On Sunday we went into Albuquerque to meet our friends Nevin and Melissa and their young son Sebastian. They moved to Albuquerque about a year and a half ago, due to his job, and are enjoying suburban life there. He works at the Sandia National Labs and she works in a veterinary office, although as of our visit she has been on maternity leave. (Baby Scarlett Rose arrived on Nov. 26).
After admiring their new house and taking Rumple for a walk around the neighborhood, we headed off to a Mexican Restaurant for lunch. We appreciated the decor, which was more Mexican mansion with murals than the typical Mexican restaurants elsewhere. We also appreciated the heaps of food, although I decided that lamb is really too heavy for tacos. Sopapillas were a new treat for us: puffy pancakes with sweet fillings.
After lunch, Melissa and Sebastian headed home for a nap while Chuck, Nevin and I collected Rumple and headed for the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, which start pretty much behind the house. The paths climb (of course), affording great views over the Albuquerque area and the surrounding mountains and volcanic cores.
For our last day in Albuquerque, we decided to take Rumple to the botanical garden, which is adjacent to the zoo and aquarium near the Rio Grande. Unfortunately, the gardens are not open to dogs. They have a kennel, but he was quite unhappy about being left behind, so we decided to walk along the Rio Grande instead. This proved to be a rather boring walk, so after a bit we decided to try the kennel again.
The person manning the kennel was extremely nice and noted that dogs often calm down once the owner was out of sight and smell. We decided to go to the Shark Reef Cafe for lunch while waiting to see whether Rumple would adjust, as it has an outdoor seating area where we could sit with him if necessary.
The interior of the cafe has a window into the aquarium shark tank, with a great display of sharks, rays and other large ocean fish (and their much smaller cleaner fish) . We enjoyed watching the sharks and while enjoying a nice meal.
Unfortunately, the atteendant came to tell us that Rumple had been whining incessantly, so we decided to take him back to the RV before continuing with our sightseeing.
One of the Albuquerque attractions is a trail with ancient petroglyphs (actually, several such trails). These rock carvings look very simple on the whole – like pictures done by young children. However, it is through that they had religious significance and may still have importance to the local Native Americans. (They hold their cards close to the chest on this.)
The trail that we took was at the base of some rocky crags. A suburban neighborhood starts at the edge of the park, and one is always within a half mile of the houses, with scrubland between. Despite this there was a lot of wildlife. We saw a coyote, many black-tailed jackrabbits, ground squirrels and a roadrunner. The jackrabbits have enormous ears, which reminded me of Ms. Frizzle (the Magic Schoolbus) and her “ear-conditioning” comment (although that was about desert foxes.)
As always, we could have stayed longer and found more to see and do, but it was time to move on.