Albuquerque, NM

Driving to Albuquerque yesterday, we saw so many fluffy clouds and could see thunderstorms off in the distance. The clouds were amazing, they kind of looked photoshopped, since there were so many layers of them - but the pictures don't really do them justice.

We rolled into Albuquerque about 1:30 pm, and headed off to the Old Town to have lunch and look around. It's such a pretty town. Even the freeway overpasses have designs on them, and they're all different. There's art everywhere. The sides of the roads are all in the pinkish color (feldstone quartz?). In one place, there are several overpasses and they have run a turquoise band on the side of the overpass which contrasts with the pinkish color - it was so pretty that I forgot to get a pic of it.

We ate lunch at Ben Michael's (pic below). The owner built the building himself, making all of the bricks and carving all of the wood. He came out and talked with us for a bit, too. The food was really good.

After lunch, we walked around the old part of town. A lot of the old town is shopping, but we also liked seeing the replica Civil War cannons in the square. Hard to believe that this was the site of Civil War battles!

Below is the oldest church in Albuquerque, it was founded in 1706.

After looking around the town, we checked into a Best Western, took a nap, and then went to Sandia Peak and took a tram up the mountain. The tram is the longest in the world, and it was a fun trip up. The tram operator kept making jokes about how, at one point, it was over 1000 feet down, or "7 seconds down". Ha ha!

Below are some pics of us at the top. We also ate dinner at the restaurant at the top, called "High Finance". It's the highest-altitude full service restaurant in North America. Very good food, even Chloe said it was her favorite meal of the trip so far!



We timed our trip up the to the peak to see the sunset, which happened while we were eating dinner. Ray took the below pic. It was so beautiful, and it was constantly changing.


While we were up there, we could clearly see thunderstorms and lots of lightning. Ray managed to capture some in a pic. You can click on the pics to see them a little bigger:


After we get all ready today, we're off to Four Corners!