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Published: June 15th 2007
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Prairie Dog Love
Shmoopie...no, you're shmoopie! What do you want to do today? We asked each other as we gathered ourselves in our hotel room. The trouble with a trip like this is that you have to accept early on that you aren't going to get to do everything you might want to do in the limited time you have in the various places. We knew we wanted to spend some time in Old Town, a nice area of shops and restaurants near our hotel. We also knew that we wanted to go to the Zoo, Aquarium, and Botanical Gardens.
On the first day we decided to walk down to the aquarium and botanical gardens. As you'll see in the photos, both were pretty interesting. We really rushed through these, though, because we were too excited about the zoo (or at least Sarah was). I have to say that the Albuquerque Zoo is AMAZING. I have never gone to a zoo with as much variety/proximity to the animals. You will see in the pictures how close we got to some of these animals. (It wasn't just the camera...we promise).
It was awesome. We were like little kids (without the whining and crying). There were
a few times when I had to catch myself so I wouldn't start running from one exhibit to the next. A few highlights (you'll get a much better idea from the pictures). The Polar Bears were amazing. Two of them seemed a little pissed about their current living situation (few polar bears have historically selected New Mexico, afterall). The third bear seemed a little more at ease. He dove into the water (very cool, though we didn't get a pic) and swam around. So we got to see two polar bears paccing back and forth and a third swimming around in the water.
Then there were the giraffes. It's weird how you walk up to the exhibit and immediately see one, but don't notice for quite some time (at least I didn't) that there were three adults and two baby giraffes. They're tall. The giraffes were actually the first animals we saw when we got to the zoo, but on the way back to the train that would take us back to the aquarium/garden we stopped by and were rewarded when we got to see one of the adult females eating leaves from a bush. Her head was (really)
about 10 feet away from us. The pictures you see aren't zoomed anywhere near the max for that camera - we were close. I don't know how well it shows up in the picture, but their tongues are crazy long and black. She would wrap her tongue around the branch then run the tongue along to strip the leaves off. Quite the endeavor, since they had food available in little troughs.
Finally, we sat and watched the elephants for about a half hour. Reed really likes elephants, so it was pretty cool. These elephants were really awesome, fun, and silly. It's interesting to see how a huge animal like these can smile and have such personality. Highlights of the elephants was wathing them play in the water as tehy were being sprayed and watching them do various tricks their handlers had taught them. You might be able to tell in a few picutres, there's one trick where they'd line up and all bow, and another where they'd all raise one of their rear legs.
Before we even went over to the Bio Park (the name for the zoo/aquarium/gardens) we wandered over to Old Town to get some breakfast.
It was about 9:00 and there didn't seem to be anything open. We had pretty much given up and were about to head to the McDonald's down the road. We were heading back towards the Mickey D's when we saw the Case de Ruiz Church Street Cafe. As was typical during our stay here, the people in the Church St. Cafe were so nice and friendly. They made it seem like we were old friends and seemed really interested in us and our trip. Of course, our friendship developed over the course of this and two subsequent meals (lunch the next day and breakfast prior to leaving on Friday)
A list of the awesome food we got at the church st cafe - just to make you jealous
carnitas con huevos - smothered in new mexican chiles, and cheese and served with fried papitas
mile high pile - eggs, papitas, chiles, chili sauce, covered with cheese
avodado sandwich - shredded, seasoned beef sandwhich with chili sauce
huevos rancheros - eggs, beef, and chiles on a blue corn tortilla
taco salad - fajita-style chicken, cheese, chiles, tomatoes, lettuce, guac and sour cream on a fried tortilla
guacamole - omg.
the BEST i've ever had
breakfast burrito - do you really need a description for this? it was delicious.
Antonio (who at times appeared to be the only waiter on staff) was our waiter all three times we ate there. He was awesome and made it obvious that he was incredibly busy but that he had time to chat and take care of you.
We both noticed that this place (and really many places here) didn't place much of a premium on speed. It was nice to just relax and let things happen as we enjoyed the weather and the company. You'd be seated and wait a good while, order drinks (unless Antonio caught you on the way in to ask what you'd be drinking), wait a while, order food, wait a while, eat, wait a while, ask for the check, wait - you get the point.
On Thursday we went to the Museum of Natural History and the Children's Science Museum. The MofNH led you through a series of exhibits in chronological order from the beginning of time through the computer age. (Did you know that DNA comes from volcanos? Eek! The Scientologists are taking over!)
They recently acquired a new T.Rex skeleton. Most of the dinosaur bones were found locally, but we're not sure where that one was from. We spent a great deal of our time here looking at the dinosaur exhibits. We've decided to honeymoon in Jurassic Park, by the way.
The Children's Museum was exactly what it sounds like-- a museum for children. Good thing we are kids at heart. We played with bubbles, drew a spirograph-like picture, built an arch, talked through those whisper things across a rooftop, and made pretty pretty music. And a tornado. Sarah was too scared to ride a bike across a tightrope and Reed was too heavy. Oh well, maybe some other time.
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Doug
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Albuquerque
Glad you've enjoyed Albuquerque. It's been my favorite city outside of Minnesota since I was first there in 1965. I hope you witnessed an afternoon thunderstorm there. They are refreshing and exciting. Safe travels. dwl