Thanksgiving on the Road

Happy Thanksgiving!

We stayed for a week just outside of Albuquerque.

This was to make sure we were not traveling on Thanksgiving day. Normally Sarah makes a large Thanksgiving feast for us, but with a small oven it seemed like too much to ask. So we decided to go out instead.  The kids really wanted to eat at a buffet, so we went to a casino buffet for Thanksgiving dinner.

It was a little strange going to a casino after living in Nevada for most of our lives. The food was good though and everyone ate till they were stuffed, so mission accomplished. The kids made some Thanksgiving/Fall decorations to put up to get us in the mood. Sarah cut out leaves from construction paper and we wrote thing we are thankful for on them. It was a good holiday, but we missed spending it with family.


We went to several museums in Albuquerque, which

everyone enjoyed.

The National  Museum of Nuclear Science and History had the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb and a ton of other nuclear related items. I never even knew the military had an atomic cannon that could shoot a nuclear bullet, but we learned all about the nuclear era from the beginning through the cold war.

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science took us through the history of Earth from beginning to modern times. As always the dinosaurs fossils were great to learn about. The kids were more impressed by the children’s museum we visited, Explora. The hands on museums are great for the education of the kids because they get to touch and feel the science displays.


Things do not always go according to plan.

We were looking forward to seeing the Sante Fe capitol building because it is the only round one. It would have been nice to learn some New Mexico history too because Arizona and New Mexico almost shared statehood. Arizona voted to not share statehood and New Mexico voted to share it. As you know Arizona got what it wanted and they were made two states instead of one.

Their website said they were open with no tours on the weekend, so we drove over an hour to see it. After much confusion on where to park we decided to stop in the visitor center to find out where to go.

The worker bluntly informed us that the capital was closed and suggested we visit some churches and the original capitol building. Of course you have to pay at everyone of these tourist traps. We were a bit mad when we found that out in the gift shop, so the attendant told us to go in for free. She was super nice and when we exited she told us to go visit the other old church in the area.  She called to arrange it to be free.

Both these old churches were beautiful historic buildings that are super commercialized. Of the two the oldest church had more history and cost less to visit. The oldest house in America was free to see. Of course you had to walk through a gift shop to see it.

The Native Americans had older religious buildings and houses.

So these are not even actually he oldest places in America.
All in all we were not impressed with Sante Fe or Albuquerque. If you have followed our adventure then you know we rarely don’t like an area.

Everywhere has something great about it, but we were all happy to be heading out of New Mexico. The people in the grocery stores were unfriendly and everyone seemed grumpy. The wind and dust must get to the locals. Either that or the lack of prosperity, since most of the area seemed to have seen better days. We are hopeful though and maybe the last part of our stay in New Mexico will redeem the state.

 

Share Us With Your Friends

One Comment

  1. Pingback: Holiday Road | State by State

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.