ABQ Hike #1: The Crest Trail

We bought a great book, 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Albuquerque, and have been using it to find hikes that have decent shade and can be done in about 4 hours so that we can do them in the morning without melting in the afternoon sun and heat.  Our first taste of the Sandia Mountains was on the Crest Trail, also referred to as "the mother road" because apparently almost all of the trails through the Sandias connect back to this route at some point.  As you can imagine, the Crest Trail is quite long (the Sandias run about 17 miles N to S and 8 miles W to E), so on this day we only did about 5.5 miles of it.  Hopefully sometime in the fall once the weather is more mild (and we've gotten stronger and more acclimated to hiking at 10,000 feet!), we'll be able to do a little backpacking along this route and get farther on the trail.  In the meantime we are getting adjusted to the completely different terrain!  It's very rocky and sandy with lots of short, squatty oak trees, cacti, and shrubby evergreens.


     

I keep trying to find a blooming cactus but I can only seem to find them when the flowers are dying, so this is the best shot I've gotten so far.



There were some great views along the way...



And we saw some crazy prehistoric looking toad-lizards (we still aren't sure what they really are)...



It was a great intro to the Cibola National Forest!

First week's sampling of restaurants and breweries

Since all of our stuff was in boxes for the first few days and the house was in general disarray, it was a great excuse to try out some of the many restaurants and breweries that are walk-able from our new  home!  The first day we went to Whole Foods to grab a few snacks and some lunch from their salad bar.  This is the view from the parking lot (don't be too jealous):



This picture is from Kaktus Brewery, which has a fantastic roof top deck and a great selection of sausage made of local meats including elk, wild boar, and duck.  Who knew there were elk in New Mexico?



I got a chance to show off my awesome southwestern style necklace (thanks Robin!) when we tried Zacatecas Tacos and Tequila.  They had some great, traditional style tacos with lots of local flavor (red and green chili) and the margaritas were pretty delicious too!

     

We also got to check out Tractor Brewing.  Sadly my favorite part was probably the t-shirts (they had some pretty funny ones), but Josh enjoyed the beer and it had a nice atmosphere so we may have to visit again.

Our humble Adobe abode

Our relocation to Albuquerque not only meant moving our lives 1400 miles, but also involved downsizing from the wonderful 2700 square foot home we were renting in Peachtree Corners to a 900 square foot Adobe home.  It was a challenge to go through our stuff and purge to get ready to move into our new home, but now that we are here I love it and am kind of excited to have less space to keep clean!  There's still no pictures on the walls but here are some photos:

The front with its "zero-scaping" (aka a yard you don't have to take care of or water at all):
     

Some of the plant life that's part of our landscaping:
     
                              

The family room (with our new grown up couch!):


Dining room:


Kitchen:
     

Guest bedroom all ready and waiting for visitors!


Master bedroom:


Awesome back yard, all fenced in!  The dogs love it!

West Texas, alien hunting, and arriving in Albuquerque!

The drive through west Texas was LONG and full of NOTHING.  It is amazing how much untouched land there is.  Some of it was farmland with crops, some with livestock, but a lot of it was just endless, flat land.  There was definitely a beauty to the rawness of it, but it got old after the first few hours!  We went long stretches without seeing another car and Josh almost lost his mind out of boredom, but we made it through!

     



We stopped for the night in Roswell, NM where we had dinner and a few alien encounters, although unfortunately we didn't make it early enough to visit the museum and research center.



The next morning (Sunday, 7/10), we drove the remaining 3 hours to our new home in Albuquerque!  The terrain got much more interesting as we got closer to the Sandia Mountains and drove into town through the Tijeras pass.





And finally, we arrived at our house!



We spent the whole afternoon unloading the POD and getting everything inside or in the garage and rewarded ourselves with some local beers and booze.  The one in the middle is a perfectly fitting name for us!



More house pictures coming soon!

A drive through Waco and a visit to Dallas

On our way from Austin to Dallas I really wanted to stop in Waco to visit the Magnolia Farms Silos.  It's a store and hang-out spot run by Chip and Joanna from HGTV's Fixer Upper, a show I love to watch (and covet the designs they do).  So off we went... only to find a really long line out the door :(  Ultimately with the dogs in the car it didn't make sense to stop, but at least I got to see it from the outside!

     

So we continued on to Dallas, where we stayed with my friend from high school, Meg, who is married to Aaron's fraternity brother from college, Bennett.  We had a great time grilling out with them the first night, and the next day Josh and I did a little bit of exploring.  We found another great dog park (another Texas theme apparently) on White Rock Lake near Meg and Bennett's house.  The water was pretty choppy so the dogs weren't too sure about it (especially Addie, who kept trying to drink it but then getting splashed in the face and running away), but they managed to have a good time anyway.

     

That night the four of us checked out a couple of fun dive bars in the area and ate at a really yummy Asian-fusion-y place.  After dinner we enjoyed hanging out in the yard until way too late and got eaten alive by mosquitoes, but it was worth it and we had a great time!  We'd love to visit Dallas again sometime when it's not so hot and humid!

     

Texas seems to have a theme... (Austin Part II)

And that theme is food!  We had a great dinner on our second night in Austin and then did a little exploring of the University of Texas campus with Rachel and Jason.  And of course we had to have some personalized ice cream sandwiches to continue the food/overeating theme of our trip through Texas...





The next morning we visited the amazing dog park island again before trying out the second highest rated BBQ in Austin at La Barbecue.  All of the great BBQ places in Austin seem to be semi-permanent food trucks with outdoor picnic areas, which is great because the dogs can hang out, but also REALLY hot!

     

We tried the same three essentials at this place: brisket, pulled pork, and sausage.  All of it was delicious again, but I think the pulled pork was both Josh and my favorite.  We had some Chipotle slaw and potato salad to round out the unhealthiness.  And in case anyone was wondering, Dave's brisket still wins as the best we've had :)

Spoiler alert:  WE ARE IN ALBUQUERQUE NOW!  I'm behind on the blog because we (by we I mean Comcast) are having trouble getting our internet set up.  I had to make a trip to Starbucks to do some stuff online for work (which starts in 5 days!) so I decided to do a quick post while I'm here.  HOPEFULLY we will have internet at home tomorrow and I can tell you all about Dallas, Roswell, and our new home!

The Best Dog Park in All the Land (Austin Part I)

We stayed with my friend Rachel (from PA school) and her husband Jason for two nights in Austin.  Unfortunately they had to work during the day so Josh and I did some exploring on our own.  Jason recommended that we visit Red Bud Isle, an off leash dog park close to their home, and we were not disappointed!

     

It's an island in the Colorado River on the western side of Austin that is amazing!  I would LOVE to have something like this in Albuquerque, but something tells me there won't be any bodies of water big enough to have an island.  We walked around the island for about an hour and the dogs had a great time swimming, running, playing with other dogs, and making new human friends.

     

For lunch we tried out Micklethwait, the third best BBQ in Austin, (number 1 typically has a 2 hour wait time!) and it was delicious.  We had pulled pork, brisket, lamb chorizo sausage, baked beans, jalapeno cheddar grits, and house made pickles.  My favorite was the pork and pickles and Josh swears it was the best sausage he's ever had.  But we both agreed that Dave's brisket is still better!

     

In the afternoon we walked along Lady Bird Lake near downtown.  It was a really hot day and we were definitely ready for some cold beverages and air conditioning when we were done, but it was another beautiful place and I'm glad we got to experience it.