10/7 and 10/8, 2018 – Albuquerque

The last 2 days we took a couple short trips into Albuquerque, but mostly hung at home. On Sunday (10/7), Nancy went to a nearby trail to walk early in the morning and hoped to catch a glimpse of the balloons going by. Unfortunately, the balloon launch was cancelled due to windy weather conditions. The Saturday and Sunday night evening glows were also cancelled due to weather. That’s one of the risks with this event. If conditions aren’t right the events have to be cancelled. So it may take more than a day to actually see a Morning Launch, or a Evening Glow. Glad we attended the Morning Launch on opening day (Saturday). Conditions were absolutely perfect.

Later in the morning, Nancy drove into old town Albuquerque to look for a piece of jewelry while I walked next door to the local Camping World store to look at some Class A motorhomes and pickup a couple items we needed. Unfortunately, Nancy came back again empty handed. She wants a bracelet made of silver and white buffalo turquoise (sometimes called albino turquoise), and has a very specific style in mind….she just hasn’t been able to find it yet. The rest of the day, we hung around with Alice watched some football. Nancy made a great chicken parmesan dinner.

Monday, Nancy went for her walk and captured some great pictures of the balloons. She saw them when they floated close to her location after they launched from Fiesta Field. Some were descending to land.

When Nancy returned, we went to buy a new front wheel for my bike. It fell off somewhere between Camp Verde and Albuquerque. This is the second time I have had to repair or replace the front wheel on this trip. The first time, the wheel bent when it fell from the bike rack into Nancy’s bike while we were driving down the road (covered in a previous post). So I had to buy a new wheel (rim)…..the other surviving components (tire, tube, rotor, etc.) were then used to rebuild the front wheel. This time, we were driving from  Camp Verde to Albuquerque when I mentioned to Nancy that I couldn’t see my bike in the rear view camera. We stopped to check and discovered that the wheel had dislodged from the front fork and had fallen off somewhere. The rest of the bike was secure but leaning against the rear ladder (hence, I couldn’t see it).I  guess the wheel skewer that holds the wheel on the fork must have wiggled loose on the trip and fallen off, which then caused the wheel to simply drop off the frame and bounce down the road. Glad it didn’t hit anyone (at least not that I know of!) So this time, I had to buy a whole new front wheel…..the rim, tire, inner tube, disc brake rotor, and a quick release skewer.  Transporting our bikes has proven to be way more difficult than I ever imagined!

Anyway, this afternoon we went to the Trek store to get the rotor, tire and inner tube and then took them to Performance Bike to have them assemble the wheel and install it on my bike. They were the only store we could find that had the rim size I needed. While they finished installing the wheel, Nancy and I went to very well known New Mexico mexican restaurant called Tomasita’s to have a late lunch. We saw an advertisement for it and decided to go. The restaurant originated in Santa Fe and is now managed by the third generation of the family that started it. In recent years, they added a second restaurant in Albuquerque. We have had some great mexican food on this trip but Tomasita’s was on a different level. Everything was home-made, flavorful, authentic, and out of this world good! As part of her meal, Nancy had a marinated pork tamale that was incredible. The meal included a mexican bread called sopa which is a very light bread with air pockets. It was served warm with honey butter and it was delicious! If we are ever back in Albuquerque, I’m pretty sure we’ll go back to Tomasita’s.

Then we watched my Washington Redskins get crushed by  the New Orleans Saints. Oh well, at least we got to see Drew Brees break the record for most yards passing by a quarterback in the history of the NFL (surpassing Peyton Manning).

On to Durango, CO, tomorrow…..

Here are a few pics Nancy got on her walk this morning….

It looks like the balloon below is getting ready to hit the wires…but it flew over them

Nancy also did some laundry this evening. In keeping with the rest of the retro look of the resort, these antique appliances were on display in the RV park’s laundry room- a hair dryer, an ironing “board”, and a washing machine.