Year 3: Day Trip to Albuquerque
Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Weather in New Mexico: Warm Days, Cool Nights, and Lots of Wind
Location: Los Cerrillos, New Mexico
The New Mexico tour continues. On Tuesdays, Jo works with a group of high school students in Albuquerque, so Justin, Mark, and I tagged along. We dropped Jo off and then Justin took us to see the home they lived in before moving to Los Cerrillos. Justin describes Albuquerque as one big strip mall. Today it sits at the intersection of Interstate 25 running north to south and Interstate 40 running east to west, but it was once a watering hole along the famous Route 66 that traversed the US from east to west before the day of interstates. The Rio Grande River also runs through it as well as the railroad heading to the California Coast. It is divided in half by the interstate highways and each section of town is very distinct. Justin and Jo lived in the South Valley on the southwest side of town and the University of New Mexico is in the southeast part of town. We did laundry, took advantage of the many stores to do some needed shopping,
and after picking Jo up in the afternoon, we went to a beautiful little city park and walked along the banks of the Rio Grande. We drove across town to an REI to look for a good nature guide to New Mexico and then headed up into the Sandia Mountains overlooking Albuquerque.
At the base of the west face of the Sandia’s sits the world’s longest aerial tramway. While in New Zealand we had a chance to ride on one of the world’s steepest cableways and now we would ride the longest. It was a beautiful day but due to the sand being blown about by the constant wind, Albuquerque looked hazy below us. We traveled almost three miles up to the top of Sandia Peak, standing at 10,378 feet above sea level. You could see all the way to Santa Fe to the north and we could clearly see the Cerrillos Hills plopped down in the middle of a vast desert. The west face of the Sandia’s is rugged and there was still a little snow on the top of the mountain. It was almost sunset when we descended and made our way to one of the best sushi restaurants we have ever encountered-right here in the middle of the dessert. We celebrated Justin and Jo’s first anniversary a little belatedly. They had come to this same restaurant on April 4th for the timely celebration, but we figured a repeat of the celebration with great sushi was in order. So happy anniversary to Justin and Jo!
