Get Your Kicks On Route 66

Day 33 Touring Albuquerque

Saturday, May 30, 2009

We are still having ‘Stair Wars’ with the unruly automatic stairs on the RV. Finally, Jim decided to disable the motor and work them manually. What the heck took so long to figure that out? So we ran down to Home Depot to get some Velcro straps to secure them in place when we are moving. Looks like Cousin Eddie’s family’s RV…but it works!

Stair Wars out of the way, we drove to the other side of the city to a big ol’ mountain. We then boarded the Sandia Peak Tramway, the longest aerial tram in the world, 2.7 miles long. It goes up to the top of the mountain to 10,378 feet.

It was clear, cool and breezy. What great views! I kept feeling like I should be hearing a pilot telling me that we were on our final approach.

There was a restaurant up on top, so we had lunch and watched from our table while two young men jumped off a perfectly good mountain on hang gliders...Holy Crap! Imagine you are on a cliff that is about 5,000 feet above the base of the mountain and you step off with nothing more than a BIG KITE! Um….when I’m at 10,000 + feet I want jet engines, a pilot, co-pilot and a sturdy aircraft all around me…NOT a kite!
Later we went to the old town section of the city. It’s a busy place on the weekend. We toured their museum for a couple of hours. We especially liked the section on the Spanish explorers and their armor and weapons. Oh my lord, some of the swords and daggers were scary indeed! I stood there trying to imagine actually having to fight someone with these things. Shudder.

The Museum is in the old town area so we walked a half block to the old mission and park. A group of black motorcycle club members from Denver drove up and parked. I’ve never seen such ‘bling’ on motorcycles! The bikes were so colorful, I took a picture of them.

The skies turned dark and we began the 10 mile or so drive back to the RV park. We only got a brief shower with some gusty winds whipping up the sand. Yeah, there’s LOTS of sand here!

Tomorrow we are taking the RV for an oil change early in the morning, then hitting the road heading east.