While the first half of my Albuquerque trip was all about bouncing around on buses and visiting big museums, the second half would involve mostly driving to other attractions, and finally riding that RailRunner train to Santa Fe.

Sunday, September 3, 2023

After the usual hotel breakfast at the Quality Inn & Suites Downtown-University Area, I needed to wash some laundry, but the hotel's laundry room was temporarily out of service. So, I ended up spending the better part of an hour at a nearby laundromat. Well, that's one way to experience local culture.

Also that morning, I did some grocery shopping at a local Whole Foods, something I always have to do when visiting a big city since there are no organic stores anywhere near Clovis. Among other things, I bought some blue cornmeal, which I've never seen anywhere else. Apparently it's a staple of some New Mexico cooking. Now hold that thought for a moment...

I wanted to eat lunch that day at the Indian Pueblo Kitchen, since I saw it mentioned...somewhere. I thought it was on WikiTravel but I don't see it there anymore. Whoever it was, I'm glad I read about it because it was the best restaurant I ate at on this trip. Deciding what to order took a few minutes, and what I finally ordered for lunch was a bowl of elk chili--yes, elk and not beef--and cornbread. Not just any cornbread but blue cornbread, made with the kind of blue cornmeal I bought just earlier at the Whole Foods. Blue cornmeal is used in a lot of traditional cooking around here. The cornbread made with it didn't taste much different than yellow cornbread, but I think cornbread is delicious no matter what color it is, especially with butter which is what this was served with.

The Indian Pueblo Kitchen is just one part of the Indian Pueblo Museum, which I didn't have time to check out. If or when I'm ever back in Albuquerque, it'll be the first on my list, though. This museum has a bookstore, and I did look through there for stuff to read in the future. I actually bought three books there: Charles C. Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, and David Roberts' The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion that Drove the Spaniards out of the Southwest. Of those three, I've since only read 1491 and I really liked it; this book goes into great detail describing the multitude of societies that existed throughout North and South America just before and during their first contacts with European powers. It's quite informative and really demolishes a lot of commonly held beliefs and stereotypes.

With lunch over, I wanted to ride a train I'd wanted to ride for years: the New Mexico RailRunner. This is a commuter/regional train that connects Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I've read somewhere that it's the least-used commuter/regional rail system (I'm not sure where to draw the line between "commuter rail" and "regional rail") in the country, but it doesn't seem to be in any danger of going out of service anytime soon. I bought my ticket and boarded the train at the Montaño station a few miles north of downtown.

The RailRunner may be the least-used regional rail system in the country, but there sure were a lot of people on it that day. I even found myself sitting across a table from two other people for most of this ride.

The scenery wasn't all that interesting but throughout the ride one could get a look at the local landscape of central New Mexico...

After an hour and a half, the train arrived in the Santa Fe Railyard.

The RailRunner train I just stepped off from. As you can see, the passenger cars are all octagonal Bombardier cars. They're used on commuter and regional rail systems all over the US and Canada, but I never had an opportunity to ride on one until now.

I hadn't quite decided what I wanted to do in Santa Fe during the short time I'd be there. A return to Meow Wolf was on my mind, but it was far enough from the city center that it was inconvenient, so I decided to stick to places within walking distance of the Railyard. So first I stopped at Nuckolls Brewing and had a Rail Ale, and then I walked in the direction of the historic plaza.

Here's the Santa Fe Plaza, the historic center of the city. At this time there was some kind of art sale going on, with local vendors set up all over the square selling their stuff.

The Palace of the Governors, which was going to be my next visit. I couldn't go in through those doors, though, the actual entrance is on a side street.

Inside the Palace of the Governors it looks like this. There's a lot of old maps of Spanish colonial-era New Mexico with signs discussing what was going on at certain points in colonial history. This is where I learned a bit about the Pueblo Revolt, which I'd bought a book about earlier that day. (Ten months later, I still haven't read it, I hate to admit.)

Here's a scale model of the Taos Pueblo, which is near the town of Taos about a couple hours or so's drive north of Santa Fe. The model appears to depict the pueblo as it was about 100 years ago or more. This adobe village is still there and still looks like this, inhabited by the Taos people who have lived there for more than a millennium.

Without much time left until my 6:03 train to Albuquerque, I walked back toward the Railyard, making one last stop for coffee at The Good Stuff. It's not just a coffee shop, it's a music store, selling old records, tapes, and CDs that I flipped through after ordering my latte.

Monday, September 4, 2023

Having just slept my last night at this Quality Inn, I ate my last breakfast here, packed up my bags, and checked out.

But I wasn't done with my visit to this city! There were two more things I wanted to do, and the first was to get a look at some Breaking Bad filming locations. I'd watched that show back in 2012 and 2013, first binge-watching the first four seasons on pirate websites just in time to start watching the final season when it first aired. I haven't bothered to re-watch it since (except for in that Brooklyn hostel where they were watching it in the common area), and I never got around to watching the spinoff Better Call Saul, but I still thought it was a great show and wanted to get some pics of the buildings used for certain exterior shots. There is a "Breaking Bad Tour" you can do here, but I didn't have time to mess around with that and just settled for looking up a few addresses on WikiTravel and driving around between them myself.

First, here's a burrito restaurant called Twisters, famously used as the fried chicken joint Los Pollos Hermanos on the show.

The Crossroads Motel, used as the site of numerous secret meetings and drug deals.

This bank, I think, was used as the exterior of Hank's DEA office.

Saul Goodman's law office was supposed to be in this strip mall.

Car wash Walt worked at part-time and used for money laundering.

That was all I got. There were more I wanted, but they were too out of the way, and there were more I didn't want, people's houses, because I know people actually live there and don't like tourists driving by too much.

And now the last thing I wanted to do in Albuquerque: the Sandia Peak Tramway! This is a cable car that goes up and down the side of Sandia Peak, a mountain just to the east of the city. After I parked my car and bought my ticket, there was still quite a bit of a wait in line to get on the cable car.

I'd been on mountain cable cars like this before. There was one I rode at Jackson Hole, Wyoming back in 2016, and at least one or two more I remember riding at one Alpine ski resort or another in Austria or Switzerland.

The cable car I'm about to ride, just before it finished its descent.

Going up the mountain, we can now see the other cable car going down just before we both meet in the middle.

Now we're on top the mountain, I've stepped out of the cable car, and I'm now standing on a balcony looking down at the city of Albuquerque. Sure is chilly and windy up here.

On top of Sandia Peak, there's a restaurant called Ten 3 where I had a field greens salad for lunch.

After lunch, and taking in some spectacular views, there wasn't a whole lot else to do on top the mountain. I rode the next cable car back to the mountain base, got back in my car, and headed home.

Looking back from ten months in the future, I think this was one of the better-planned trips I've done. I managed to pack in quite a bit of experiences in the four days I had, and except for the traffic delays on the way there on Thursday night, I never felt rushed and nothing was badly timed. My next trip, almost two months later, however, I couldn't say that about.