It takes an entire day to travel from Albany to Albuquerque because there are no direct flights. Stephen and I felt very fortunate that the Osterhouts were willing to brave the airports, planes, rental cars, and hotels necessary to come visit us again. Of course, we'd like it if they could stay with us, but our house is not sufficiently accessible for David. Luckily, there are accessible hotel rooms these days, and the airlines are very accommodating.
Dad, Mom and David traveled on Wednesday, and did some sightseeing on Thursday. We all met at Il Vicino for dinner on Thursday after work. Doug was here for work, so the family party was expanded! I had not been to Il Vicino, but thought we would try it out because it is near the music studio, not far from where Doug was working, and contributes to the local public radio station. The food was amazing, but it turned out to be a fairly noisy and busy place, so not exactly a relaxing experience.
On Friday, Stephen went to work and I drove to the hotel to meet the folks. We went to the airport to do the paperwork so that Stephen and I could both drive the rental van. Then we headed out to Edgewood, East of ABQ, to visit a wildlife rescue that my Dad had discovered in his travel research. Animals that should be wild but have been injured or kept as illegal pets and can't be released to the wild are kept here. Visitors can walk around and see the animals, but the habitats are (fortunately) set up for the animals and not the visitors, so we didn't see some of the residents who were either inside enclosures or hiding in the brush. Each habitat had a sign with educational information about the species, and the name and story of the animal(s) within. There were birds of prey who had been blinded or had injured wings from being shot. The bobcats had been illegal pets. There were many sad stories.
One animal I had heard of but never seen is the javalina, or peccary.
They are large wild pigs, and I have heard that you don't want to
encounter them in the wild and that they can be quite destructive. But
just look at the cute little feller!
The plan for Saturday was to go to the Four Corners, where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado all meet. It was a long drive, through a lot of scenery that looked like this:
and then occasionally, we would drive past something like this:
The Four Corners is on reservation land. We stopped at a Subway on the reservation for lunch. It was in an old warehouse, along with a small banquet hall, several Indian bureaus, and a hardware store. It was sort of a community center / strip mall. I like the fact that the warehouse was re-purposed instead of being abandoned and having a new big-box store or strip mall built next door. The sign on the door of the Subway said "No hoodies or sunglasses allowed," which was a little unsettling, but we had a perfectly fine lunch. We were the only non-Native Americans there.
The monument at the Four Corners is cool. It's out in the middle of nowhere. This is the center. David is in four states at once in this picture!
The structure you see in the background goes all the way around the perimeter, and has stalls for Native American crafts and food. Stephen got some Navajo frybread and shared it with the non-vegans in the group. Mom and David bought some crafts. We walked around and read the signs and plaques for each of the four states.
This is the view from outside the monument. There really is nothing else there!
Unlike our April trip, we did NOT get lost on dirt roads this time, and we DID have a whole cooler of water and snacks with us. It was a long day, but it all went very smoothly.
