Econo Lodge Old Town Hotel Albuquerque

Having failed to get to El Malpais I knew I needed to see something other than the inside of my hotel room so I made for the Petroglyph national monument. This was my first national monument of the trip to go with my 7 national parks and my 4 state parks – not that I am counting.

I found the visitor centre and a very helpful (as the NPS rangers always are) man gave me all the gen including explaining the petroglyphs are scratched into the rock whereas pictographs are ...

... did those many years ago (well, maybe a couple of pounds heavier!). So now I'm sitting here at the President's club relaxing as much as one can with a group of New Yokas having a screaming conversation a few feet away.

Not traveling business class so I'll miss the pampering and good food. Hope I can get a few hours of sleep so as to be ready to hit the ground running upon arrival. We shall see.

... the phone! All within a day.
Well, I didn't waste much time. There were some lemons to squeeze! I made up with Tami, the test results were negative by Monday, I recovered and spent a ton of time, while waiting on the car, to practice piano, guitar, and paint. We even took a drive through the mountains and had dinner in Santa Fe. By Tuesday night my car was ready and I spent one last evening hanging and ...

My motel is within walking distance of Old Town so I added only 37 miles to the odometer today.

I started my day by attending mass at San Felipe de Neri Mission. Really nice. And even though they had a nice choir, the congregation joined in and filled the church with song. And instead of alter boys, they had an alter girl and an ...

... it's moments a little differently. For starters I like driving by the movie set. It's a big set and has been around since I was a little kid. I remember Young Guns being filmed there and now it's been busier than ever. I don't even keep track, but it's very easy to find a movie filmed there. They always talked about these long shots that avoided any signs of people living there, I'm sure that's harder to find. They just ...

... for roof supports from Mounta Taylor, 40 miles away. Despite the use of forced labor in the church's construction, most of today's Acoma regard the structure as a cultural treasure. Although there is a cemetery within the walls of San Esteban Del Ray, teh Acoma people do not believe in burials. They hold that we all have come from the earth, emerging from that place of origination. Thus people aren't buried in the earth. Rather when they die they are given ...

I was in Times square in NY taking photos about the crowd crossing the street then i went straight to the airport, get a flight to Albuquerque, there, i picked up a rental car and drove 8 hours to Monument Valley in Arizona, so, exactly 24 hours after time square i was standing in a desert, with for only company a lost dog...actually i appreciated the difference.

I get to the airport in Albuquerque at 4.30pm. my flight is at 6:30pm..I quickly hit the mens room
and eat 8 gelatin capsules of dried, powdered ( fine), peyote. within an hour of consumption
I'm through security and sitting with my laptop and the peyote kicks in."...Woah Mescalito !!!!
..please let me maintain and not have a major freakout here in the airport....just let me maintain and get me on the plane!!!!".....once on board it's smooth sailing...lol

... these guys were going to be in Albuquerque and we took off. It was an all night drive and we were really beat by the time we got to the rally. Still, we made it on time! While we were driving, we heard Piolin talking about the buses on the tour and his plan to drive to Dallas and Chicago in support of the cause. Jimmy knows I am an avid pro-immigration guy, and he encouraged me to find a seat on one of the many buses. I ...

... a road bridge, through a narrow walkway which looked a prime spot for a mugging (or worse). I made a mental note to be extra cautious when walking back to the hotel through there at the end of the night. Luckily the presence of Jay was likely to deter any would-be attackers, but you could never be too careful. The woman in the visitors' centre had told us that an area called Nob Hill had quite a few bars, so we got the bus there at about 6.30pm. It wasn't very far ...