Santa Fe, ABQ, NM – Sep 2022

Yet another couple of amazing weeks of full time RV travel – this time exploring the many enchantments that New Mexico has to offer.  And, there was certainly no shortage of them.  The picture above may be unusual to some, but to those that are Better Call Saul, or even Breaking Bad fans, Albuquerque is a very special place.  That is after all, where a lot of the filming of these two epic series had taken place.  Later in this blog, I pay a visit to many of the noteworthy locations that were featured in this series.  But, there is also a ton of other touristy and roadside visits as well.  So kick back, and let’s jump right into this.

Friends & Family

Always a special time when I can visit with friends or family while on my journey, and this time was no exception.  I got to spend time with dear old friends from back in my Air Force days, and even got to host a visit with my brother Jerry as he was working his way back to Florida from Washington state.  I’ve been friends with Greg and Debbie since the mid to late 80s, and have seen them several times over the decades, most notably in Oct of 2011 when they hosted my visit to attend the annual Balloon Fiesta.  I also had the pleasure of catching up with their two daughters Lauren and Courtney who I’ve also not seen in quite some time.  I also had the pleasure of meeting Sheila – Greg’s current paramour (at right, bottle left).  It was wonderful seeing them all again!  Catching up with my brother as our travels intersect is always a special treat. We have good times together playing tourist, and I look forward to more in the future (maybe Glacier NP and Moab next year?).  It was great spending time with all these folks, as I thoroughly enjoy catching up with each and every one of them in my travels

Santa Fe

Sadly, I had very little actual time playing tourist in this wonderful area.  I had an issue with my truck on the way here, and it ended up in the shop for 5 of the 7 days I was here.  Also, it was the tail end of the monsoon season, so frequent rain precluded me from leveraging my alternate transportation method – the scoot.  So, after getting my truck back, I had only one day to explore, then it was off to my next destination the following day.  So I made the best of it and went downtown to the Santa Fe Plaza.  It was a beautiful center park area, surrounded by shops and restaurants, and various street merchants throughout.  I love the Pueblo style buildings, and was particularly impressed with the Pueblo style hotel (at left, top) with its many varying levels and striking features.  Along the side of the park is the Palace of Governors – an adobe style government building dating back to the early 1600’s.  Outside, many local jewelry artisans display their many creations (at left, mid and bottom left).  Several side streets are filled with merchants selling various local wares.  An interesting place to walk around for the afternoon.

Also in the area are a couple of historical buildings – each being the oldest in the nation in their class.  First up is San Miguel Church – the oldest church structure in the US (right – bottom), whose adobe walls and altar were built circa 1610.  It’s a beautiful old church with wooden pews and ceiling, and a nicely adorned altar.  It’s a tiny place, 24 ft wide and 70 ft long, and having just over 20 short pews to serve its constituents.  Across the street from the church is what is claimed to be the oldest house in the US.  It is known as the De Vargas Street House (at right – top), and while the actual build date is unknown, it is believed to date back to the Spanish colonial period – post 1610.  Regardless of its status as the oldest in the US, it was certainly a cool old place.

Last up in this area was a visit to the state capital.  My brother Dick suggested I tour this place as in his words, “it’s much like a  museum”.  He was certainly right!  In addition to the chambers for the congress and senate, there was lots of artwork scattered all throughout the hallways.  It was a beautiful building with lots of stone work, a multistory center dome lobby, and works of art placed all throughout.  The Senate chambers were closed, but I did get to walk into the congressional chamber which was pretty typical for a state capital.  It had a vast visitor seating area offering plenty of opportunities for the common man to observe lawmaking in action.  Great suggestion for a visit – thanks Dick!

