While in Santa Fe, we took a side trip to Albuquerque which is about an hour away. And three Costcos to choose from!
We've always enjoyed the Old Town Plaza so we headed there.
I just love how these cities surround a historical plaza. But I'm sure it takes a lot of maintenance to keep them looking good.
Old Town is the historic original town site of Albuquerque established in 1706. It is listed on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties as the Old Albuquerque Historic District and is protected by special historic zoning designation by the city. The present-day district contains about ten blocks of historic adobe buildings surrounding Old Town Plaza.
The shops are all great and we checked out more turquoise (no, we didn't buy any).
It really was quiet even though the weather was great.
As we sat outside eating our ice cream (cookie dough for me, salted chocolate for Ron), we saw a woman inside picking her flavor. The server seemed to know her well.
When she came out of the shop, we asked her what flavor she got and that prompted a lengthy conversation with an interesting woman, Camy Condon (I think that is her pen name).
Conducting business while we talked
I'm not sure what brought her to Albuquerque but we learned that she was the first person to install solar panels on her house (at least that's her claim). Years ago she helped to start a Solar Energy School in Brazil, speaks four languages, and has written many books. If you ever go to Japan and want to know how to eat cheap, check out her book on Amazon. She's in her mid 80's and could run circles around all of us. What a treasure to meet her!
And now it's time to go to Costco - yee haw!!!
We did a trip to New Mexico. It was fun but we both realized we are definitely ocean people. It dawned on us that this was our first trip not on the ocean or close to the ocean and we prefer the ocean. We drove the entire turquoise trail, over 100 miles, and didn't appreciate the beauty as much as others who spoke so highly of it. For the first week we stayed in a pueblo outside of Albuquerque. We had lots of fun there. We're still in touch with a women we met there. It was such a hoot. They couldn't do anything to change the outside footprint of the pueblo so what they did to make it into separate rooms with bathrooms was hilarious. We had a bathroom that was a good size for a squirrel. You could sit on the toilet and brush you teeth in the sink that was the size of a mixing bowl. I know what you mean about all the turquoise. It was everywhere. I remember the square that you mentioned full of side-by-side vendors. It was everywhere. Not only the turquoise but the strings of dried red peppers. I brought one home and had it hanging in our kitchen for years. The best part was Santa Fe. We were there for three or four days and loved it. We went to Taos for a day trip and unfortunately didn't see Julia Roberts. HAHA
ReplyDeleteWe've been to Taos a couple of times and never saw her, either.
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