Blogs from Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, North America - page 23

Nothing very exciting across Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle. We overnighted in a dreary campground (not much more than a parking lot behind a motel) in Amarillo. We were up early and outta there for New Mexico. We stopped for a break in Tucumcari. What a neat little town on the old Route 66. Found a great-looking little Mexican restaurant, but it was only 10:00 AM, so we had to pass. We found a nice campground 5 miles east of Albuquerque on top of a mini-mountain overlooking the city down in the valley. Quite an impressive view. We planned to stay 2 nights and do some sightseeing, but had to stay another day due to some mechanical trouble with the truck exhaust brake( a gizmo diesels have to help use the engine for braking when coming ... read more

My last two full days in Bangkok were definitely the most activity-filled of the entire trip. I had booked full-day tours through my hotel for 1000 baht (approx. $25) each and definitely got my money's worth... Monday morning (January 9), my guide picked me up at 6:20a.m. in the 18th floor lobby of Baiyoke Sky Hotel and escorted me to the minivan downstairs. We then went to pick up six more passengers at the China Palace Hotel in Chinatown. I was trying to remember a few phrases of Chinese when the guide was inside retrieving them but they all turned out to be from near Sydney, Australia, and were the first native-English speakers I'd encountered in quite some time. There was an older couple and then a family with two children of approximately 10 years of ... read more

I arrived back in Albuquerque late last night, having endured five flights (six stops) in 30 hours — all of it January 11th because of the International Date Line. I left Bangkok at 8:45 in the morning local time (30 minutes late) on Royal Thai Airways, changed to Air Canada in Tokyo, went through U.S. Customs at Vancouver before changing to a Jazz flight to Portland, was switched from America West to Southwest Airlines in the Rose City which took me to Albuquerque via Reno and a plane-change in Las Vegas, stepping off the last plane at 11:45p.m. Albuquerque time. I'm pooped! I did begin to write an update of my last two or three days while at the Bangkok airport and had planned to write more during the layovers in Tokyo and Vancouver (3 and ... read more

Breakfast according to the motel was a selection of cakes, which displeased Louisa but I was happy. We went to the tourist office to find out how to get to the nearby tramway which is apparently the longest in the world. It goes all the way up a mountain overlooking Albuquerque. However public transport proved to be limited and we couldn't get there unless we walked for hours. So instead we had a walk around town and visited the Museum of Natural History which was fortunately free for today only. We had a wander around the outside of the art gallery admiring (and abusing) the statues outside. Then we walked the 2 miles to the University Of New Mexico to use the free internet, but we were too late as they were closed :p The area ... read more