The Land of Enchantment
I'm currently recuperating in Blacksburg, freshly back from Albuquerque with the intent of returning home tomorrow for a while. It'd be safe to say that I'm exhausted from the constant activity since before graduation, but I'm a happy guy. For those of you wanting to know, the screening process for work went very well, as far as I know, so in a month or so I should be able to figure out when I will be starting work, etc.
Albuquerque is certainly a beautiful place. In terms of geography, it's different from anywhere else I've ever been. It's a place of culture and history. It has Southern friendliness with a definite Mexican flair (I suppose that's the "Southwestern" image that everyone likes to use). It's a crossroads for the historic Route 66. It sits on the famous Rio Grande. It's not too sprawling and not too stuck up, but it still has all of the major comforts of any city. It has a cool name for the minor league baseball team. I had a good time there.
On Tuesday, after the first part of official business of the day was done, I had a lot of free time on my hands to get lunch. I spent a good part of the morning driving around the city, trying to find a good place, and I eventually settled on the Frontier Restaurant, right across the street from UNM's campus. Frontier is a staple for the college kids, apparently, and it has lots of cheap good food. I had some enchiladas that beat out any Mexican food around here, due mainly to New Mexico's excellent tradition of chiles. Also, the freshly-made tortillas are served as a side with any New Mexican order, and they were delicious.
After Frontier, I perused a used CD shop to pick up some albums to play in my rental's CD player, wandered around the UNM campus a bit, and drove up and down Central Avenue, also known as Albuquerque's piece of Route 66. By then, it was time to head back for the afternoon portion of the day's testing, but it didn't take too long. I headed back to the hotel, caught a nap, and decided to hit up the Petroglyph National Monument on the western side of the city. The petroglyphs are remnants of civilizations thousands of years old. Walking amongst them, largely untouched by modern civilization, makes you wonder just what they meant to the people who decided it was important to record them in stone forever. It was one of those cool history-nerd things, and I'm glad I checked them out - even though I wasn't prepared for a full hike that day and turned back after going only about midway down the Rinconada Canyon.
I cooled off a bit in the car after that, on my way to Old Town. You could liken Old Town to the French Quarter in New Orleans, in that they both are the original sections of the two cities, hearkening back to wilder days. Old Town, however, is much closer to the nicer parts of the Quarter, being nothing like Bourbon Street. It's more of a shopping area now, with shops tucked away in old adobe buildings and merchants lining the sidewalks. The original town square where the Spanish incorporated the town still exists, as well as the very pretty San Felipe de Neri Church. I ate dinner here, at an unassuming fine dining establishment known as High Noon. The food was so darn good here! Everything from the salad dressing to the steak and mashed potatoes was unique. In fact, the good eating was a common theme to my stay in the city.
I grabbed a milkshake from a local ice cream shop and meandered around Old Town some more. By that time, I was ready for more driving, so I took a grand tour of the downtown area and parts surrounding. The downtown area wasn't too crowded or threatening, which was a welcome surprise. I stuck around to watch a movie in the generic multiplex theater (I saw Kingdom of Heaven, which you can skip - I only watched it since the show was starting at the exact minute I arrived), then headed back to the hotel to crash after the movie. It must be noted that I could generally get from any one side of town to another in under 10 minutes, so that made planning things easy enough.
On Wednesday, I finished official business early again, so I had plenty of time to goof off before my flight left. I headed down to the Rio Grande Nature Center state park, which is a nice little park with wetland observatories and some dirt trails that wind down to the river. The Rio Grande, while not as majestic as the Mississippi, is still an important, interesting, and historic river. It's got its own unique wildlife, that's for sure, since I scared quite a few lizards on my hike through the trails. It actually harbors everything from Canada geese to rattlesnakes in its bosque area. The river was at record highs for the season, so that made for some muddy water but still interesting shots.
After the journey to the river, I headed back downtown to a restaurant recommended to me by one of the ladies at the office I was reporting to: Tucano's Brazilian Grill. The idea behind this restaurant is the tradition of churrasco; that is, for one price, you get an unlimited salad bar (which also has mashed potatoes, rice, beans, pastas, and other hot items), and then as much of the daily meat specials as you want. You get a token to put on your table with a red side and a green side: as long as the green side is showing, the meat servers will keep coming around and giving you as many portions of meat as you want. It was thrilling and tasty. Just imagine people walking around with huge kabobs of meat and occasionally vegetables, all yours for the taking if you want. I topped off my meal with a visit to the Cold Stone Creamery down the street. I'd been to a Cold Stone in Atlanta on Tour a few years back, but this custom-made ice cream experience was better than I had remembered it.
The final showdown for me was to try to find an Albuquerque Isotopes hat. I wasn't able to go to the home games that were played while I was there, and they were holding the state baseball championships at the stadium when I went on Wednesday, so the souvenir office was off-limits unless I bought a ticket. I didn't want a hat THAT much, so I tracked down the nearest mall, which turned out to be the Coronado Center (read: big fancy mall like Tyson's Corner, but flatter). Once there, it was relatively easy to find a fancy hat, and so I got one and managed to race back across town to the rental car center so I could hop a shuttle to the airport and make my flight. I made it in plenty of time and bid the Land of Enchantment farewell. I don't know if I'll ever make it back there again, but it was certainly a fun trip. Look for more pictures soon.
Did you know the Alburqueque Isotopes got their name from an episode of the Simpsons?