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| After dinner liquers, Maria Teresa Bar, Albuquerque |
They're doing a photo shoot this morning on the veranda of the St Francis Hotel. A photographer, with an assistant and two models, is trying to capture the European look. The model reads a paper in the morning light with a continental breakfast — an espresso with some croissants. This looks like fun work but they are up awfully early. I find them busy at 7:30 and they're not done until about 8:30, I don't know how long they've been at it. I assume they're trying to catch the "golden hour" early in the day when the sun is just right (the gold reflector migh help too).
There's also a row of about five polished and chromed Harley-Davidson motorcycles parked in front. I asked the photographer if they were part of the shoot but apparently they're only guests at the hotel.
We say goodbye to the Saint Francis Hotel and historic old town Santa Fe and head south to Albuquerque (what a spelling nightmare that word is). Albuquerque is about 60 miles south. The city is on the Rio Grande and it is large with about 700,000 people. It's sprawls with a tallish downtown — banks, hotels and the convention center. There is an old main street with angle parking as in most small towns out west. This main street is the old route 66 which we had drove on before in Arizona. The street, Central Ave, has bordered up stores, seedy bars and pawn shops. It's not very inviting.
We head to the "Old Town" — a tourist trap with a treed plaza, old adobe church, and verandas in front of each shop. This is the old city for sure and reminds us of the town squares in Taos and Santa Fe.
We're looking for a motel that's a bit cheaper than the Sheraton at Old Town (yes we checked) and find one rated by the AAA on old route 66. It's the Monterey Motel ("simple lodging with an outdoor pool") on Central Ave SW. There's tons of mom and pop motels along that street and some are really ratty, like $10 a night, but this one is nice enough for all of us. We cannot check in until 2:00 and Reg is asleep on his feet with his allergy problems.
Kate and Cindy ask the motel clerk, a woman with a kid that looks all of 14, for a mall to shop. Kate is getting worried having not found any throws for our couches back home. The mall she sends us to is much nicer than the one we found in Santa Fe.
In the mall the girls shop and Reg is left alone. He finds a DOA (Canadian Punk) CD in the only record store; it's quite a poor record store but they do have DOA. We can't find the artist that Pat has sent us searching for. But we did buy a couple of car tapes during our trip. We have a "Best of Kris Kristofferson", an audio book "Skin Walker" by Tony Kellerman we got in Canyon du Chelly (the story is set in the reservation), and finally a Jeff Walker "Best of" for our drive to Albuquerque from Santa Fe. This hasn't been a trip for music — unlike our Austin adventures. We read the Santa Fe has a vital music scene but no venues and no one supports it. Huh? Apparently, Albuquerque has a better music scene and more clubs but we're not there long enough to investigate. The DOA CD suggests that the music scene here may be more hard care than country and folk.
Kate and Cindy find some throws at a department store called "May D&F" (aka May-Daniels & Fisher). This department store is a very small chain with a store in Denver and this one in Albuquerque; there's only the two. It's a big Eaton's kind of department store with lots of nice things on many floors. I guess it's what they call an "anchor" store for the mall. It turns out they don't accept any charge cards other than their own. So, what to do? The clerk suggests that we open a charge account with them and notes that you get an additional 10% off your first purchase if you do. This is just too weird but is in fact what we do! The throws are 30% off in the first place and here's a bit more off that. Kate and Cindy also decide to take advantage of the first time 10% off deal and buy "Superpercale" sheets which are already at 50% off. Kate is surprised to find the pillow cases cost as much as each sheet. We, of course, settle the bill when it arrives later back home in Canada.
Finally Reg is tired and on his knees. Kate is happy because she has the throws and a quilt and matching pillow sham for her parents 50th anniversary. So we head back to the Monterey Motel to check in. Kate and Reg get an enormous room with two queen size beds and Cindy gets a pretty big one with one bed and a mirrored headboard — there are just too many strategically placed mirrors in her bedroom. Cindy is sure this must be a "hot pillow" joint. Although it seems respectable enough and is own and managed by the "Bugg" family. No bug references please.
