day 12 - albuquerque, nm to cortez, co

After a nice night's rest, we decided to spend some time exploring Albuquerque, especially the historic Old Town section, which is characterized by old adobe buildings. We found in Albuquerque essentially what we'd wanted in El Paso and Juarez - vibrant, friendly locals and fun shops to browse.





We stopped by some local Chinese buffet for lunch but it was somewhat generic and small, although the lo mein was tasty and the owner very friendly. Then we were off to Mesa Verde.

The drive was long and boring. At one point we wanted to turn off and take a break, in a random town. We had intended to just relax in the parking lot of a McDonald's for a few minutes, but only found the following, somewhat hostile sign...so we left.

Here's some roadside observations:

Albuquerque's buildings are all pretty much the same color.


In a 5-mile stretch or so, we passed about 5 different hitchhikers.

Here's a dust devil, which is kind of a whirlwind of dust that lasts for a while and then subsides.

Finally, the landscape of this area is kind of puzzling. It's completely flat desert, and then all of a sudden these random rock formations appear. Not really sure how that happened.



We got to Cortez, CO, a town right outside of Mesa Verde. We were kind of late because of some bad traffic caused by construction which had created a one-lane highway and they had to alternate between letting each side pass; it took forever. So we decided to just hole up in a somewhat mediocre local hotel for the night, hitting up a local Arby's for dinner.