Weekend in ‘Burque
Sorry it’s been a minute since I’ve updated y’all on our travels. We took an extended weekend to go mess around in Albuquerque. It was quite a mix of activities, but fear not, we do have a new trail and tavern to share in this entry.
We stayed at the Sandia Resort and Casino on the Sandia Reservation. It is a beautiful facility and very, very nice. It offered us easy access to Sandia Peak and the concert venue was right there too. If you’ve never considered staying at an Indian resort, you should definitely give it another thought. They’re beautiful, clean, and more luxurious than you can imagine. It’s very much a cultural exhibit too, with lots of beautiful artwork, sculptures, and pottery. And especially after visiting Chaco Canyon, you could really appreciate the traditional Pueblo architectural elements too.
Our first stop was to head up the Sandia Tramway and get some hiking in. The tram itself is pretty remarkable, even if you just hang out at the top (10,300 feet) and eat at the restaurant there. But you know us. We weren’t going to be satisfied until we got some dirt on our shoes. So we did a short 3 miles on the south leg of the Sandia Crest Trail. The bummer about starting at the peak is that you know you’ll be heading uphill on the return leg. Still the views were totally worth it.
After the hike, we picked a local brewpub to refuel. La Reforma is one of those hole-in-the-wall kind of places that people talk about where the food is SO much better than you’d imagine from the outside. It’s in this little strip mall next to a boxing gym in an industrial area on the north side of Albuquerque. But just try finding a parking spot among all the high-end cars crowded outside it. And the food? Just excellent. I also sampled one of their Oktoberfest lagers brewed on site, which was very good. Just go.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed some drinks at their rooftop bar, watching the evening thunderstorms roll across the mountains. It was so quiet up there, we just talked and took in the views for hours. Not something you’d expect at a typical casino hotel.
Next day, we went to see Oppenheimer (it’s hot in July in Albuquerque). I’m sure we don’t need to tell you how good it is by now. But it was cool watching the story play out in New Mexico from New Mexico. A lot of the shots of where they built the movie version of Los Alamos were also places we’ve hiked out near Ghost Ranch.
That night was the concert. We went to see Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Michelle’s not as much of a blues guitar fan as I am, so she was very cool to let me pick our first big concert together. And that was really the point. We haven’t done crowded events much, especially since COVID and both of us were a little anxious about how we would feel being boxed in by so many people. So having the venue literally steps away from where we were staying seemed like a safe bet. It turned out well for both of us. Even started raining a little bit towards the end.
We came back to Santa Fe with a little bit of weekend left and just in time to visit the annual Spanish Market downtown. We walked down there, since parking was, of course, nuts and picked up a couple of new pieces for the house.
We moved here to try and SLOW DOWN and be more deliberate about how we spend our time together. This weekend I’d say we did it just about right.
