Old Town Albuquerque

At something dark, cold and silly o’clock we hauled ourselves out of bed and drove to Belen to catch the New Mexico Rail Runner to Santa Fe.   It’s a great service the price of the ticket also includes the bus in Albuquerque.

 

The train arrives at the Alvarado (named for the now demolished Harvey House) Transit Centre in Albuquerque

 

from there we took the westbound 766 bus to Old Town.   To return to the train station the eastbound bus stop is across the road outside the community police station.

Standing on the Camino Real (Royal Road) running between Mexico City and Santa Fe, Albuquerque was founded in 1706 by Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdez, Duke of Albuquerque, Governor of the Spanish Province of New Mexico.    Albuquerque became the areas agricultural centre and the regional seat of government for the Rio Abajo (Lower River). 

In 1862 during the Civil War the Confederate Flag flew over Albuquerque and soldiers who served in General Sibley’s Brig with Major Trevanion T Teel were buried on the plaza.

San Felipe De Neri is the oldest church in Albuquerque continuously serving the community since it was built in 1706.

 After visiting the church we explored the narrow streets of Old Town

 

and found some lovely hidden plazas

and most unexpectedly a Christmas shop absolutely chock full of goodies, it’s a good job my friend wasn’t with us as we’d’ve had awful trouble getting her out of there.

 

Have fun, we are!

Harvey House Museum, Belen, New Mexico



Born in England in 1835 Fred Harvey emigrated to the USA when he was 15 and worked in restaurants in New York.   Eventually he moved west and worked for the railroads for 20 years before going into partnership with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and establishing the famous Harvey Houses. 

 

Of the 15 Harvey Houses in New Mexico shown on the map below only 5 are still standing, one of which is in Belen.

 

The Belen Harvey House in 1910, this view is taken from across the railroad tracks.

 

A slightly different view, taken from the car park, the tracks are now fenced off.

 

Built at a cost of $25,000.00 in 1910 the Belen Harvey House was reputed to be one of the most elegant in the South West.   The ground floor had a newsstand, lunchroom with a marble counter, cashiers office and a first class dining room. 

Inside the Belen Harvey House.

Each Harvey House was staffed by single young girls who were usually sent to Vaughn, New Mexico for training.   Here they learned how to serve customers and keep their black and white uniforms spotless.   Daily inspections were held to ensure that the girls weren’t wearing too much makeup and that they were wearing their hair nets and girdles.   I can’t imagine that happening anywhere these days. 

Once trained Harvey Girls were sent to Harvey Houses throughout the railroad system where they usually lived in rooms above the Harvey House they worked in. 

A replica of what a Harvey Girls room might’ve looked like.

They were closely chaperoned and famous for their service and high standards. 

Harvey Girls often worked split shifts and made fresh Maxwell House coffee with just a pinch of salt, (never thought of adding salt to coffee) full carafes of water were placed on each table along with silver service and linen table cloths. 

This poster shows the locations of some Harvey Houses along with a menu showing dinner suggestions, I quite like the thought of a gourmet martini costing 75c!

 

Passengers had 30 minutes before they needed to re-board the train, Harvey Girls were told never to rush the passengers.   At 15 minutes passengers were told they had plenty of time, at 25 they were told it was almost time to re-board the train and at 30 minutes the train left on time.   In order to achieve this there were no public rest rooms in the Harvey Houses passengers were encouraged to make use of the rest rooms on the train either before or after eating.   Nothing interfered with the train time tables. 

Belen Harvey House was ‘the place to go’ until it closed in 1939, reopening during WWII to serve troup trains before becoming a reading room and rooming house for railroad employees. 

In 1983 the building was taken over by Valencia County Historical Society who began to run it as a museum. 

Have fun, we are!

In search of…………………

At an elevation of over 7,000ft out on the wide St Augustin plain is The Very Large Array, somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for ages.   Unfortunately each time we’ve been in the area, we've been thwarted by the weather, usually one of New Mexico’s famous dust storms.

 

This time we made it!

 

The VLA was built in the 1970’s, and has a small visitor centre.   On arrival you are asked to switch off all electronic equipment as it interferes with the telescopes.   You can however use digital cameras.  

As it was cold and very windy we decided to take the self-guided walking tour first and look around the visitor centre afterwards, so we could thaw out! 

At ⅛^th of a mile long the walking tour takes you round part of the site, there are information boards along the way, but most of these were being renewed on our visit. 

The walking tour takes you right under this telescope, which makes you realise just how huge they are, sometimes you can hear the telescope being adjusted. 

The telescopes are moved along railway lines to form different configurations the distance between each telescope allows the scientists to perform different searches. 

The film Contact was filmed here, but computer graphics put many more telescopes on the site and moved Canyon De Chelly from Arizona to New Mexico.

 

Back in the visitor centre we watched a 9 minute video about the site and then looked at some of the things the VLA has discovered.

 

This is our view of the array from the road, and yes that was rain coming from those clouds.