Albuquerque

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting ABQ on a few prior occasions – once during the annual Balloon Fiesta, which is amazing!  But this time, I got to explore many places I’d not been to in the past, so that was definitely kinda special.  A few days after I got here, my brother Jerry arrived for a couple day stay on his way back to Florida.  I planned out several places to take him during his stay, and together we explored lots of what this town has to offer.  First up was a visit to the Albuquerque International Balloon Museum.  The museum is home to one of the most complete collections of artifacts, images, and stories from the world of ballooning.  It includes all types of balloons such as weather, travel/sport, and even dirigibles and air ships.  Various open baskets and enclosed capsules were on display.  It was a fun and interesting museum.

On the following day, we started our adventure with a visit to the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History.  Established in 1969, it was originally called the Sandia Atomic Museum, and was located on and operated by Air Force staff on Kirtland AFB.  In 1985, operational responsibilities were transferred to the Department of Energy (DOE), then later to the Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) in 1995.  With security concerns post 9/11, it was determined the museum had to be moved off of the AFB.  It was initially relocated to a small building in downtown ABQ, then later after a 12 acre land grant from SNL, a brand new building was constructed and the museum opened in its present home in Apr 2009 with its new name.  It was a very cool museum – with a large outdoor display area consisting of several military bomber planes, portable rocket launchers, and sectioned off ICBMs.  Inside, there were several educational areas covering topics such as pioneers of the atom, nuclear medicine, WW II and the Manhattan Project, and everything related to nuclear energy.  It was a very interesting museum, with lots and lots of great information.

Just as my brother and I had thought we had finished all the sections of the inside museum, we caught a glimpse of a side room that we believed we had not been through. So we ventured in there to find an art exhibit.  It didn’t have anything to do with nuclear history, but rather was simply a temporary display of a traveling exhibit.  It actually turned out to be quite special.  First, it contained over 80 hand drawn pictures from WW II by a guy named Charles Miller (pictured right – center left).  There were all sorts of scenes from battle landing on an island in the Sea of Japan, to life on board a ship, and may others.  Charles drew over 700 scenes of life in the army during his 3 1/2 year stint during the war.  Much of his work remained unseen by anyone until his descendants got some of it turned over to a local museum which later created the traveling exhibit.  Sadly, I was not allowed to take any pictures of the actual art pieces.  On the way out of the exhibit, my brother was looking at a timeline banner of Charles’ life, and happened to notice that he was from  – drum roll please – Nashua, NH – the town in which he and I and the rest of my family were born and mostly grew up.  What an amazing find to see a local Nashua artist being featured in an exhibit in a nuclear museum in New Mexico.  After the war, Charles returned to Nashua to live out his life, and is reportedly actually buried in the next town over in Hudson, NH.  For my other hometown friends and relatives that might be interested, I did some digging and found an interesting article and a couple videos that tell the story of his life, and shows a lot of his works.  Enjoy them here!

Boston Globe Article

NH Hampshire Chronicle Video

Hero’s Hall Exhibit Video

We spent so much time at the nuclear museum that the next museum that I had scheduled for us to visit was about to close.  But, we had some time to kill before our final sight seeing and dinner plans, so I decided to drag my brother on a few Roadside America locations.  This included a visit to the original location of the founding of Microsoft.  On Apr 4th, 1975, Bill Gates and partner Paul Allen formed Microsoft at this small building (at left – top left) to develop and market a BASIC interpreter for the MITS Altair 8800 microcomputer.  They remained here in ABQ until Jan of 1979, when they relocated to Bellevue, WA.  So, for what would become the juggernaut Microsoft Corp, it all started here in this small building in downtown ABQ.  Who knew?  The next visit was to a telephone pole that had been covered with ladies high heel shoes – forming sort of a shoe tree.  That was certainly interesting, but so too was the guys entire yard.  It was filled with all sorts of artwork and creative landscaping.  While my brother and I were there looking around, the artist happened to be in his garage cleaning up, and he graciously came out and chatted with us for a bit.  He was camera shy, so I was not able to get his picture.  He was a very interesting guy, retired theater arts school teacher, who likes to take trips on his motorcycles and dabble with yard art.  Really cool visit!

