After just 3 days in town, we’ve practically become natives of Albuquerque…starting with how to abbreviate that name!
Actually, we barely have scratched the surface of this happy, sunny, dry, dusty, large, new, old, rocky, prickly, spread-out, bustling, well-kept, happening place!
And it has idiosyncrasies: for one, the stores don’t even bother stocking “mild” salsa…only medium and hot. I’d be dead in a week if I lived here!
Robyn discovered another one yesterday morning: hot air balloons have the right of way everywhere except the nearby air force base! She and Ryan were driving and came upon this scene:

The balloon initially landed beside the road, but a chase crew member moved it across in front of Robyn to the narrow median, where they deflated the balloon and put it all away.
The Sandia Mountains overlook the city, and provide a lovely backdrop to most scenes. We enjoyed seeing the efforts people make to tame the mountain: the longest passenger tram in North America, and settlements of adobe homes scattered across the foothills.



As you can see, the countryside is certainly not lush and cozy. A sweeping look would cause you to saddle up and keep on riding. But a closer look reveals a lot of variety to the terrain…in the plants, the colors, and the topography.

An interesting phenomenon occurs nearly every evening….the mountains turn a deep reddish orange during the last minutes of the setting sun.


We had a little extra fun on our last day in town….with a solar eclipse! I managed to get hold of some throw-away sunglasses that were made especially dark for the event, and I held one side in front of my camera lens to get this shot. That is some kind of sun spot in the middle, not dust on my lens.
