There's Lots to Like About Albuquerque

Petroglyphs National Monument comprises part of the North Western border of Albuquerque and is only a few miles from our campground. It is a 17 mile volcanic escarpment and contains over 20,000 petroglyphs, pecked into the volcanic rocks by area inhabitants between 400 and 3,000 years ago. There are three separate access points to the escarpment as well as a visitor center and additional trails around the volcanoes that formed the escarpment. There are no trees and there is lots of sand so the petroglyphs are best explored on cooler days.

View of the lava escarpment from the Peidras Marcadas trail.

It was lots of fun climbing around the rocks looking for the most interesting petroglyphs. AND, we met Steve and Cheryl Botts on the trail, fellow fulltimers who happened to be staying at the RV park just down the street from us. We ended up having happy hour with these lovely folks twice and hope to meet them again down the road some day, some where.

View North East from the Boca Negra petroglyph site. Here, the neighborhood butts right up to the escarpment.
You can see a petroglyph on one of the rocks and a fire in the Sandia Mountains.

Some great petroglyphs at the Rinconada site.

Albuquerque has an active and varied arts and music scene. One evening we headed out to see The Fabulous Martini-Tones, a surf exotica band, at the Blackbird Buvette, a small restaurant and bar downtown. The band turned out to be a group of very talented musicians and the food was good too. Plus, we were joined by new friends, Rod and Amy, who write the wonderfully helpful blog: GoPetFriendly...all about travel with pets. We met these two last week in T or C and met up again in our current RV park.

The Fabulous Martini-Tones playing at the Blackbird Buvette.

We've also managed to do a little walking in the Rio Grande Bosque, which is the forest that lines the Rio Grande river. We visited the Rio Grande Nature Center and learned how modern man has hurt the Rio Grande over the years by changing it from a free flowing, ever-changing, wide river to a controlled water course that can no longer overflow as nature requires in order to sustain the bosque. The severe drought conditions for the past few years and humans reliance on river water for crops and landscaping, etc. hasn't helped either.

The Nature Center has a couple of lagoons that provide excellent animal and bird watching.

We attended a free art and music afternoon at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. They have an excellent permanent collection of art depicting New Mexico, mostly by artists who live in the state.

There were a lot of really beautiful pieces but I thought this one was particularly fun!

We thought this was kind of weird:

18? Really?

We've got just one more full day in ABQ and then we head into the mountains just East of town for a week...