I went on a long-weekend getaway to Albuquerque, New Mexico, tagging along with my youngest daughter who had a work trip scheduled for the next week.
The Albuquerque airport was simple to navigate, and we easily found the shuttle for rental cars.
We didn’t have much time on arrival day but to check into our hotel: The Fairfield Inn and Suites, North.
Great room for the two of us. The desk area is perfect for working. It is actually wide enough for two workstations, and the room has lots of outlets for charging devices.
The hotel has a welcoming lobby with friendly staff, complimentary breakfast, indoor pool, fitness area, and a handy computer/printer if someone needs to use it.
Albuquerque has I-25 and I-40 both running through it, and the on-ramps and off-ramps are a little different than Tennessee roadways, but the traffic was so much more pleasant than the interstate traffic in middle Tennessee.
For dinner, we found the Sawmill market. This is a building that houses a huge food court. Entrees seemed to hover around $15-$19. We could have chosen burgers, tacos, poke, sushi, waffles, BBQ, Sandwiches……. but I settled on wood-fired pizza and my daughter enjoyed Pho.
Day 2
The view this morning surprised us with 13 hot air balloons. We found out later that they run competitions throughout the year, and one happened this weekend.
First stop: The Flea Market. Probably 100+ vendors this weekend. Didn’t buy but had fun looking!
Second stop: Petroglyph national monument and a hike at Boca Negra Canyon.
It cost $2.00 for the car to enter the area. I appreciate how the park system avoids waste. No sense printing new parking envelopes. Just change the date and price by hand.
Don’t let the picture below fool you. It is steeper than it looks.
The petroglyphs are fun to find all along the hike.
My zoomed in view from the top:
Considering my clumsiness, I was skeptical at first. The trail is quite steep and lots of trip hazards were everywhere. But there is a trail that is paved, and there are stairs in places where the path descends. I would not recommend this for anyone with balance issues or knee problems. My daughter ventured a little higher than I did. Got a great picture of her among all the volcanic rock.
Third Stop: Old Town for a little sightseeing and shopping.
I like to collect hand-made figures of animals native to the destination. I found a cute jackrabbit and coyote to represent Albuquerque. The guy running this shop said that these are hand-painted by his sister.
Lunch at Gobble This, in Old Town. The restaurant was recommended by the agent at the car rental kiosk. She said to ask for Nestor. (I think they must be related.) Nestor was there, and he fixed our fresh food. We ordered a small lunch: One papusa and one turkey taco. I really wanted to be able to say, “I had turkey in Albequreque!” We paid $20 for this meal. The service was laid-back. (In other words, very slow), and it was a little to pricey in my opinion, but it was fresh and hot and tasty.
Fourth Stop: Sandia Peak Tramway
Tickets must be booked online prior to the tram visit. We purchased tickets for the 3:00-5:00 PM time slot. Arrived around 3:45 and we had a bit of a wait for our tram, but the timing ended up being almost perfect. It was COLD on top of the mountain, and we didn’t have to wait too long for sunset.
Follow this link to the Sandia Peak Tramway website
Somewhere between the peak and the hotel, I lost one of my gloves. SO GLAD I did not lose it before the cable ride. It was frigid up on the peak.
Final Stop of the day: Dinner at Sadie’s of New Mexico
There are three locations in Albuquerque. We chose the one that was only a couple of miles from our hotel. My meal: Two chicken tacos, served with beans, cheese and potatoes. There is the option between green or red chili sauce. I had them leave off the chili sauce, so my version was very mild.
Day 3
The morning started with worship at Netherwood Park church of Christ and then we went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Toured the museum, (The artwork is copyrighted, so out of respect for that, I’m not posting the photos I took inside.) Really enjoyed the artwork and exhibits of Pueblo history. I always thought a pueblo was a type of house, but I learned that a pueblo is a community. There are several pueblos around the Albuquerque area. Most are still closed to non-native visitors at this time due to Covid restrictions.
We spoke with artisans who displayed and explained their work.
On Weekends at noon, they have native dancers from area pueblos.
Sometimes museum cafeterias are overpriced and underwhelming, but the Indian Pueblo Kitchen had tasty food and their prices were comparable to other restaurants serving the same type of food. I had their blue tortilla enchiladas with beef. It came with a side of beans and zucchini, squash, and corn. My daughter had the Navajo taco. (Not the type of taco shell we are accustomed to) It was made with lamb. The Zia Sandia is a soft drink made with watermelon, lime and mint.
Purchased a cherry pie to-go and enjoyed it later that night back at the hotel.
We had booked a sunset hot air balloon ride with Rainbow Flyers, but the weather did not cooperate, so we just enjoyed a Sunday afternoon nap, which does not happen very often and then killed a little time to go “uptown” to look around at some of the stores. We found a target with its own parking garage and went on a hunt for some new gloves and found a nice, cheap pair that is touch-screen compatible. I’m kind of glad for the loss. I am going to love taking pictures without having to take off my gloves.
This target had an escalator for people and an escalator for shopping carts! It is not hard to amaze me.
Dinner tonight was at the Route 66 Diner. I was still pretty full after lunch, so I only ordered a cup of chicken and rice soup. Comfort food – Felt nice and warm.
Day 4
I fly home today. But we tried one more time to get in a hot air balloon ride. They rescheduled us from yesterday’s sunset launch to today’s sunrise launch. We were informed that we should know by 7PM yesterday if they would have to cancel for today. When we did not get the call, we went to bed early. Our alarm woke us at 5AM, and a quick check of the phone revealed we had not missed any cancellation notices. Rainbow Ryders is only about 10 minutes away from our hotel. We arrived and signed the waivers of responsibility……. first time I ever signed that I understood the risk of injury to self and possessions AND the possibility for being arrested for trespassing! (I guess if you have to have an emergency landing in someone’s back yard or at a secured military installation???)
We loaded the van and headed to the launch site. There were three trucks hauling balloons and baskets, We drove about 20 minutes and our driver/balloon pilot got out of the van and met up with the other pilots to assess the weather and a low-hanging cloud that was not forecasted earlier.
We received the disappointing news that they had to scrap the launch for today. He explained that Rainbow Ryders has an impeccable safety record, and it is because of the hard decisions like this one. He said we would prefer regretting that we could not launch, rather than regretting that we did.
We went back to the hotel for breakfast, then decided to check out the botanical gardens so we could get some steps in before flying home. I wasn’t expecting much this time of the year, but I really enjoyed it.
They were trying to gather up all the falling leaves, and they were installing the lighted decorations for the after Thanksgiving and the winter season. I bet this will be beautiful at night. What looks like a gray mound in the center is actually a rhino sculpture covered in lights. Other animals are also in the distance. Only a few of the lights were turned on in one section of the gardens.
There was a fantasy area for children which included a castle, a dragon, and more.
We also spent a little time at the aquarium which was included in our entrance ticket.
We had just enough time to find one more local place to eat before heading to the airport. We saw a downtown deli-bakery with a line of business professionals going inside. We figure, if the locals eat there, it must be good. There were parking meters for street parking that had directions for how to download an app to pay. Fortunately, I had a few quarters in my purse so I didn’t have to go through that whole process just to park one time in Albuquerque. The sandwich was good – nothing spectacular, but the cookies were AMAZING.
Good-bye, Albuquerque – but I still have that bucket-list balloon ride to take one day, so hopefully I’ll be back!