Arrival in Albuquerque

I just spent the last three days in New Mexico with my best friend, Amber. I met Amber in 1989 when I was five years old, and we have now known each other for nearly twenty years and have been great friends for almost all of that time. We both love to travel, but we haven't traveled together very often, so the twenty-year mark seemed like a good time to take a trip together. New Mexico turned out to be a great choice.

Getting to Albuquerque was very uneventful. After some minor irritation with the rental car agent, Amber and I were on our way. Luckily for me, Amber had volunteered to drive our rental car, which was a silver Dodge Nitro. Although we had reserved and paid for a compact car, we were given this small SUV which thrilled Amber. She just couldn't believe that they would give us something other than the tiniest car (which, I pointed out, were probably all rented out). I found this very amusing because I am almost never given the car type I reserve and was just thankful they didn't try to give us a minivan.

Because it was too soon to check in to our hotel, we drove around Albuquerque and quickly encountered downtown, old town, and a little Mexican place called "Garcia's" where we ate lunch. Amber and I both had enchiladas and sopapillas. New Mexican enchiladas are different from what you usually get in Texas. Instead of rolled up tortillas, they are flat, stacked tortillas with cheese (or other filling) between the tortillas. Also, you specify whether you want "red chile" or "green chile" on them. Amber opted for red, and I for green. It was pretty good, but I prefer the rolled up tortillas smothered in sour cream sauce that I can get at home.

After we located our hotel (and it still wasn't time to check in), we went to the Petroglyph National Monument. Petro = rock and glyph=symbol/picture, so naturally we found many drawings on big rocks as we walked along the trail. We also saw some more recent markings, which didn't appear much different than the old ones in quality (only the content, e.g. "M+B"). This makes me skeptical about the age/origins of the other drawings we saw because there is really no way to prevent other people from making their own petroglyphs. Supposedly, the original drawings were made by Native Americans long, long ago.

As we started to leave the rocks, it started to rain. During the entire trip, the weather was constantly changing. One moment, it would be hot and sunny; the next it would be cloudy and cool; and before you knew it, huge raindrops that landed with a "thud" would be pounding on your head or roof of your car. I don't think I've ever put on and taken off a jacket so many times in a day.

I won't get into the details of how difficult it was to find the correct route to our hotel, but it did take three tries down three separate roads (all on the same exit with the same name) before we figured out how to get there. Once settled in our hotel room, we devised our plan for the rest of the day: shopping.

Albuquerque is much, much smaller than I imagined. There are basically two highways--25, which runs north and south; and 40, which runs east and west. We didn't even have a proper map, but we had almost no problems getting anywhere we wanted to go. Our first stop was Village Wools, a local yarn store. Before the trip, I had been thinking I would purchase Fiesta yarn as my souvenir yarn since it is actually produced in Albuquerque, but none of the colors in stock really attracted me. I also saw some lovely Koigu, which I have had on my mental wishlist for a long time, but I decided I'd rather get colors more reminiscent of New Mexico. After inspecting the rest of the store rather thoroughly, I settled on some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in purple, turquoise, and gray. The colors definitely reminded me of much of the New Mexican jewelry I had seen in Old Town. Amber even bought some sock yarn under the condition that I would make her some socks from it. Her color choice was more reminiscent of the stucco buildings and bare desert ground.

After getting my yarn fix, we drove to a Native American Gallery/Shop called Ben Muir. I bought three pairs of earrings for myself and a Kachina doll for James. Everything there was very beautiful, and Amber and I both had a difficult time settling on which earrings we liked the best. The place was on the edge of town, and there were buffalo across the driveway. Across the street was the Sandia Resort (and Casino?), and we drove a little ways up the road towards the Sandia Mountains and Cibola National Park. We took some pictures of the beautiful scenery before driving back towards town.

Our last stop was at Trader Joe's. I have heard so much about this grocery store and how great it is (via internet forums) that I decided it was one of the places I absolutely had to visit in New Mexico so I could see for myself what the big deal is. Although smaller than I imagined, I was very impressed by all the interesting food and the affordable prices. After one visit to Whole Foods in which James and I spent a ridiculous amount of money, I had decided it wasn't worth the drive (twenty minutes) or expense to shop there. If Dallas had a Trader Joe's, however, I think I would definitely shop there. I got some spicy lime trail mix and some crunchy chip-like green beans for James. I didn't find anything appealing for myself that would fit the specifications of being compact enough to bring home, no refrigeration required, and not more than $5. At least now I know what the big deal is, though. Amber really liked the store, too.

I neglected to mention that I slept for about four fitful hours the night before and about six fitful hours the night before that. I was exhausted when we left Trader Joe's. And starving. Amber felt the same, but to a lesser degree, I think, so we headed towards the hotel and looked for a place to eat. I requested that we didn't have Mexican food and Amber requested that we not eat at a national chain restaurant, so we stopped at Blake's Lotaburger. It was the only meat I ate during the trip, and it was very good. Earlier in the day, Amber and I had both been discussing how we missed eating hamburgers more than any other meat, so it seemed fitting. I especially liked their slogan: If you are what you eat, you are awesome.

I crashed pretty soon after eating, bringing my first day to a close.

In order to not overwhelm my readers (who have likely already stopped reading this post by now anyway), I will write up the rest in a separate blog entry or two. I haven't weeded through and uploaded pictures, but a link for those will follow in a later entry, too.