11/28 Touring Mom Around Old Town Albuquerque

We took Mom (Irene) into to Old Town Albuquerque on Friday, 11/28. It was overcast and cold but it was nice to walk through the shops at Old Town and see some of the Christmas decorations. Albuquerque had their Christmas tree up - it was HUGE and having been around the area we can attest to the fact that there aren't that many HUGE trees around here. So we examined it more closely and decided it was made up of smaller trees lying on their sides (base of trees were pointed inward, toward the "trunk" with the tops of the smaller trees being the 'branches' of a large tree). But for some silly reason, I didn't get a photo of it.

We had dinner at La Hacienda, there on the square. Very tasty, but Bryan & I thought their red-sauce was a bit salty (which for me is saying something since I'm a saltaholic.

After lunch we went to the Albuquerque Art & History Museum. Very nice, although none of us are very into contemporary or modern art which they had a lot of on exhibit there. We did enjoy the traveling exhibit: Jamestown, Québec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings. The exhibit outlined the beginning of these three cities, how they differed in their settling and dealings with the First People of the Americas. Amazing to think they they were all being settled around the same time by three different countries - France, Great Britain and Spain. Outside the museum are several sculptures - some modern, others very traditional bronze castings. The most impressive - to us - was the large sculpture depicting the Don Juan de Oñate expedition and also displaying the names of 600 families that traveled from Mexico to this area in 1598. Many of their descendants are still in New Mexico.

Bryan and his Mom at Museum

Oñate sculpture

Don Juan de Oñate