 

It’s an absolutely fascinating place and hopefully we’ll return, preferably on a warmer day! 

Have fun, we are!

Magdalena, New Mexico

It was cool and sunny when we left Kiva RV Park on Saturday, but as we drove along NM 60 the sky turned a little cloudier and, of course, it also turned a little cooler as we climbed higher.

 

At the historical marker for the Magdalena Fault I got out to take a photograph and it was downright chilly, okay actually it was flippin’ freezing.   The Magdalena Fault is a bench along the Magdalena Mountains dividing the uplifted mountains from the plains below.   At their highest point, South Baldy, the mountains are 10,783ft high. 

This is the view from the historical marker. 

In Magdalena we spied some girls waving signs for a school car wash when we asked we were told they were raising funds for the prom and equipment.   The girls, who were wearing shorts and must’ve been absolutely frozen to death, did a good job and got BT all spiffied up, so we gave them a really good tip.   

After that we stopped at the Bear Mountain Café and Gallery,  

which is also the visitor centre for a lovely lunch, the lemon chess pie and chocolate truffle cheesecake we had for desserts were gorgeous,  another day the diet went out of the window! 

Inside Bear Mountain Café and Gallery.

Have fun, we are!

Red or Green?

Red or green is a question often asked in New Mexico and it means do you want red or green chili?   Our answer is usually whichever is the mildest, but then again what is mild to someone in New Mexico is sometimes what we’d call pretty darn hot!

 

Hatch is known as the Chili Capital of the World, and is only a short drive from Caballo Lake RV Park.

 

Established in 1851 as Santa Barbara, Apache raids drove settlers away until 1853 when nearby Fort Thorn was established.   The Fort closed 7 years later and the town was once again abandoned until 1875, when it was reoccupied and renamed in honour of General Edward Hatch the Commander of the New Mexico Military District.

 

We stopped at some of the stores to look at some Mexican pottery, my friend would love the cheeky geese and I loved the small peacocks, but where on earth do you store them in a fifth wheel?  I thought of mailing them home, but decided it would probably cost an absolute fortune.

 

Same with this, and somehow I don’t think it would look quite right at home.

More pots and dried chili ristas, these are used for decoration and after lots of washing and soaking can be eaten. 

DB bought a couple of Mexican pots for his outside lights and I bought a pretty spoon rest, 

unusually for me I didn’t check where it was made and would you believe it when we got back, I found a very small ‘made in China’ label underneath.  As DB’s pots really were ‘made in Mexico’ I am never going to hear the end of this! 

Each time we’ve driven through Hatch we’ve driven past a very busy burger & shake place called Sparkys so we thought we’d try there for lunch. 

It’s open five days a week and would you believe it we were there on one of the days it was closed! 

We found a great Mexican/American restaurant just around the corner, sadly I’ve forgotten its name, where DB had a ground beef burrito and I have a ground bean and beef burrito both of which were truly delicious.  Needless to say the diets didn’t do well that day! 

As for the answer to the red of green question?   We have absolutely no idea! 

Have fun, we are!

Caballo Lake, NM

After leaving Deming we drove to El Paso where we got our annual Texas Inspection Certificates before heading on to Caballo Lake RV Park http://www.caballolakervpark.net/index.html. 

 

A lovely lady called CJ owns the park, all the sites have full hook-ups with 50/30 amp and picnic tables with a view of the lake and the Caballo Mountains behind.   This was the view from our picnic table.



On the other side of the lake a 4WD dirt road runs along the Caballo mountains where prospectors still search for gold.  We thought of taking a drive in that direction, but despite having 4WD we have learned that our truck is sometimes a little too big for these types of roads.

It was bright and sunny the day we arrived, but the next morning was a little more overcast, a sign of the storm that’s arrived this weekend with its strong winds and cooler temperatures. 

A trail that leads down to the lake, which is very low, I’m pretty certain this sign should be in the water as a warning to boaters not on dry land! 

This is the view of the lake looking towards the state park.

As we discovered at Elephant Butte Lake, you can no longer drive over the dam, but we took the road to the other part of the state park along the Rio Grande. The river was very low, after all those John Wayne films when we were kids it’s not how we imagined the Rio Grande would be.

 

This view of the lake is from the primitive camping area.

We really enjoyed our stay at Caballo Lake RV Park and next time we’re in this area we’ll definitely return.

Have fun, we are!

The Adobe Deli

We’ve been told about the Adobe Deli in Deming several times, but never quite managed to make it.  Last weekend we finally made it thanks to some lovely people we met.

When we arrived there were very few cars outside and quite honestly had we been on our own I think we’d’ve driven straight past thinking it was part of a ranch or house.

 

We had been warned how huge the sandwiches are, the warnings are right, they are absolutely huge!

 

It has a very interesting interior and you’d never think it used to be a school house.

 

If you go you should be sure and check out the library, there are some very interesting things in there, including this kinda creepy two headed calf

and a neat little rickshaw type bike in the corridor.

Have fun, we are!