It is Monday morning in Albuquerque and it's coooooold out there. We are keen to explore anyway, and after a hearty cooked breakfast, we wander east on Central Avenue towards downtown, passing old town. Along the old Route 66, it is initially mostly drab houses and businesses and old motels, until we arrive at the block below. This is clearly the entertainment strip, and many of the businesses are just gorgeous looking.
This is an old theatre where Hispanic performers including a succession of Los Lobos lookalikes are scheduled to perform. Looked really cool.
We thought that the 2nd partner of this law firm may not have the most appropriate name for that kind of business...but good news, partnered with Grisham, who based on his novels seems to know something about the law...
And this, we were not sure whether this was an old building being refurbished or whether it was a new building built in a style to suit the surrounding envionment.
House facade in typical New Mexico style, which we like.... A lot.
This is the entrance to a lovely old theatre called Kimo. They were running an Alfred Hitchcock retrospective, last movie of course was... Have a guess!
We saw this burlesque show being advertised and thought about our friend Louise Bernstein back in Australia, who is doing quite well in the genre we understand (we haven't actually seen her perform yet).
Isn't this cool? The place is called The Library and they advertise themselves with a bookshelf. The titles are fun - Tequila Mockingbird, Gone with the Gin etc.
Over to Albuquerque Civic Plaza in the next block, which looked pretty drab and sterile like many of these places unfortunately do. We did like these sculptures though, although the guy in blue is distorting the image...
JThe temperature is still around 0 degrees Celsius around 11am, so we pop into Java Joe's for an espresso fix.
Java Joe's is just the kind of coffee shop we like so much. Grungy, various small rooms, stuff on the walls, arty types there, free wifi etc. The coffee was also very good.
Here is Hans looking very satisfied with his Caffe Latte extra shot :-)
Behind Hans are four Breaking Bad studio workers (they were all wearing badges, and other types of studio equipment). Breaking Bad, of course, is filmed in and around Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
On the way back to the motel, we wander through some interesting residential areas. Here are a few images from suburban Albuquerque.
We saw Tricentennial Park from the Albuquerque Museum the day before and decided to walk through it this time. Tricentennial was 2006, Albuquerque celebrated 300 years as a town of sorts.
Behind Di in the picture is Explora Science Center, sounded a bit like Questacon in Canberra, and we gave that a miss.
On one of the footpaths in the Tricentennial Park was this time capsule, to be opened 2106. Unfortunately, we may not be around to witness that...
Time for push biking. Our motel Econolodge hires out pushies for $10 per day and we had noticed a network of bicycle paths off the roads not far from there, so off we went.
Di was provided with a flower power sort of a bike, one gear only and back pedal brake. She seemed happy enough with it whilst on the flat, which most of Albuquerque is.
Hans had a mountain bike which was not too bad at all for a rental bike - posing here with his goose. Feed it just 1 cashew nut and 6 mates arrived quickly!
We biked along what is called Paseo del Bosque Trail which runs parallel to Rio Grande and passes a set of small ponds called Conservancy Lagoon, where there were lots of birds including Canada Geese and people fishing (and actually catching fish as well). All looked very pleasant.
And then suddenly as we bike along the trail, we see elephants across the road. Yep, that's correct. Across the road and visible from our path is Albuquerque Zoo. An added flavour to the day.
You have to sometimes duck the tumbleweed across the bike path. This was one of the bigger ones.
After 1.5 hr or so of biking, we cycled back to our motel for microwave lunch and then we set out again for another hour. Di was getting cold so Hans continued north towards and then under I40, Coronado Freeway. On the other side, they have built a new pedestrian / bicycle bridge west and parallel to the I40 bridge over Rio Grande, which just had to be roadtested.
The view of Rio Grande from the pedestrian / bicycle bridge looking north.
Around 3.30pm or so, we both met up at the motel and at the same time. Di did take a longer route after all and was quite a bit slower.
The wind had picked up a bit, it was more overcast than before and absolutely not warm outside so a hot spa was now definitely on the cards and it was very nice. And nobody else was there either on a Monday afternoon.
After a break in the motel, we wandered out at 5.30pm for an early dinner in the edge of the old town, some 5 minutes away. Old Town Pizza has received very good reviews in Tripadvisor and we were not disappointed. A so called small salad, which was not small, and a 16 inch pizza with lots of toppings set us back $25 including tax and tips. We were stuffed by the time we left and went back to the motel. Ooohhh, I ate too much...
Tomorrow we head south again. We've liked Albuquerque but unlike Santa Fe feel 2 full days is enough, and 10+ degrees will be welcomed!
Good night.
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