Next was a visit to the “Bug House” or “Spaceship House”. Either an insect or alien craft, this crazy place sits high atop a somewhat standard structure and begs the question Why?.  It was designed by Bart Prince, a protege of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  Built in 1984, it is reported that Bart Prince is the homeowner and occupant.  On the side is a spiral stairway leading to the center  to some sort of turret.  Definitely a crazy place to see.  Then, not to be outdone, another cantilevered home was built right next door (pictured right – bottom right). It too is very strange and unusual and plays havoc with angles and gravity.  Though not listed in Roadside, I found out that this place was also designed by Bart Prince, and reportedly serves as his architectural studio.  Both places are considered “flyovers” built over an existing Pueblo style house.

With the Roadside attractions behind us, my brother and I departed on our final activity for the day – a 2.7 mile long tram ride up to the top of the Sandia mountains, followed by a marvelous dinner at the mountain top restaurant named Ten 3.  The Sandia Peak Tramway was once the longest single span tram in the world from 1966 thru 2010, but has since been surpassed by two others (one in Switzerland, and the other in China).  It’s an amazing 15 minute ride up to the 10,378 foot peak.  Going back down is equally breathtaking.  The tram is Swiss engineered and built, and has been in continuous operation since 1966, making over 10,000 trips per year.  I recently read of a winter storm on New Years Eve 2021 that caused the tram to stop mid-way back down the mountain.  21 employees from the Ten 3 restaurant were onboard at the time, having left the restaurant due to the impending storm.  They would be trapped high above on the cable for over 30 hours.  They were rescued the following day after being helped by rescuers to repel down to the upper tower, then hiking to a clearing where they could then be picked up by a county sherif helicopter.  Wow – I’m sure glad I read about that AFTER I took my ride!

The meal at the restaurant was amazing!  Ten 3, named for the altitude of the restaurant being at 10,300 feet, put on a spectacular multi-course fine dining meal.  Wonderful baked breads started us off, followed by a spoon full pallet cleanser consisting of mixed greens, goat cheese, and a mild vinaigrette.  Our entrees were just as spectacular – my brother having fillet of beef with gold garlic mashed, and me with my crispy wrapped stuffed chicken with asparagus risotto.  Mmmm Mmmm Good!  Neither of us had room for dessert, but they brought us each a caramel filled chocolate as a final sweet.  It was a great meal topping off a fun filled day.  Thanks for the visit Jerry, and I look forward to our meet ups next year.

So a couple days later, I visited one of the museums that I had intended to do with my brother.  They have limited open hours, M,W,F 10:30-1:30 only, so that is kinda limiting.  But what a fantastic museum it turned out to be!  Known as the Telephone Museum of New Mexico, it’s the first museum of its kind that I’ve been to.  What an amazing collection of telephone equipment, industry artifacts, and historical dioramas.  Lots of decades old switchboards, pay phones, wind up phones, and the like.  Even a desk side pay phone (at left, bottom right) that was taken out of a men’s bathroom in a local hotel.  Never seen one of those before.  Also, AT&T was apparently a large sponsor of the 1984 LA Summer Olympic Games, and they had an entire display area dedicated to that which included one of the tourches used in the relay to light the caldron, and several Olympic design limited edition telephones that I’d never seen before.  And of course, hundreds of phone sets from slim lines, to princess phones, to Disney character phones to name just a few.  This multi-floor museum sure was bigger and better than I had imagined, and I saw many phones that I’d not seen before.  What fun!