Reg takes a nap to try to kick the allergy and Chardonnay blues while Kate and Cindy head over to the shopping plaza/square in the old historical town. The walk is several blocks and the weather feels the hottest we've experienced so far. They decide the first thing they'll do upon arriving at the plaza is find a place for a drink (alcoholic that is). This is easier said than done — most restaurant type places don't seem to be open. They finally find one that's open, walk onto the outside veranda and are told that alcohol can't be drank outside. Inside they find that in order to have a drink, food must be purchased. The waiter, who hails from Washington State, agrees it's weird but it's the law. Apparently, alcohol can't be served within 300 ft of a church in New Mexico without food in case people go all crazy and disturb the either the church or the church goers. And of course there's a big old adobe Catholic church, the San Felipe de Neri Church, at the one end of the square. However, the force feeding turns out to be okay — they have nachos that are done differently than at home. They are really good.
After lunch the girls explore the plaza stopping at nearly every store picking up a few souvenirs here and there. At 4:00pm Reg shows up having had his much needed nap. There's some more shopping and soon enough it's time to find a restaurant for dinner.
Two blocks from the plaza we find a restaurant called Maria Teresa housed in a huge old Spanish hacienda dating from the 1840's. At one time grapevines grew around the house and all the rooms opened onto a central patio. There have been several renovations in history of the house and the grape vines are no longer in evidence nor do all the rooms open onto the patio. In any case, it's a very interesting place with quite a remarkable women's restroom -— all tiled with an analyst style couch in case of the vapors.
A note about restrooms in Arizona and New Mexico. A few have been lovely —- the Inn of the Anasazi in Santa Fe and this one with bright tiles and every amenity. Others have been quite awful or just plain wretched — high toilet seats, low toilet seats, two toilets, no doors, doors that won't let two people in and doors that require the toilet seat be lifted to open. Such is life on the road.
Our waitress at Maria Teresa is an interesting old cow, but the food is only fair. The first part of our meal is disrupted by a family with two little kids who are busy screaming away. Things become more interesting when the family leave and two young couples in formal attire arrive for dinner — they're dressed to the nines for a high school graduation/prom. Or perhaps it's for Cinco de Mayo? Or perhaps a debutante's ball? Who knows!
After dinner we retire to the bar for a liqueur. The bar is very old with mirrors and ornate carved wood. Kate has a Spanish coffee, after grilling the rather smart mouth bartender about how she will make it. [You will recall this is the south west where coffee is barely brown water.] Reg has a Drambuie, and Cindy has a sherry. The room with the bar is too smoky for us so we retired to the second lounge which features this six or seven seat judge's bench in red leather. The bartender tells us that Cinco de Mayo is the May festival celebrating the birth of the Holy Mother Mary and all that kind of Catholic stuff. Later Kate and Reg see something about it on TV where the reference seems to be about Pancho Villa (the Mexican revolutionary). It's one of life's mysteries.
"Cinco de Mayo (pronounced [ˈsiŋko̞ ðe̞ ˈma̠ʝo̞] in Mexico, Spanish for "Fifth of May") is an annual celebration held on May 5, which commemorates the anniversary of Mexico's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862". Wikipedia 2021
On the way out of the restaurant at about 7:30 we hear that without a reservation people need to wait 1 hour to be seated! Seems there mustn't be much good food in Albuquerque if that's the case. We see several more well dressed young couples arriving with their reservations. The girls seem to favor a deep blue for their dresses. The boys are in tuxedos. We hope they enjoy their dinners.
The walk back to the hotel through a residential area is interesting. People all seem to be Catholic — lots of BVM's (Blessed Virgin Mary), etc. Some houses are immaculately kept with well landscaped yards, while others are quite neglected. It's a mixed neighborhood.
We're to bed at the Monterey Motel in decent time. This is our last night on this adventure through Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Tomorrow we fly home via Dallas and Detroit.
These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/07 with the help of Google voice recognition.
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