We decided to take a break from Route 66 today and instead took a scenic drive on the Turquoise Trail to our destination, Albuquerque. It is called the Turquoise Trail because turquoise was mined in many small towns along it.
We stopped at an exhibition of sculptures called Origami in the Garden. A local artist creates these sculptures from paper using the ancient art of origami and he then casts enlarged models of them in metal. They looked fantastic against the backdrop of the rocky terrain.
The drive had many sights of natural beauty like the one above.
Part of the way through the journey we needed a drink so we stopped in a small town called Madrid. The town was founded as a coal mining town but it is now a hippie town selling many craft items. This is a picture of some post boxes at the side of the road.
Tinker Town is a museum collection of one mans hobby and that was creating scenes from history with small dolls and sets that he made himself. There were circus scenes and scenes from the old West. He also collected lots of strange and wonderful things that were displayed throughout the museum.
Just before the end of the turquoise trail we drove up to the Sandia Peak, which is the highest point in the Sandia mountain range. It is 10,300 feet high and to give you an idea of size it is more than three times the height of Snowden. As it's America you can drive all the way to the top on a 20 mile long road full of twists and turns but the view was worth it once we reached the top. You can see in the picture above the dots in the background of the picture are the buildings of Albuquerque.
In the cafe at the top of the mountain they had set up hummingbird feeders. The birds were so tame that you could stand less than a foot away from the feeder and they would buzz around you as they went to drink the sugary water.
In the evening we went to Albuquerque Old Town and like in Santa Fe we found a live band playing but this time it was a Mexican band. We got an ice cream and listened to the band for about an hour.