Better Call Saul

Next, I spent a couple of days chasing filming locations for the series Better Call Saul.  The series finale had just aired a few weeks prior, so I had just recently finished watching it.  This series came after Breaking Bad, but was setup as a prequel to that series.  I’ve not seen all of Breaking Bad, but it’s definitely on my list to go back and watch the entire series.   The first stop in the journey was to the Nail and Spa place where Jimmy had his office in a back room (at right, top pics).  Fun fact, the nail spa is legit and looks just as it did in the show, but there is no back room for his office.  That room was actually located on a film set.  I stopped in looking for some cucumber water, but no luck.  Next stop was to the famed parking booth where Mike worked part time, and where Jimmy and he met (at right center). This parking booth is for underground parking for the nearby convention center.  Next was the Loyola’s restaurant where Jimmy would meet prospective clients, and lastly the small house where Mike lived.  If you are a fan of the show, these should all look familiar to you.

Next on the tour, we pay a visit to what was called Los Pollos Hermanos (at left, top pics) that was the chicken restaurant owned by Gus Fring.  The actual restaurant is called Twisters (a burger joint), but did have several walls of pictures as it was featured in both Saul and Breaking Bad.  The picture at center is Chuck McGill’s house – the one where he lived with no electricity, and you had to leave all your electronics in the mailbox.  Sadly, the mailbox was not present.  The restaurant where Hector Salamanca and Nacho Varga would collect their drug money was actually El Moreno Mexican Food restaurant (at left, bottom left).  Lastly, Kim and Jimmy shared a couple of hot dog meals at the Dog House, and the actual restaurant of the same name is in downtown ABQ.

Jimmy’s final location for his strip mall law office (the one with the giant inflatable on the roof (at right, top) is actually a bar/restaurant called the Bourbon House.  Another iconic filming location was the multi-story lobby of the law office of HHM – home to Howard Hamlin and Chuck McGill (at right, middle left and bottom right) which is actually the Pan American Building.  The law offices therein were actually not in this building, but rather in some other building.  And lastly, the Cell Phone Store where Jimmy worked after losing his law license is now a supply store for cannabis growers.  Kinda fitting I guess!

To wrap up this tour, I attempted to visit the Cinnabon store where Jimmy worked, which was an actual Cinnabon store located in Cottonwood Mall.  It would appear however, that the Cinnabon has recently closed, and a new venture called Crepes and Waffles has taken over the space.  That was a disappointment.  I also found the apartment complex area where Kim lived (where her and Jimmy through beer bottles out off of the balcony (at left, bottom left).  Lastly, the law office that Kim and Jimmy shared when they were in practice together is ironically an actual law office (left, center and bottom right).  Well, that concludes my little tour of Better Call Saul filming locations.  For those Breaking Bad followers, they offer a tour of several of their filming locations, taken in an actual RV that is similar to the one in the show.  Again, not being an aficionado of the series, I opted to do my own tour, mostly on the scoot – which was a lot of fun.

Roadside America

There were lots of Roadside America sites to visit in the ABQ area, so that kept me pretty busy during my stay.  One that really stood out was a visit to worlds only X-Ray Museum.  This museum is located in the national headquarters building of the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT), and is viewable by appointment only.  So, I reached out to them and made arrangements for a visit.  Little did I know that I would get a solo personal two hour private tour with the actual executive director of the museum.  Wow – has to be the most enjoyable and thorough museum tour I’ve ever been on.  Bill Brennan was the tour guide, and he could not possibly have been more gracious with his time or the sharing of his extensive knowledge. He took me through the entire museum, and provided detail and perspective at each of the many kiosks and section of the museum.  I frankly knew very little about X-ray before, and left there significantly more educated on the subject.  Bill kidded that in addition to his museum director role, he wears several other operational hats, and actually enjoys getting out of his office doing tours.  It was clear to me that his love and passion for both the museum and the subject matter gives him the most joy.  A truly memorable tour with a truly memorable tour guide.  Thanks Bill!

