Osterhout Visit Nov. 2014 part 1

Stephen and I are grateful that my family was again willing to brave the rigors of air travel with a wheelchair in order to spend a week with us in Albuquerque.  With no direct flights, this is not an easy thing to do!  It took all day Thursday for Mom, Dad, and David to get to Abq, pick up the rental van, and get settled into the hotel.  The adjacent rooms (one accessible) they booked were under construction when they arrived, complicating the check-in process, and making the hotel stay more difficult.  Systems for transferring David in the hotel room and in and out of the van needed to be worked out, and I'd say they pretty much had everything working smoothly by the time they went home!  We certainly appreciate the effort that is required to come visit us.  It is not a small thing.

Stephen and I had to work on Friday.  The O's visited Old Town, where they did some shopping, and then met me at school for a tour before coming to my house for dinner.  Mom and Dad went for a short walk in the open space and Mom and I went for a walk in the neighborhood to look at all the interesting houses and landscapes.

My room at school.

My school.

My house.

The next day we met at the hotel and headed West on I-40 to visit the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest in Arizona.  Dad had read an article in the Albany Times Union about the interesting architecture of the Painted Desert Inn, and when he did some additional research, decided it would make a good day trip.  He was right!  We started at the Visitor's Center where we had lunch. 

 Then we stopped at an overlook to admire the Painted Desert.

These formations are called the Teepees.

David was amused to find this fire hydrant in the middle of the desert.

The Painted Desert Inn was really cool, and the volunteer park ranger entertained us with stories of the original inn and the WPA restoration.

Our next stop was the Petrified Forest.  During the Late Triassic, downed trees accumulating in river channels in what became the park were buried periodically by sediment containing volcanic ash. Groundwater dissolved silica (silicon dioxide) from the ash and carried it into the logs, where it formed quartz crystals that gradually replaced the organic matter. Traces of iron oxide and other substances combined with the silica to create varied colors in the petrified wood.
The Petrified Forest looks like a Star Trek set -- my idea of a distant, marginally inhabitable planet.

On the way home, we had dinner at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, NM.  We discovered it on the way home from the Grand Canyon with Liz, and had so much fun that we had to experience it again!

El Patron and Popejoy Hall

We had a wonderful evening out last night, including a visit to a new (to us) restaurant and the show Wicked at Popejoy Hall.

We started the evening at El Patron restaurant.  It's a large, hacienda-style building with Mexican  murals and decor, serving New Mexican cuisine.  The service was excellent, the food was delicious (I meant to take a picture of mine before I started, oops) and there were two musicians playing guitars and singing on a balcony over the main seating area.  Although we still love El Pinto, we now have a pretty great alternative, and much closer to our house.

After dinner, we drove the short distance to UNM and parked in the parking garage.  One more advantage of living in a city -- everything is so close here!  We were early, so we waked around campus for a while. 
Popejoy hall is the venue for Broadway touring shows in Abq.  The main theater is a bit smaller than Proctors, seating 1950 (Proctors seats about 2700).  It originally opened in 1966 during the term of University of New Mexico president Thomas L. Popejoy. 

Our seats were three rows from the stage, which provided a different experience from the first time we saw Wicked at Proctors, when we were in a box near the soundboard.  Those seats afforded a better angle and overview, and I'm glad that's where we sat for our first Wicked show, but it was fun to be so close that I could watch the conductor, see the actors' facial expressions, and really appreciate the sheer athletic physicality of the dancing. 
We thought the production was excellent, although not quite as good as the first time we saw it.  At that time, there were more members of the original Broadway cast in the touring company.  We both thought that the two female leads were well-cast, with lovely singing voices, but that their duets weren't quite as tight as in the Proctors show, and we didn't love the singing voice of the actor playing Fiyero, although we both thought his acting was excellent.

The orchestra was outstanding (especially the oboe player), and of course the sets and technicals were awesome.  We had a great night, and will certainly not hesitate to go to Popejoy for future shows!

Marinos visit us, and it's not February!

Stephen's parents have visited us twice in February, and although we had decent weather both times, I thought it was time they experienced the awesomeness that is summer in Albuquerque.  We were able to see things that are closed in the winter, or that just wouldn't be very pleasant in colder weather.
On their first day, Stephen and I went to work and left the folks to rest up from their trip.  They took a walk in the neighborhood then went to the racetrack to watch Stephen run some laps in the Camaro.

On Saturday we went to Santa Fe, where we visited the art museum and the Palace of the Governors in addition to strolling through the craft fair in the Plaza and having a delicious lunch at the Plaza Restaurant.

Sunday was a very full day.  We started out at the tram (without Stephen, who has no desire to ride in a tiny car that he's not driving, hundreds of feet above the rocky ground). 

It was in the 80's when we got into the tram at the bottom, 6,559 ft above sea level, and in the 50's and windy when we got out at the top at 10,378 ft.
After our tram ride we picked up Stephen at the house and had a delicious lunch at the Greenside Cafe in Cedar Crest.

From there, Stephen drove us to Sandia Crest at the top of the mountain, a few miles away from where we had  been when we ascended the tramway.  We took a short hike along the rim and enjoyed the fabulous views of the city.

Then we drove back down the mountain, passing a group of Mini Coopers on its way up, and visited the Tinkertown Museum, a folk art museum created by a sign painter and carver.

That was a lot to fit into one day!  On Monday, the guys elected to hang out at home, while Mom M. and I went to Old Town for some shopping and lunch at a New Mexican restaurant.  On the way, we visited my school.

Stephen and I had to go back to work on Tuesday, but the folks made the most of their remaining time in Abq by visiting Old Town again and touring the Anthropology museum.

We had a lovely time and got to show Stephen's folks what Albuquerque looks like when it is at its most green, with flowers blooming everywhere.