Albuquerque

Our caravan ended with a lox and bagel breakfast Sunday morning. Unfortunately, the balloons that were scheduled to fly in a mass ascension as the last event of the fiesta were unable to soar due to strong winds, as was true for Friday and Saturday. After breakfast we said goodbye to new friends and headed off on our own random roads toward home.
Those of you who have followed our travels all along have notice certain threads in the fabric of this narrative, spectacular scenery, Native American Culture, and lots of food. We now add an additional thread, museums. Albuquerque has many wonderful museums and we sampled several of them.
We started with the Balloon Fiesta Museum near where we were camped. There we enjoyed a tour learning about the history of ballooning, especially Transatlantic and around-the-world attempts. The most fascinating story was about the test pilot who parachuted from 102,000 feet, not once, twice, but three times. This was a test to see if an astronaut could bail out if need be. Believe it or not, the man’s still flying.

Down in Old Town, the Albuquerque Museum has a lovely sculpture garden on its front lawn. The biennial exhibit did not appeal to Jerry but the photography exhibited got his attentions.

We ended our first museum day at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. This was an excellent review of all we had experienced on the caravan. Our appreciation of pueblo art and our improved understanding of native American history has been a benefit of the caravan. We gained so much information on the tour, we were tested. We both earned above average scores, of course.

On another day, and for our last museum in Albuquerque, we took a recommendation from Jim and Jackie, Albuquerque friends of Steve and Rita. We have learned a lot about the Spanish role in New Mexico, both good and bad. Their influence on art is well displayed at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Sorry, no pictures allowed inside. We also wished we could have seen a show at the Roy Disney Theater. We consoled our disappointment with a very good Mexican buffet at the museum. (Notice the food thread is still here.)