Albuquerque Day Four: Tuesday

 

Official start to Old Town Albuquerque

Tuesday was another perfect day with temps in the mid-70s and bright blue, sunny skies.  One thing I absolutely loved about this desert city was that you don't sweat!  The air is so very dry!  But...we went through many applications of sunscreen, lip balm with sunscreen and moisturizers for our skin.  We could literally feel our skin drying out! And we drank SO much water every day. 

We had an errand to run to the nearest post office on our way to another visit to the Petroglyphs. I wanted to send our oldest daughter, Courtney, a post card, because she collects them. After the post office, we popped into the gift shop at the Petroglyphs visitor center so I could buy a national parks/monument patch for the back of my ADK Challenge pillow which features the badges I've earned after various hiking challenges.  I figure the back of the pillow will feature national monument patches! We've been to many national parks/historic places/monuments and sadly, I never thought to get a patch at them until this trip! Some of them I can get online I think. We ended up talking to one of the park rangers and he suggested we do the easy hike that Dave's brother and wife did on Sunday.  He said it's only about a mile and the petroglyphs are much closer to the "trail". I put that in " because part of it was paved and the other part just loose stone and sand!!  Yet another easy desert hike!! Below are some of the pictures from that morning:

This was the easiest trail we hiked in Albuquerque
it was almost more like a walk until we decided to go up
the volcanic rocks which were a little steep and narrow but
easy to follow without markers/blazes.
In fact, no hike in the desert had any kind of markers or blazes
very unlike the mountain hikes of the Northeast!

This "trail" led to a sandy trail which then led to bathroom facilities
and picnic tables in the shade

this was one of my fave petroglyphs 
from this particular trail

another easy to see petroglyph

at the picnic table, if we turned around,
this was our view.  Some people chose to drive to the picnic tables
but we chose to walk the "trail" boardwalk to the sandy trail and over the desert
It was narrow but easy

Dave made the lunch Wednesday morning
we had pb on rye, oranges, trail mix of dried blueberries, walnuts,
pecans and almonds; cucumbers and peppers; chocolate covered almonds
and lots of water!

After about an hour and a half of hiking and lunch, we drove back to Old Town area and did some souvenir shopping for the girls and ourselves. I bought a beautiful earth tone Mug (because I collect coffee mugs from any place we go) that says "Old Town Albuquerque" on it and a key pull that has my name and "Albuquerque" on the back; Dave bought himself a gorgeous leather belt; for Claire who loves succulents and has several in her apartment, we bought a brightly colored turquoise tea towel with 3 different cacti on it; for Courtney, who loves lego kits, we bought a small lego kit of a flamingo.  (she has a thing for flamingoes...long story!).  We then decided to drive down the historic route 66 which goes through Albuquerque so I could mark that off my bucket list and this sign is what  we saw

This was a sign at a garden center
where the owners must be Christians
as they also had signs about Jesus loving all.
I texted this to Debbie, our pastor's wife and told her to show Pastor Rex
We thought it was great!

We then decided, since we still had the afternoon, to visit the BioPark and get tickets for the Botanical Gardens. Little did we know, if you buy a ticket for the Botanical Gardens, it also includes admittance to the Aquarium.  We  chose not to go to the zoo as there were school groups in it.  The BioPark is huge!  We were very impressed with it, although the Boston Aquarium and the Mystic Ct Aquarium are much bigger and a bit better.  But it was fun to see what New Mexico was showing. The Botanical Gardens were better than the Aquarium.  The Aquarium had small sharks, all kinds of ocean fish, a sea turtle, several stingrays.  That was about it. However, this display of a fish with a mouthful of litter, really is impressive and sobering. Sadly, the mid-west (except for Colorado) and southwest states still use plastic bags. I'm actually glad they are banned here in NY (meaning, you won't get a plastic bag for your groceries or like at T*rget, etc when you shop...you need to bring in cloth bags of which I have many).  Here's a pic of that fish filled with litter.  There was also some signage about what plastics do to our beautiful Earth and how it hurts ocean life. 

Here are my fave photos from the Botanical Gardens:

On the right, there was construction, which has been going on 
for the last 2 years and when it is done it will feature
a large  Mediterranean area 
this walkway was coming from out of the 
Spanish Moorish Gardens and heading to a pond

Dave takes a break from all the walking
in the beautiful Spanish Moorish area

I loved the color and scent of these pink roses
in the Spanish garden area

these were fun looking cacti and spike plants near the pond 

The Botanical Gardens has a section that is shady with trees and 
there are eight loops of toy trains that go on and on and around and around
I took several pics but this is my fave because our youngest daughter Claire
used to be all about Thomas the Tank Engine. In fact, she has the entire
collection from when she was 4-5 yrs old down in our basement in a large bin.
and yes...I texted her this pic. Her reply?  OMG CUTE!!!

A chocolate straw compliments of the Aquarium cafe!
I ordered a caramel cocoa macchiato iced,
 and Dave ordered a berry smoothie. 
the drinks were so very refreshing and as we sat in the shade
sipping our drinks and chatting, along came a road runner!
I could barely snap a pic in time!!  they really are so darn fast!!

the back of the road runner I saw at BioPark!

After the BioPark, we drove back to the casita and showered and got ready for dinner. 

We ate at this place just outside Old Town. OMGOSH. We were eating authentic Mexican food. We were the only non-Hispanic people in the restaurant. The food and service were impeccable. HIGHLY recommend this restaurant if you are ever in Albuquerque. I ordered the grilled chicken tacos plate. Everything was so  good. The rice, the beans, the tacos and the ice cold iced tea.  Dave ordered the beef and beans burrito plate and it was massive!! He also ordered a beer. That dinner was so good and filling, we had absolutely no room for dessert. 

Grilled chicken tacos

After our late dinner, we went back to the casita to do some reading and relaxing. We were very tired! 

It was a great day and it was just us!  No family obligations as by now everyone had gone back home and Adam, who lives near the Sandia Mountains, had to work all day! We felt like we were on another honeymoon!!

if you were to eat at los compadres, which menu item would you choose??