October 24-30, 2014:
The Albuquerque Museum was our destination on Saturday afternoon which turned out to be incredible, way beyond our expectations. It had a huge special exhibition called "Gods and Heroes" with a couple hundred rare paintings and sculpture from the "Ecole des Beaux-Arts" in Paris, France. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts was the original school of fine arts in Paris and a repository for works by some of Europe's best artists. They also had a great exhibit on south western art from local artists and a section on "Vivian Vance" who started her stage career in Albuquerque and went on to fame as Ethel in the "I love Lucy" TV series. Then there was the bluegrass band playing in the lobby area who were very entertaining.
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| They didn't allow photos inside |
Next to go to the Marble Brewery for a couple of beers, they were having a benefit for the Albuquerque farmers Market. There was a good crowd on hand, a live band and lots to watch including a man doing Tarot card readings and dancing with a Goose. It seems that the Marble is a cool hangout day or night.
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Fortune telling dancing Goose
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Sunday was a ride to the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park where they have a few hiking trail loops through the Cottonwood tree forest (the Basque) along the Rio Grande River. It was not much of a hike and not so nice this time of year, but we enjoyed the visitors center and bird viewing area. It seems that the Cottonwood trees, which are in the flood plain of the river, are slowly dying since the river no longer floods due to flood control Dams and the lowering of the water table. As a result, they are now planting and watering new trees in hopes of restoring the forest.
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| View from the Nature Center |
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| The Rio Grande River |
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| Beautiful Cottonwood trees |
Afterwards we went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque which is the former site of the Indian School. The Indian school started in the 1880's and was closed in 1982 when it was consolidated with the Santa Fe Indian school. The old school eventually fell victim to fire and was razed. It was then transferred to the All Indian Pueblo Council and developed into a cultural center. There are 19 Indian Pueblo's in New Mexico making up the council that jointly operate this center. The Pueblo's all have separate governing bodies, slightly different customs, beliefs, art work and languages. There is a exhibit area where each Pueblo has an exhibit with a brief description of their history and present status. They are most disturbing and depressing stories for the most part, but show incredible resilience and hope. It is a beautiful complex with great exhibits, a fine restaurant, a gift shop and they have dance and music performances in a central courtyard area at times, another amazing facility !
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| Indian dancer performance was great |
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| Murals in courtyard |
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| Another courtyard mural |
Changing gears, I go to the Unser Racing Museum on Monday morning. The Unser family is an auto racing dynasty who are based in the Albuquerque area. They have been racing for several generations in multiple racing classes. They originated from the Colorado Springs area where they started racing up Pikes Peak. They then moved to Albuquerque where they had a auto repair shop on route 66. The racing eventually became a full time business and they became a major force in Indy car racing. Six Unser family members have raced in the Indianapolis 500 with a total of nine wins. This museum was excellent, wonderful exhibits on the family's history, many of their wining cars in all racing categories and several antique collector cars from the Unser's personal collection. The museum is an excellent history of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb and Indy Car racing. They are the classic inspirational American success story.
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| Indy car on display |
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| Older Unser race cars |
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| Another famous Unser Indy race car |
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| A partial view of the trophy room |
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| One of Unser's dirt race cars |
We rode across Albuquerque to route 14, the "Turquoise Trail" through Tijeras, Cedar Crest, Sandia Park, Golden and finally to Madrid. Madrid was a coal mining town that went bust, then became a ghost town, then in the 1970's, the age of enlightenment, was re-discovered by the artistic free spirited element. The town sits in a beautiful setting amongst the high desert and the mountains. It has a great bar/restaurant, the Mine Shaft Tavern, a mine museum/tour and lots of artistic shops and galleries. A great place to for a few hours of shopping and lunch.
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| View from road near Madrid |
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| The Mine Shaft Tavern and Restaurant |
On the return through Albuquerque, we found a Dunkin Donuts and had to stop. They are rare in the west where Starbucks and the zillion other Espresso cafes have a stranglehold on the market. Funny how tastes are so different in different areas of the country.
Another great Albuquerque place of learning is the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. I was really not that excited about going to see another collection of old dinosaur bones. I was wrong, this place was sensational, it gave the history of the planet from the formation of Earth, the first stages of life, the age of the dinosaurs, the various extinctions, the climatic changes, the shifting of the land masses and then the human impact to the present. This place had many helpful volunteers who wandered around explaining things. There was a great display of the night sky and a laboratory area where they were working on cleaning up dinosaur bones. A volunteer there came out of the work area to explain to us about this recently discovered Stegomastodon dinosaur skull with intact tusks. He explained how it is the best, most perfect Stegomastodon skull in the world, found totally by accident by boaters out on Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico during a period of low water. The boaters saw the tusks sticking out of the water and reported it to the museum who immediately investigated and had it removed. My brain was about to explode after the museum visit, it can't hold that much knowledge, I went back to the RV and took a nap.
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| Dinosaur exhibit |
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| The Stegomastodon Skull |
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| Very life like ! |
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A depiction of the Asteroid crashing into Earth that is believed
to have caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs |
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| Another great Dinosaur exhibit, there were many |
If you tire of the cultural and museum attractions, head for the Route 66 Casino on route 40 west. It is a huge casino and is lavishly decorated in classic route 66 style. We joined the players club, went to the 2 for 1 all you can eat buffet, then took our free $ 5.00 credit to the slot machines. We somehow won enough to pay for our whole days activities, that's new !
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Mural outside the Route 66 Casino
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Another place of interest in Albuquerque is the National Hispanic Cultural Center where they have a impressive Hispanic art gallery. I must admit some of it is hard to understand, but each piece has an explanation, which is sometimes more interesting than the artwork itself. I was most impressed by the cut paper artwork, they were all great ! On the way out, we noticed the door was open to the tower where the amazing fresco by Frederico Vigil is located. This is a huge fresco, the largest concave fresco in North America, which took a decade for the artist to complete. It depicts over 3,000 years of Hispanic history. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed. On the way back to the campground, we stopped at a local Hispanic market that was like being in Mexico itself, another cultural center of sorts.
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| No photos allowed inside |
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| Nice architecture and tree |
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| Chillis for sale at the food market |
Albuquerque has been great, we've been very busy, but now it's time to move further south, back out into the boonies for a while and possibly relax ?
Next stop is in the the Socorro, New Mexico area, lets see what we can find there?
Twinkles and Slick
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