TRAVEL TRIP: Albuquerque, travel day cinco

If you are just tuning in, I like taking travel trips by myself. No, scratch that, I LOVE taking travel trips by myself. However, I am stuck at home while the boyfriend is out of town and damn it, I am going to do something about it. I will take a "travel trip" in my own current city. No, I am not doing mushrooms ... I am visiting Albuquerque with new eyes! 

Friday, February 26, 2010.

Let me suggest something. Let me suggest a hypothetical scenario that has absolutely no roots in real world happenings. Let me suggest that I woke up with beer-stained teeth, pounding headache and parched throat. To my left a sombrero and corkscrew, to my right a dirty plate of mushrooms and cheese. Furthermore, let me suggest that when I got out of bed to brush my teeth, I stepped on the largest pile of cat vomit I have every seen in my life, covering not only the whole bottom of my right foot, but squishing in between the toes of my left as well. Let's say while kneel-crawling on the way to the bathtub, I shoved the bathroom door wide open and let's say my next door neighbors looked down on me, literally and figuratively, from their kitchen window. However many times I've opened the bathroom window to see them in their own apartment, they never seem to look back at me. So, it only makes sense for them to look over at me at my worst, crawling into the bathtub with see-through underwear and an XS Garfield tee-shirt.

Let me suggest that Friday was not a pleasant morning.

No matter. I made plans, damn it! And under no circumstances would I cancel them. I am on a travel trip. I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE, OK??!!

Please click below to read more :)

I left my car downtown the night before, which sort of worked out in a weird way. I could take the bus down to my West Park walking tour and afterward drive myself home. I guess that's not exactly "weird." Oh well, here's my walk to the Yale and University bus stop:

Oh noooooo! A missing chihuahua! That sounded very sarcastic in written form, but I mean it, I swear on Richard Dawkins' novels, that this really makes me upset. There is no worse feeling than losing your love. I'm going to keep an eye out for Bella. I'm going to call to see if they need support in looking in the alleys. I'll even charge the batteries for the pet camera (it's a small camera that you hook around your cat's collar. It takes photos every 30 seconds, I think). Now ... which one of the cats seems most likely to look for a chihuahua? Again, I am not being sarcastic. Lost pets are a very, very serious thing to me :(

This looks like a Dr. Seuss tree. Wait, have I written that here before? Hmmm ... deja blog.

This should be the state symbol.

Nice tag. I want to start tagging. Do police read this blog? If so, then I do not want to start tagging. I do not want to start tagging unicorns and blythe dolls around Albuquerque. And I will not promise to tag in the next month. No pinky promise!

FINALLY, WE ARE HERE! This is the nautilus-shaped addition created by Bart Prince at 301 Rio Grande Blvd. My walking guide said they may have to renovate it or remove it due to structural problems. Right now, I believe it is a bed and breakfast. Tres chouette. I highly recommend seeing it in person. I walked back and forth on all sides of it to get the full southwestern/seashell effect. It's terribly beautiful :)

Oh, by the way, here is what part of my walking guide looked like:

It's in pdf format (barf) but came to 5 pages when I printed it. The first page describes the neighborhood history and major landmarks. The second page addresses any concerns you might have including safety, road/sidewalk conditions, estimated public activity, wild goat sightings (not kidding) and suggestions for walking apparel. Then there's the map page, which I've shown above. This map has two separate tours. One, you follow numerically and the other you follow the alphabet. I took the numerical one just based on seeing an adobe tree house.

The last two pages are devoted to highly detailed walking instructions. I loved it. Basically, I didn't even look at the map, because the instructions pointed out every landmark location down to the alleyways and cracks in the sidewalk.

Well, hello West Park!

Do you see that beautiful wrought iron bench around the tree? Very Spanish. Very pretty. The iron bench combined with the Spanish roof tiles and Olde English lettering on their Impala, I sort of wanted to walk up and knock on their door asking if I can be friends with them. Pretty, pretty please?

If it's not a dirt lot, then it's an overgrown yellow grass lot. I love it. Fuck landscaping. This is true Albuquerque xeriscape. NE Heights, you can sit right back down and learn something here.

Wow. An adobe tree house. Just, wow.

I would have loved to walk back and forth to examine the tree house, like I did with the Bart Prince nautilus building, but there were kiddos playing in the yard and did not want to come off as creepy. Oh wellsies!

On my left was the beautiful cottonwood strewn Country Club golf course. Did you know that this Country Club only started letting Jews attend in the last 15 years? Holy moly, remind me to piss on their door handles next time I pass by.

Still, what a beautiful piece of land :) It almost makes me want to climb the fence right now and take it for myself ... RIOT IN THE CITY!!

Do you see the figure on top of that house's roof porch? It's a 5 foot tall Kachina. They must have interesting parties.

This was the scariest part of my walk because every house seemed to have very, extremely aggressive dogs in their back yards. So, even though afterward, I can tell you that all of them were contained within their fenced yard, it was pretty effing scary to see crazy, gigantic dogs running toward me at every. single. house. My nerves were slightly frazzled.

Meet the shoe tree of Albuquerque.

How did I not know about this?

Another example of Albuquerque's vernacular houses. I really do love how it looks, no joke.

My walking guide said this Kandy and Rose sign was muy importante. Why though, I don't know.

This concludes my photo diary of the West Park walking tour. Thanks for going with me! Hopefully, you will come to Albuquerque and freak out about the rabid dogs one day, too :)

After the walking tour, I had a late lunch at El Sabor de Juarez.

I can't even begin to describe how perfectly the salsa and cheese enchiladas hit the spot. Like getting my back scratched while shooting up heroin. This enchilada is heroin.

My favorite green chile salsa in Albuquerque.

I ate slowly to savor every bite.

Once I got home, the day caught up with me and I fell asleep without taking off my coat or shoes. Woke up to see all 4 cats sleeping with me in the bed. It was 11 pm. The sombrero was still in the bed with me, too but I figured there was enough room for us to share the space. Picked up The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul and read until 1:30 hoping I'd remember everything I saw and thought today in West Park.