trailer to the local U-Haul store and turned it in. I have to say that, except for the near catastrophe of the wheel falling off, the trailer experience was very positive and the U-Haul people were very professional and helpful.  I'd do it again if I needed to.

We stopped at the Corrales brew-pub for lunch after dropping off the trailer. Food and the beer was good. We were beginning to relax a little.   We stopped at a grocery store on the way back to the house and picked up a few things. The rest of the day and evening was spent chilling out on the front portal and unpacking a few boxes.

Tucumcari or Bust

Before

We went to bed with a problem and woke up with a bigger one. The trailer was inoperable because the wheel was about to fall off. We had towed it as far as we could. It was loaded with stuff and was going to be replaced and U-Haul would take care of everything including unloading and reloading to the new trailer....at no extra cost. That's what we knew when we went to bed.

During the night we had tremendous storms and it rained almost 3 inches....adding to the 3 inches they already got over the last three days.  Everything was flooded. The motel had leaky ceilings in some places and the floor was squishy in the hall. The parking lot was flooded....including where we finally left the truck and trailer.  Also, a certain nameless passenger, seriously engaged with the problem of the broken trailer, accidentally left her window open on the truck and it rained in all night, soaking the passenger seat.

We had a pretty good breakfast  and pondered our dilemma. We were waiting for a call from a towing company but I finally called around 8 AM to find out what was going on since we needed to be on the road. The guy with the flatbed finally showed up and we managed to get the trailer pulled on to the flatbed truck...in the rain in water ankle deep.  He secured the trailer on the truck and we started off...him leading and me following close behind. At his first turn, still in the parking lot, the wheel fell off the trailer and the whole thing lurched toward the edge of the flatbed. He stopped and re-secured it to the flatbed and we took off across town. Everything went OK until he had to brake at a stoplight and the crippled trailer slid sideways on the flatbed. It came close to falling off again but stayed upright. We finally made it to the U-Haul place and he unloaded the trailer on the back lot and the tow truck left.  The driver was sopping wet.

After

The trailer swap went OK but the U-Haul people weren't aware of the unloading/reloading part. They finally had a guy start transferring the stuff and I ended up helping just to get it done and, since it was still raining, try to keep stuff dry. They gave me a bigger trailer so the boxes and furniture fit much easier than in the older, smaller trailer.  I bought a large plastic sheet to make the truck passenger seat usable since it was soaked by the rain.

I was on my way back to the motel before 10:30 AM and got into some dry clothes. Donna was ready to roll so we checked out and were on our way a little after 11 AM. The weather was still miserable and the rivers and creeks were all flooding  and there was water standing on the road.

We finally got out of the stormy weather around Pratt KS and by the time we got to Greenberg the rain had stopped. The new trailer was wider, taller and heavier than the old one so we were using a lot more gas. I think our MPG dropped by 1/3 and I had to pay close attention to the gas gauge.

This stretch of highway is exceedingly boring but the road is pretty good and there are very few challenges for folks towing trailers. High Plains Public Radio kept us from descending into prairie madness. We enjoyed the Thomas Jefferson Hour....a radio talk show hosted by Thomas Jefferson....or maybe a professor who is a Jefferson impersonator.

We stopped for lunch at a Pizza Hut in Liberal KS and then headed south and west into Oklahoma and Texas. The two cattle feed lots are almost beyond toleration...the stench stays with you for miles even if you have the windows closed.  We crossed into New Mexico and gained an hour with the time change to Mountain Time.  We finally pulled into Tucumcari somewhere around 7 PM.

We were staying at the Safari Inn, a retro Route 66 motel on the historic motel stretch in Tucumcari. The Safari Inn dates back only to the 1950s and is across the street from the Blue Swallow motel I stayed at previously. The Safari does a pretty good job of recreating the 1950-1960 era but with some nice upgrades where it counts.

We got into our rooms and also got a suggestion for a place to
eat.....the Pow Wow Restaurant....where I usually eat.  The Pow Wow has a shuttle van so we called them to come get us so we wouldn't have to tow the trailer up to the restaurant.


We ordered a couple beers and I ordered some food. Donna was still dealing with her  big lunch so she just has some tortilla chips. I had two loaded chicken tostados.   We bought a six-pack of Dos-Equis beer and went back to the motel to sit out and relax with a beer. We met a couple from Bristol, England, in the shuttle back to the motel. They were driving old Route 66 and then heading up to the motorcycle festval at Sturgis in South Dakota.  We sat out in the motel's patio area and relaxed and talked for a while before heading off to bed.

We get to Rio Rancho and my house tomorrow. Today was a long day and the rain and trailer problems made it worse.

Wichita Saturday Night

The trip from Jefferson City to Wichita was reasonably uneventful. We had a little rain but it was dry most of the way and we saw the sun in the afternoon.


Once we were in Wichita everything went to pot. We were heading west on US-54 (Kellogg) which turns into a semi-expressway and we were hearing funny squeaks coming from either the trailer or the truck. It was quite noisy and we were worried that something was coming loose. I slowed down and the noise lessened but was still there. We limped along and got to our motel and got out to inspect the truck and trailer. At first everything looked OK but then we saw smoke coming out of the trailer's right hub. The hub seal/cap was missing and there was grease spattered around the wheel.  We figured that that wasn't good.   We also noticed that the wheel was actually sticking out from the body of the trailer more than on the other side.  Once again, we figured that that probably meant there was a problem. Can't fool us.

What to do???  U-haul has a 24/7 emergency road service contractor with a toll free number. I called, and once they were satisfied that we were safe and not standing on the highway, they started working on my problem.  Actually, I'm impressed that their first priority was our safety...even before they heard what was wrong or confirmed who I was.

It took a few return phone calls but now the plan is for someone to come very early tomorrow and flat-bed the trailer to the U-Haul place here in Wichita and unload it and then give me a different trailer and reload my stuff so we can be on our way with a new trailer.    We shall see...stay tuned.

We are staying at the Clarion Suites motel and it seems pretty nice.  Supper tonight was at the Monterrey restaurant located next door. This was one of the best Mexican restaurants I've been in. I had a Yucatan Salad that had grilled shrimp and grilled pineapple with mango vinaigrette.  Donna had a marinated and grilled chicken breast. Both were excellent.  The margaritas were good, too.

We tried the motel bar but that was just not worth the effort. We settled for a couple beers since the bartender couldn't do complicated drinks, like margaritas....and couldn't do basic arithmetic, either.


That was it for today. They might be here pretty early for the trailer....I hope.

...or There and Back Again

I'm beginning to feel like the Hobbits...always tramping around. It's been a crazy summer and here I go again.   This trip will be a carbon copy (anyone know what that is anymore?) of my last trip to New Mexico except that I have a friend (Donna) going along and we will be meeting a couple other friends from Arizona who are passing through. We will also be towing a U-Haul trailer and driving a pick-up truck full of stuff. Donna will be put to work helping to unload and setting up  some stuff....she knows that and still wants to go along!!

So, anyway, I'll post a few things but not much since I just made this trip last month.