After a great night of sleep in a very comfortable bed, I was awake early…like 4 am early. And was texting with my colleagues shortly after because we are educators and it was 6 am back home. So, obviously I watched the sunrise after finalizing my plans for the day. Sunrise allowed for a very Albuquerque moment. Not only did I watch the sunrise over the mountains, but I also got to see hot air balloons lifting off. Yeah, I’m in New Mexico.
Once the sun was up, we headed for breakfast, obviously taking a few pictures outside the hotel on the way.
We drove over to breakfast at the Central Grill. Central Grill is on Central Ave, which is Route 66, so I made sure to text my dad that we were having breakfast on Route 66. One of his retirement dreams (if he ever retires) is to drive the entirety of Route 66. Breakfast was delicious and pretty inexpensive. I had blue corn pancakes. Nick had some sort of pancake wrapped sausage thing. We both enjoyed our breakfast.
Back at the hotel, I did some picture taking while Nick packed his stuff up. While the rooms are a bit plain, the hotel itself isn’t, and I absolutely recommend it if you find yourself in Albuquerque.
Once we were both packed up, we checked out and headed for the car. It was time to explore!
Our first stop was the first national park site of the trip: Petroglyph National Monument. We stopped at the visitor center for a map, and then headed to the Boca Negra section of the park. Petroglyph has 3 distinct sections, in 3 different areas in Albuquerque. We were short on time, so we were only able to go to one, and I picked the one with the absolute shortest trails, to make this a short stop. We were able to walk two (I think) “trails” here, and saw a couple dozen real petroglyphs and numerous fake ones (aka vandalism) in a very short amount of time. This was a pretty cool stop for these New Englanders.
Once we were done at Petroglyph, we headed for the Sandia Tram. Sandia Peak is a pretty tall mountain and you can take a tram to the top. I’d purchased our tickets this morning online, so when we got there we just had to check in and wait for the next tram. There are two trams and I think they run about every 15 minutes.
This was an incredible experience. The views were fantastic and at times we were literally above the clouds. Going early in the day served us very well, as we had minimal line for the tram up the mountain. By the time we returned to the base station, there was quite a line for the tram.
After souvenir shopping, we settled into the car and programed the GPS. Time to drive the Turquoise Trail to Santa Fe. The Turquoise Trail is a national scenic byway. There are several little towns and lots of desert scenery along the way. It was a nice drive. We stopped for lunch (bbq, burgers, and fancy sodas) at Jezebel Soda Fountain in the town of Madrid, and also explored Shugarman’s chocolate shop, also in Madrid, where we bought a bunch of the most delicious chocolate we’ve ever had. And we enjoyed the desert scenery. Nick even stayed awake for some of the ride.
We got into Santa Fe a bit early, but we were able to check into our next hotel, the Inn of the Governors when we got there. We were directed to room 224, on the second floor of the main building, so after reminders from the folks at the front desk that we are at elevation and need to hydrate and watch the alcohol consumption (it’s like they know northerners) we unloaded the car and headed up to settle in.
Our room was a Superior King Fireplace room. The Inn of the Governors is an older inn that struck an incredible balance of location and value. The room (and property in general) was clean and well maintained. The inn was an easy walk to the plaza and all the major things to see in the historic area of Santa Fe. All reservations include free breakfast (albeit with a limited menu) in the restaurant on property, free parking and reservations made online also include a $15/night credit in the on-property restaurant. Oh, and there’s a daily welcome function where they give you free cookies and sherry. We had a great stay there.
Once settled in, we headed downstairs for the welcome reception, where we tried sherry and the state cookie of New Mexico. Neither one of us was a fan of those cookies. I enjoyed the sherry more than Nick did, but we both appreciated “free” alcohol.
We then returned to the room to begin what would become a thing for this trip…the dinner deliberation. Nick was terrified to try ANYTHING in this state even though you can get the chile on the side everywhere, so…figuring out meals was even more challenging than I’d anticipated (and…spoiler alert…got worse).
Eventually Nick found a restaurant called the Ranch House that was…NOT walking distance…so we hopped in the car and drove there. We got the last parking spot in the lot, and managed to snag seats at the bar that were opening up as we walked in. I think Nick had brisket mac and cheese. I had some sort of chicken sandwich. Nick had a margarita and I had a prickly pear mojito, so I at least had something southwestern. Dinner was great.
After dinner, we made a stop at Wal-Mart for bottled water and then returned to the hotel, where we finalized plans with Nick’s parents for the next day and then crashed hard.
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