12 & 13 February 2024 Petroglyphs and the Turquoise Trail (attempt)

On February 12th I headed out to explore Albuquerque and my first stop was the Petroglyph National monument.

Located right on the edge of Albuquerque's urban sprawl, the monument features 24,000 petroglyphs scattered over several areas of volcanic rock. These rock drawings were made 400 to 700 years ago initially by the native Americans and then added to by Spanish settlers. Scientists don't really know the meaning of many of these drawings, and Native American elders have told them they never will. 😆 This area was a common trade route and confluence of several Native American mugrsyion routes and it is thought that this is how different different tribes communicated with each other. Plus I saw a cool road runner - funny birds that apoear to prefer walking to flying.

Then I headed to Old Town Albuquerque. It's a cute little plaza surrounded by lots of shops and a famous old church. It's the off-season so it was quiet and I can imagine this place is mobbed in the summer. I'm not much of a shopper and tourist attractions like this don't necessarily thrill me .... and although I love silver I am not a fan of turquoise which seems to be the most popular Stone around here.

Next stop was Nob Hill, only to discover that it was the area near the Route 66 diner I had visited the previous day. Not much of Route 66 is left .... it's all modern roads and stores these days ... and I was still working off the calories from the previous days ginormous shake so I did not return to the diner.

On the way home I searched for bison at a preserve near where I was staying. After the failed attempt at finding bison in Jackson Hole I am now on a bison quest. Sadly there were no bison at the preserve .... how can that be? I did eventually see 8 bison on a hilltop above the preserve but they were fenced in and I'm not counting it as a real bison encounter. I will have to keep looking.

The following day (February 13) I decided to take the scenic route to Santa Fe: the Turquoise Trail. The trail begins just east of Albuquerque and follows along a small rural path rather than the highway. My first stop was the Ranger Station where a very knowledgeable woman presented me with a map and some ideas. One of them was to head up to Sandia Crest - the mountain range on whose western base I had stayed the previous 3 nights. Sandia Crest is 1 mile above the surrounding desert flatlands and 2 miles above sea level: over 10,600 feet in elevation. There's a famous tram that runs to the top which is currently closed for maintenance but the Ranger explained that there is a road that you can take to the top to get some gorgeous sweeping views. I decided it would be the perfect place to eat my lunch!

The temperature at the base was 48° and roads were dry and clear. As I climbed, the roads had more of a red tint – apparently the sand they use here to give traction to the roads is red unlike our yellow sand back east. Around 7,000 feet is when I first saw some snow .... and that's also when my car started having issues. I heard a bing tone and saw the first of 9 different alarms on my dashboard screen: problems with antilock brakes, cruise control, power steering, lane assist and several others. The car felt like it was driving OK and Idecided to continue on. A little ways further at about 9000 feet elevation, I encountered a snow plow heading down the mountain and that's when things got dicey .... the plow had pushed a mound of snow about 2 feet wide and 2 feet tall into the middle of the road creating 2 narrow lanes, neither one of which was really very passable. Although the lane on the left side of the road was wider, I decided to stay on my side of the road and take the more narrow right path so as not to have a head on collision with someone coming down the mountain. I only made it about 100 yards up the road to find that the car in front of me had dropped its front right tire off the road and was hopelessly stuck. I had to back up 100 yards staying as close to the pile in the middle as I could so as not to drop either of my right tires off the road into the embankment. Thankfully no one was behind me! I then proceeded on the left side of the road and luckily the top of the mountain was not too much further (and also luckily I did not encounter anyone head-on). Once at the top, my car refused to shut down and an error message instructed me that I had to push and hold the start button for it to shut down and in doing so I had no electrical control. I couldn't open my trunk or do anything else ... it was obviously something that was going to need attention ASAP!

I realized when I was at the top of the mountain that one of the things that is so stunning here is how far you can see. In New England there are hills and lots of tall trees and you just can't see into the distance. From the peak of Sandia you can see 11,000 square miles - that's insane! Although I took a couple of landscape pictures nothing does the scale justice. It's just incredible how far and wide you can see. From the top of the mountain it's literally a 360° view as far as the eye can see. Amazing!

I called a Honda dealer at my destination (Santa Fe) and explained my situation and that I was hopeful they could evaluate and fix my car. They asked me to get there by 5 PM which meant that I had to drive all the way to Santa Fe without any of the scenic stops along the TurquioseTrail. Luckily I made it to my hotel at 4:15 PM and was able to unload all my stuff into my room and got my car to the dealership at about 4:57 PM. Grabbed my bike out of the back and rode it back to my hotel (3 miles) and thankfully tomorrow my hotel has a shuttle that takes guests to the center of Santa Fe where all the action is. Fingers crossed they can figure out what's up with my car. Of course after not being able to shut off my car 3 times in a row it shut off just fine when it was at the Honda dealer. Go figure! 🙄