albuquerque, aka austin here we come

after waking up horribly early this morning, dan and i realized that we had a full day ahead of us in one city, without any real driving to be done at all. we managed to run errands (dan bought the first fireworks of the trip) before we saw the petroglyphs on the west side of town (old carvings in rocks - rocks again) before the sun could bake us completely on the rocks, and saw our first rattlesnake, crawling slowly across the road in front of the car. dan tried to make it rattle but it didn't care about anything but getting to the shade of the bushes. we then headed for the world's longest aerial tramline which is just north of where rachel's house is. we took the tram up into the sandia mountains - way up, 4000 feet higher in elevation over the city. the view was absolutely gorgeous, even accounting for the smoggy air from the arizona wildfire. we ended up taking an unplanned nature walk/hike up a mile and a half to a little tiny stone house that was built in the 30s by the civilian conservation corps as a shelter for hikers. it was strange to find myself in the middle of temperate mountains again - the heat gone and all the cacti and things replaced by shaking aspens and new mexican maples and little wildflowers. that's my kind of mountain. i even enjoyed the unplanned hike. ha.

we then found our way to rachel's house, where we were going to stay the night. her neighborhood is seriously made up of about a million streets with the same names - cedar hill way, loop, boulevard, lane, etc., tramway lane, blvd, street, avenue, etc., etc., etc.. we definitely got lost for a while, but then we found it. it's a really gorgeous pueblo-style house, painted the same warm red-tan color as the surroundings. rachel's mom greeted us (so did her dogs, frida and whimsical mildred, who is blind and really sad but kind of cute as a result). we turned around pretty quick to get lunch in old town albuquerque and buy some turquoise jewelry and all that, and then gave into our sleepiness (6:30 am wake up time sucks) and went to a border's books where we got sucked in by air conditioning and chuck klosterman's new book about road trips. klosterman also has a problem thinking that states are like other states ("it does not look like the way i always imagined rhode island; it seems more like south dakota"), proving once again that he has prevented me from ever using my quirky takes on the world to make any sort of writing career.

post borders break, we got ready for our real new mexican food dinner at rachel's favorite restaurant. i should clarify of course that rachel was not there - i was sleeping in her bed and using her bathroom and it was very odd inhabiting someone's space when they weren't there to introduce it to you - but her parents took us out for dinner. very tasty.

tomorrow we're waking up early (not as early as today, thank god) and heading up to santa fe for a quick jaunt before starting the long, long, long drive to austin, texas. woo, sara, here we come!