Albuquerque and Santa Fe

It's Friday and we're kind of stuck in Amarillo, TX because of rain.  While Mathew and Beth are catching up on school work, I'm catching up on the blog.  This post is about our final three days in New Mexico, the "land of enchantment."

Albuquerque

We drove from Bloomfield to Albuquerque, first across a reservation and then on interstate 40.  It's good to get off bumpy back roads and onto interstates!

Sunday was Matthew's birthday.  He's now 10!  He wanted a Mongolian Barbeque type of place and we found one in Albuquerque.  Plus we celebrated in the RV.

There's a lot to do in the ABQ area, but we needed some "down time" to do laundry and shopping for birthday gifts, so we took a little time off from museums and parks.  The historic Route 66 used to go through town and this section has been restored.  Also, the Rio Grande goes through ABQ.

 There is an "old town" section and after lunch Matthew was inspired to help us find a way to pay for our trip.

Santa Fe

This is the capital of New Mexico and has the distinction of being the oldest continually populated city in America, founding in about 1610.  I think they argue about this with St. Augustine and of course they only consider European-founded cities...

The city has a building code to maintain its pueblo/adobe style.  There doesn't appear to be any buildings over three stories.  It makes for a very attractive city.  It is also a town of art - lots of sculpture, museums, and galleries.  We visited the Georgia O'Keeffe museum, plus a gallery of work by Chuck Jones (Loony Tunes).

 This is the capitol building.

We also saw a church and house that date back to 1610.

 This is a luxury hotel, pueblo-style.

This is the front of the "palace of the governors."  This building held the administrative offices when Santa Fe was the territorial capital when Spain and Mexico governed this area.  Now it's a museum and native Americans sell jewelry in the front.

Historically Santa Fe has been an important transportation hub.   We did a quick drive-by of the restored "railyard" district.

Leaving New Mexico

While driving to Albuquerque, we also got a hole in RV windshield.  There was also a four inch crack.  As we were preparing to leave, we noticed the crack had grown to about a foot in length.  We were concerned enough about this that we found a glass repair place and had both the RV and Jeep taken care of, at least until we return to Ohio.  Oh, the adventures of life on the road!

 Matthew likes to help out.