Albuquerque

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We didn't intend to eat lunch at the Bar H (we only got two meals in our deal), but they pressed a tasty hamburger on us on our way out anyway. That kept us going until this rest stop just inside the New Mexico border.



We got into Albuquerque on the late side (for a family traveling with small children, anyway) and went straight to Sadie's, one of the 'must' Mexican restaurants we'd read about. Unfortunately it is such a 'must' that there was a 45 minute wait, so we picked up a pager and zipped back to the hotel to check in.

About five minutes away from Sadie's the poor pager started getting homesick, beeping and saying that it was out of range, and we started to worry we'd lose our place in the queue. As soon as we got back to Sadie's and parked, and were walking up to the front door, the pager went off, and the hostess saw us coming with the flashing pager, so we we never broke stride from the car to our table.

Sadie's was fantastic, and exactly what we wanted after a long drive. Plus, down in the middle foreground of this picture you can see the top of a basket of sopapillas, which are real comfort food for Vernon, having eating them frequently in Fort Worth as a kid.



The next day we were off to visit Petroglyph National Monument. This is an area inside Albuquerque where Native Americans had carved symbols and pictures into the rocks thousands of years ago. There are three little walks you can take in the part we went to, and you can get quite close to some of the petroglyphs.



In another part there's a pretty big hill you can climb and petroglyphs all along the way up. The rocks are this dark black throughout the monument - the kids starting calling them chocolate chips.



Cielo took this picture of the rest of us up on top of the hill.



Here are Eero and Cielo up on top, too. You can see our car in the parking lot - it's the one farthest to the left with the shiny windshield blocker.



On the way back down the hill, Cielo noticed that her shirt was brown and that the rocks were brown, and decided if she crouched down, she would look just like a rock and be camouflaged.



After going to the monument, we headed to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. It is a great combination of museum, restaurant and shops, and the shops feature authentic Native American crafts. They also have dance groups, like this group, who had previously performed all over the world. The chanting music was almost hypnotic. If we remember right this group was the Acoma Intercultural Dancers.

The cultural center also has a really nice restaurant. The kids' menu puzzles are educational, too!



We went over and looked around Old Town Albquerque, but it was pretty much closed down when we got there. Eero was pretty much closed down, too, but Cielo liked the metal panther up in the tree.



One really nice surprise in Albquerque was the Range Cafe, over by the university. Try the fried strips of chile peppers with jalapeno dip. The decor is great, including a display of toy ovens at the entrance.



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