Next, I decided to take my buddy Greg along for a ride, and show him a day in the life of a retired full-time RVer.  Like many others, despite his living here in ABQ for many years, there were several local attractions that he had never been to.  So, I took him along for a day of Roadside America tours.  First up was a visit to a place called TinkerTown.  Located on the eastern side of the Sandia Mountains just off the Sandia Crest Road, is the tiny miniature western town created by the late Ross Ward.  He enjoyed visiting roadside attractions as a kid, worked at some as a teenager, and painted carousels and circus banners as an adult.  He took that passion along with old west junk he collected over the years, and expanded his two room house into a 22 room TinkerTown.  He hand carved lots of wooden figures, and created many dioramas depicting life in the old west.  He even added animatronics to many of his pieces.  This place was amazing, and the pictures really don’t fully do it justice – but what place!

Our next stop was in the town of Moriarty, and a visit to the Southwest Souring Museum.  Not quite as big or extensive as the National Souring Museum that I visited while RVing in upstate NY, but a nice collection of gliders indeed.  Lots of Self Launching Motor Gliders (SLMGs), home made and kit built gliders, a NASA project flier that actually never got off the ground before the project was cancelled, and even a replica of the 1912 Wright glider.  Really nicely done!

Next, we travelled across the street to visit the Lewis Antique Auto and Toy Museum.  As Greg put it, from the outside, it looks like a collection of junk vehicles.  In fact, there certainly were lots of old rust buckets within the 8 acres surrounding the metal building, but inside, was the private collection of historic vehicles from longtime auto industry worker Archie Lewis (pictured at left, top right). He even had one of my dream cars – a 1957 hardtop convertible T-Bird (at left, top left).  In fact, he also had 1956 and 1958 T-Birds in his collection, as well as several Model Ts, and a 1932 Nash.  We were told at the time of admissions to not bother asking as none of them are for sale!  Damn, that’s too bad!

Our last stop took us some 21 miles to the south west to a tiny little town called Chilili, to the St John Nepomucene Cemetery.  This is a small, somewhat poor town, and many of the deceased in the cemetery would not have fancy grave markers or headstones.  So a local artist named Horace McAfee, who himself has since passed, took it upon himself to create a more permanent marker for dozens of the graves.  He did this using random spare pieces of tin, and a hammer and a nail.  He manually punched out holes in the tin to form the letters and words for the deceased – some were quite extensive.  He also punched out signs with his own poetic musings as well as signs with cemetery behavior protocols.  Also present in this cemetery were actual burial mounds with markers that ranged from a simple wooden cross, to ones decorated with lots of plastic flowers and solar lights.   It was quite the site, and nothing that I’ve ever seen before in a cemetery. Truly a Roadside America jewel.

Last up in the Roadside arena were these couple of items.  First up was a trip to the campus of the University of New Mexico (UNM) to check out a very controversial art piece.  Built in 1988 by reported artist Bruce Nauman at a cost of $100,000, this piece titled “The Center of the Universe” features a central storm grate with an imbedded bronze medallion, with tunnel like passage ways radiating in 5 directions – east, west, north, south, and up.  When it was completed and revealed, it triggered lots of campus protests, and apparently a fair amount of nasty graffiti.  It’s often referred to as a bunker.  I have to admit, it’s hard to believe this thing cost $100K.  It’s boxy, plain looking, and frankly not at all artistic.  I can certainly sympathize with the staff and students who don’t share in the artists vision of this piece.  I have been told by former students that it does sometimes serve a purpose – that is to hide in it and escape from the rain.  Oh well, there is that at least.  Last up on the tour is actually not featured in Roadside, but something I stumbled upon as I was touring around.  Three giant 6+ foot tall transformer-like creatures stand watch over a parking lot across from the county courthouse.  I know little about them other than they seem to be made mostly from used car parts.  I’m gonna have to do some more research to see what I can find out, then submit this for possible inclusion to the Roadside list.  They were very cool!

