The jaunt from Santa Fe to Albuquerque is short, very short. The motor home hardly got warmed up before we pulled into the Sandia Casino and Resort. The casino is located on the hillside north of town and is one of the quietest casino I have stayed in. Security checked us in and then we headed out.
We spent part of the time driving the old Route 66 and exploring the old town. Unfortunately, we were in the old section in the late afternoon/early evening and most of the shops were closed. The shops in the old town seemed to have a lot more junky, cheap, touristy stuff, than Santa Fe, so I don't think we missed much.
Petroglyph National Monument is an easy, short drive from the Casino and well worth a visit. We took the Rinconada Canyon trail, 2 1/2 mile which follows the base of the rock laden hills full of Petroglyphs. The trail is just a short distance from the visitor center. The Petroglyphs are easy to spot along the trail. They are chiseled into the desert varnished rocks and look different from those I saw in southern Utah.
This is an small overview of the escarpment along the trail. The monument contains over 20,000 images.
One subject that kept coming up while visiting New Mexico, was New Mexican Chili Peppers. New Mexican Chili Pepper are supposed to be the best chili peppers and are grown in the Hatch area...on our route toward Arizona. So when we left Albuquerque we stopped in Hatch at Chili Willies to investigate this whole New Mexican chili pepper thing. My son Conlan had told us he buys fresh roasted chili peppers by the pound when in season and freezes them. The nice lady at Chili Willies confirmed you can freeze fresh New Mexican chili peppers and that you can buy roasted, peeled, chopped fresh chilies by the pound. We walked away with five pounds of frozen chilies. What were we thinking? We also toured the plant in back where the salsa is made and various chili powders are made. We bought some of that also...ought to last a life time:). I'm still a little confused about all the different types of chili peppers, but it really doesn't matter at this point because I have New Mexico Chili Peppers and that is what is going to be used to cook with until they are gone!!
We left Hatch with the chilies and several pages of recipes(I'm not sure when I'll have time to cook) and continued towards Arizona, not sure where we were going to stop until we arrived at Willcox, over 300 miles from Albuquerque. Wow! that is the most mileage we've driven in a very long time. More on Willcox in my next post.
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