All Alone in Albuquerque

All alone in Albuquerque…at an RV park. Uhggg! I know I shouldn’t be complaining. The truth is that the Enchanted Trails RV Park is really not that bad. I mean yeah, the sites are tight, you share a hook-up area with your neighbor-which also means you share a sitting area (can you say ak-ward), and the noise from I-40 is constant. BUT, it’s clean, feels safe, is conveniently located, has a nice laundry room, and offers a very affordable weekly rate of $140/week for a 30amp pull-thru spot.

Site C6 at Enchanted Trails

It’s definitely no state park though. So why are we staying here? Or rather, why am I staying here? Weeeell, Tim is away this week at a work conference in Chicago. When he found out about the conference months ago, we knew the plan was to be in New Mexico through April, and Albuquerque seemed to to be the best choice for a place to fly out of. So here I am hanging in a dusty parking lot surrounded by gigantic RVs while he’s off galavanting around a cool city leaning stuff, eating all sorts of yummy meals, and drinking (what sounds like a lot) of free beer. I’ve been getting reports throughout the week about the sheer number of nerds, Macbooks, free t-shirts, foods to eat, and did I mention the free beer- lots of free beer. To which I reply that he must fit in perfectly. Which is no surprise, since it is a conference for computer programers. I’ll have some photos from Chicago to share in a few days on the weekly Instagram post.

Della a ’74 Silver Streak available for rent

Evelyn a ’54 VaKaShunnette on display

Back here in windy Albuquerque I’ve been busy shopping, cleaning, and tackling a few crafty around the house projects (new orange pillows-yay). I also might have stretched the truth a bit when I claimed to be all alone. It turns out that fellow RVers Lynne & Clark from the blog Tales From The Mutiny are also here at Enchanted Trails. Julie & Jim showed up at the beginning of the week, and Marshall, a new RVer who I “met” through Instagram is also here in town at a different RV park. Through the magic of RVillage I set up a group message and we planned a few afternoon happy hours. The first night I hosted and we had a good laugh when everyone showed up with goodies from Trader Joe’s. Guess we all have more in common than just Rving. A few days later we had another gathering at Julie & Jim’s, followed by a tour of Lynne & Clark’s amazing indoor reno of their class A. Sadly, Julie and Jim are moving on today, but I was able to set up another get together for this weekend after Tim returns so he can meet everybody else. Good times.

The happy hour gang + some yummy eats

I’d be lying if I said I took advantage of my alone time to fully explore the city. I’ve always been more of a nature girl than a city lover, and it turns out that I am not so good at exploring new cities, especially by myself. Which means that I haven’t visited downtown Albuquerque…wait, is there a downtown Albuquerque? I don’t even know. But I have checked out some of the nice green space in the city. There a really lovely 16-mile bike path that runs alongside the Rio Grande River. Parallel to the paved path is a dirt path closer to the river in the trees. Both are well used and a great sanctuary in a city full of a whole lot of pavement and criss-crossed lanes of highway.

The Paseo del Bosque Bike path

By far my favorite activity here in town was BioPark. I spent an entire afternoon wandering around the botanical gardens, followed by about 15 minutes at the aquarium. The BioPark also has a zoo, but it was an extra fee, and I am not so into zoos that I wanted to pay extra for it. The botanical gardens were much larger than I anticipated, and I happily wandered the lush green paths oohing and awing at the early spring flowers and snapping about a million photos. It wasn’t one of those perfectly manicured botanical gardens. Some of the areas even looked a bit run down, but truthfully I enjoyed the more natural look and was thrilled just to see green and color after so many months in the desert.

Green Grass, Orange poppies, Orange ruffled tulips

The farm house

Almost open allium, A path lined with green, Pretty, pretty pansies

Iris, Succulents, Yucca, Butterfly Weed, the cactus greenhouse

A playful goat

Blooming crabapple, The barn, Strawberry patch, The apple barn, Columbine

Japanese Maple, Japanese Pagoda, Viburnum flower

Waterfall in the Japanese Garden

Peony, Magical path, Friendly Koi fish hoping for a handout, Pagoda in the stream

The miniature train garden

At the Aquarium – Stingray, Sea Nettle, Ugly fish, Moon Jellyfish, A smiling Stingray face

Tim gets back tonight, and provided I can stay awake late enough to pick him up, it will be great to see him again. When you spend 99.9% of your time with someone, it’s very strange when they’re gone for five days. This was my first time staying in the Airstream by myself, and while I enjoyed the space to spread out, it was pretty lonely. To all those solo travelers out there- you amaze me. Don’t think I could do it. We have one more day here in ABQ and then we head south to Oliver Lee SP for the second half of our tour of New Mexico’s fabulous state parks.