Towards the end of my stay here in ABQ, I had to visit their local square.  If you look closely, these pictures will look eerily similar to those above from Santa Fe.  In fact, they are very similar.  Several New Mexico towns have central squares, or Old Town Plazas as they are often called.  ABQ is no different.  A central grassy park – this one with a large gazebo in the center, with a church flanking on one side, then shops and restaurants and sidewalk merchants flanking the other sides.  Pretty standard fare for these towns.  This one, however, did have an interesting addition – an old stump of a tree, with a long hole section exposing an otherwise empty interior, that had a Virgin Mary inside.  Definitely different!  It was a nice afternoon walking around this old town, checking out the shops, and doing a bit of people watching.

Final Thoughts

Once again I find myself blogging the equivalent of War and Peace!  But ABQ offered so much to see and do, it was two fun filled eventful weeks of touring around.  Which, after all, is exactly what this lifestyle is all about.  So hopefully you enjoyed this read, and perhaps got a bit of something out of it along the way.  My next stop will take me to Roswell where I will investigate all things alien, followed by two weeks in Las Cruces where I’ll visit White Sands NP and Missile Range, the Organ Mountains, and all things to see and do around southern New Mexico.  Lastly, I wanted to mention that I have now started including some standard text and a link at the bottom of each blog that will lead you to a picture album on Flickr that contains all the pictures from each blog.  Not only full size, hi-res ones that are featured in each blog, but also all the other pictures that I took that are not shown.  For this blog alone, there are over 400 pictures in the album. You are also free to download any of them for your own use and enjoyment. I have a Pro account with Flickr that affords me, and all my anonymous guests ad-free viewing of those pictures.  So, if you are seeing ads, it’s likely that you yourself have a non-pro Flickr account and are currently logged in.  Just sign out from your account, and you should then see my pics without annoyance.  I hope you enjoy this little added Luv2RV travel bonus.  I’m working on going back through all the prior blogs and adding the photo album links.  I’ve got about 10 blogs done so far, with 60+ more to go.  Will likely be a Florida winter hibernation project to complete.  As always, thanks again for following along in my journey, and till next time, be well and safe travels.  Oh, and as for the meme at left, I did finally find that job – its called retirement!

Epilogue

Well, I was just about ready to wrap up this blog and publish, when a final act of bad luck happens.  First and foremost, I am physically fine!  A little bumped and bruised perhaps, but certainly nothing serious.  So here is what happened.  On my final day here in ABQ, I met up with my friend Greg for a final farewell lunch.  It was a beautiful day, and I had not yet put my scoot up on the carrier, so I figured I’d get one last ride in before I leave in the morning.  Well, on the way back from lunch, while sitting at a red light, I get rear ended and pinned with the car in front of me.  The car behind wasn’t going super fast, but the impact was certainly startling, and resulted in lots of plastic damage to the front and rear of the scoot.  And it was the perfect storm – the female driver (shown at right, top right) spoke not a lick of english, was driving an unregistered, uninsured vehicle, and was doing so without any drivers license.  So, police were called and they took over from there.  They seized and towed her car (yea!) and will be pursuing criminal charges as well. I was only about 2 miles from the campground at the time, and after I shoved some of the broken plastic out of the way of the wheels, the scoot seemed to travel just fine and got me back to the KOA.  I’ve since gotten it up on the carrier now, which is likely where it will have to remain until I get back to Florida to get it repaired.  To add insult to injury, when I filed a report with my insurance, I discovered I did not have collision coverage. Geez – how dumb!  So I’ll have to cover the repairs myself, then go after the driver for reimbursement (like that’s likely to happen). Again, I was not  badly injured, so all things considered, that’s a win.  Anyway, I figured since I’d not yet published this blog, I might as well include this little story along with it.  Happy trails everyone!

I only show a sampling of my adventure pictures here in the blog, and do so mostly in collage format for brevity and ease of reading. If you want to view an album containing individual full fidelity and hi-res images of all my travel pictures related to this specific blog, click the image below. Enjoy!