5/15/2008 - Travel Day

After our “lovely” night in the San Angelo La Quinta, we decided to head north and west toward New Mexico in order to take in some sights west of the Continental Divide while we wait for the weather pattern to improve. On the way to New Mexico, we stopped by the dusty town of Lubbock to check on a couple of apartments for Scott (he will be attending graduate school at Texas Tech in the fall). After we resumed our trip, we ran into quite a bit of rain across northern New Mexico thanks to the weakening upper-level low aloft. We ‘nighted’ at the “Grand Airport Hotel” in Albuquerque, NM (pricelined for relatively cheap), after an excellent Mexican dinner at Servantes. Our ‘overly’ friendly waiter talked us all into smothering our enchiladas, tacos, carne adovado, and other assorted things wrapped in tortillas in a mix of “green” and “red” sauce – or “Christmas” style, as he called it. Very tasty, but very hot! We cooled our flaming mouths down with margaritas before heading out the door. We stopped at the liquor store to pick up a couple silos where the black security guy at the entrance inquired: “are you guys in town for the bowling tournament?” Grady promptly responded: “What, is that some sort of ‘white’ joke?” After explaining that we were nothing more than novice bowlers, we all had a good laugh.