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.

The Tumbleweeds Tour: Back to New Mexico

Picture this: End of March, 2009.....a silver-gray Subaru Outback speeding across the Great Plains heading west carrying two happy travelers. Their destination: Albuquerque. The Hartke brothers are taking to the road. This is our first road trip together in over 40 years.

It has been eight months since my last trip out to New Mexico and I need to go back and take a look at the property that I bought and visit with my builder. I also want to look at apartments and get an idea of where I can stay while the house is being built. That is the business part of the trip. There will be plenty of other things that we will be doing.

Home Again -- it's cold here

We had an uneventful trip home. The main struggle was the time zones. We landed in Kansas City a little after 8 PM and it was after 9 PM before we were really on our way home. We got to Jefferson City about midnight. The temperature was about 30 degrees.


We had a great trip. I'm surprised that we got to see so much in only a week. We both remarked that it seemed like two weeks instead on one. We will spend Sunday getting back to the routine and the cats come home on Monday.


Begin Sermon

I think that the only unintended realization from this trip is that we (the collective 'we') need to get very serious very fast about saving the environment and taking action to correct what is happening with pollution and global warming.

I've always been more or less aware of environmental problems and I've done my little bit of recycling, changing light bulbs, etc., but things are coming undone. Jefferson City is making an effort with curb-side recycling and the green way but we don't have the same challenges as they have out west. I don't think there is a general awareness of the magnitude of the problem.

There are 38 million people in California and we saw a bunch of them but we were not even in the most populated areas. I was truly stunned by the amount of pollution in the air even though I knew that they had a pollution problem. Crossing the San Joaquin Valley we passed several water diversion canals that were tapping water in the north and taking it south. That has to have a negative effect on the natural healthy flow of fresh water into the bay and the local environment. Agriculture is almost always the biggest user of water in most places and we didn't see many places without some sort of irrigation channels or equipment. We saw a number of wind mills set up to generate electricity but most were not working. Housing or commercial development covers just about all accessible land for 80 to 100 miles outside San Francisco...except in those areas where they are trying to limit growth. Jim pointed out that Marin County is the "greenest" urban county in the US. That is commendable and a good start but Marin County is the exception. They have made some wise choices and have a land trust set up to take undeveloped land off the market but I don't know if that concept has spread to other areas.


I remember going to Sebastian, Florida (Indian River County), back in 2003 and was impressed with what they had accomplished by becoming "green" and limiting development. Something like 40% of the county's land is set aside and not available for development. They prohibit buildings taller that three stories. They have a population of about 115,000 and were happy staying at about that size. They have a problem with too much water sometimes.

New Mexico has its own interesting set of problems. The population is growing but water resources are not keeping pace. When I move I'll be drilling a well and taking water from the aquifer. The place gets only about eight inches of rain a year. The Rio Grande is pretty much of a trickle most of the time and the aquifer is not recharging enough to replace what is being pumped out. I will also have to install a special super-duper septic system due to new state regulations. People are encouraged to use rain barrels and other methods to reuse or capture water. Lawns are prohibited in new home construction (Yes!!) and xeriscaping is the rule in many areas except in the older residential parts of Albuquerque. Industries there are pretty clean when compared to other places. The Indian reservations surrounding Albuquerque severely limit growth so the city's population pattern is becoming more dense -- which improves efficiency and reduces sprawl. The Rail Runner commuter train moves north and south through the valley and goes all the way up to Santa Fe. They still need to get a better system going east and west.



So, I guess I need to do a better job turning off the lights and conserving water. My environmental "footprint" is pretty small already but I could do a few more things. That picture of the sun setting into a smog cloud is a little scary.

There is a saying in Italian that "even the stones wept" (così le pietre piante) referring to something that is so profoundly sad that the stones weep. I think that it is profoundly sad that something like the General Sherman tree, that is 3,200 years old and was a substantial tree when Hannibal crossed the Alps, is threatened by our modern pollution problems.