We had such a wonderful time here on our 2008 visit that we made it the major rest stop on our Great Train Adventure. We spent a lot of our week here searching out unusual sculptures and murals in between visits to the Aquarium, Botanical Garden, and Zoo.
No, your eyes are not playing tricks. It is May first and it is snowing. It did not last long and there was very little accumulation. Get up into the Sandias and there is good skiing in the winter but not normally much in the valley.
And on a more plesant day we went hunting for the infamous jack-a-lope. They are very rare and elusive even in the desert.
Albuquerque has a formal city Public Art program that sets aside one percent of city construction funds to create artistic works. In addition many private businesses and organizations are adding to the art displays. There are so many we mostly just stopped as we saw them on our way to someplace else rather than a formal search.
Typical examples include huge murals on the sides of buildings, business sculptures, and this large colorful structure on a street corner.
The junkyard dragon and the roadrunner were two of my favorites. There are even photographs of a real live wild roadrunner on the Botanical Garden page. Dragons may be mythical creatures but I still enjoy them.
One of the issues with photography is maintaining a sense of scale. The double panel filled the front window area of a religious supplies store. The patriotic theme was huge filling the entire side of a building facing a parking lot. The blue line on the left is actually the gutter downspout and what looks like a podium is actually a double door into the building.
As part of public art we have the very conventional sculpture of plowing the fields. The coffee shop has what looks to be the remnants of a mural painted on a dilapidated fence.
Taking a break from the mural theme is a very decorative building in downtown that has a modernistic Southwest style. And finishing up this visit is a planting in the Mission San Felipe courtyard in the Old Town Historic District that would fit very well in the Botanical Garden.
Albuquerque was one of our longer stops on this trip but less than three weeks is hardly adequate to cover all of the things to see and do in the area. When I had a lot of photographs of something like the Botanical Garden or the Aquarium which is actually part of it I put them on a separate page.. The parts I didn't get quite so carried away are sort of jumbled together here although they certainty deserve their own page if I had more time.
Nestled along the upper reaches of the Rio Grande River in a huge desert valley, Albuquerque has an aggressive Open Spaces Program so there are trails and parks within easy reach of most places. I put details of how Mark Chevez recycled one of these damaged areas and the Petroglyph National Monument on these separate pages. We spent much of our time exploring these open spaces and along one of the trails we met some folks just out walking the family pets which is just a typical example of the Albuquerque lifestyle.
The Elena Gallegos Park at 640 acres is one of the largest of the Open Spaces and also one of the few with a small admission fee. Rainfall is typically less than 10 inches a year and the grass is brown and dry even here in early May and seems primed for a wildfire. Always carry water to drink.
In the far northeast of the city is the Sandia Peak Tramway up to the overlook where I tried again to get some good sunset pictures but the clouds were just not very cooperative AGAIN although the panorama did not turn out too bad. Looking over the edge was this rabbit unconcerned with us or the weather. On the far southeast is Piedra Lisa Trailhead which we hiked a short ways but this is getting really primitive.
Another area that could easily have a separate page is Old Town
. This is a basic leave your wallet at home tourist trap area and we generally tend to avoid the overly commercial types of attraction. Just to walk around and savor the sights can be rather pleasant.
Very close to our motel was the Balloon Museum covering the history of Hot Air Balloons from the fun to the adventurist. Later in the fall when the winds calm and it starts to cool off is the Balloon Festival with thousands of balloons and the whole town goes nuts. Thank you very much but we try to avoid those wild affairs but imagine hundreds of these all taking off at once in the early morning dawn.