Day 23 & 24 - Albuquerque, New Mexico

Day 23 (18 July). The drive through Arizona and New Mexico was interesting. There were short periods of hills and trees before finding ourselves back in the desert. The mesas were striking and I could imagine any number of western movies that would have been filmed through this area. The road signage was not as bad as South Dakota, but seemed to increase as we passed through Apache County and Navajo Nation. They advertised the Fort, rugs, genuine indian 'trinkets' - it all had a feel of the old TV series 'F Troop.' I hoped that the indigenous indians have really got better deals and opportunities then what was by the roadside.

The Spanish influences in Albuquerque are evident from the style of some of the housing with flat roofed earth villas through to the names of the streets and places. It was interesting to see the extent of the influence. In fact, I recall reading that Albuquerque used to have an additional letter - an 'r' as the fifth letter because it was originally named after a Spanish Duke.

We rode the Sandia Aerial Tramway which is the world's longest aerial tramway. Built between 1964-66, the 50 person capacity cable cars take 15 minutes to ascend 2.7 miles (4.46 km) to the peak of the Sandia Mountains (10,378 feet) which is a popular skiing and mountain biking area. The trip up and down was fabulous and the views were obviously quite extensive. Whilst the Tramway ran up one side of the mountain a series of chairlifts operated on the other. It would be magnificent in winter.

We are staying at the temporary lodging facilities at Kirtland Air Force Base. The rooms are very good and it is nice to be on a base with access to very good amenities. Some things between countries don't change and it was funny to see a tractor pulling a lawn cutter over a dusty field that only had a fews clumps of grass. All I could think was that they probably had a monthly contract to mow the grounds and they were mowing them - grass or not. The base has made excellent use of pebbles and crushed rocks as landscaping and it is quite attractive and economical given the environmental conditions.

There was a large thunder and lightning storm that skirted around the base. There was little rain, but plenty of noise and light.

Day 24 (19 July) We thought a morning swim in the base pool would be a great start to the day, but it is closed on Mondays. This area is renowned for hot-air ballooning so we thought a visit to the Hot Air Balloon Museum would be interesting. A quick google showed it was closed on Mondays. Albuquerque has a series of biological parks (zoo, aquarium, park, trail) so we thought a combination pass would be good, but they don't sell them on Mondays because some train in the park gets maintenance. If you can avoid Albuquerque on a Monday you will see more.

We did go to the Rio Grande Zoo - which was really very good. We were pleasantly surprised to see that they had an extensive Australian themed exhibit and animals - koalas, kangaroos, emus, crocodiles, a kookaburra and even different reptiles. They had a corrugated iron roofed shack that was kitted out with some Australiana, including an old tin of Milo and an old tin of Rosella Tomato Soup on display. They also has a wide range of other animals such as a polar bear, wolves, seals etc. It was much better than we thought and it is definitely worth a visit - it's open on a Monday.

We are back tracking along the old Route 66 and Albuquerque has been no different to any other that has this association.

Next stop is Lubbock Texas for one night before spending the next couple of days at a friend's ranch at Clifton which is just north-west of Waco Texas. The change in locations also means a change in altitude as we start to leave the mountains and by the time we reach Clifton it will only be 650 feet above sea level. All the past week has been very dry heat with each day above 100 degrees F and we have had to really pace ourselves. The coming weeks will be hot, however there will now be increasing humidity to deal with as we near the Gulf of Mexico.