CANMT Trip: Albuquerque and Gallup

 After Santa Fe we made our way to Albuquerque. On the way we saw a sign for something to do with the Mormon Battalion, so we pulled over to see what it was. It was this marker.

 Then we went to walk around the Albuquerque New Mexico Temple.

Once again there wasn't anyone around to take a family picture, so we tried our best to take it ourselves.

 I had heard about this place

while researching the trip. It sounded interesting, but was very disappointing. There was suppose to be all kinds of hands on things for Mel, but most weren't staffed. We left after not spending much time there. But this gave us time to go to Petroglyph National Park, barely.

When we arrived at the Visitor's Center we found out that you actually had to drive to the different trails. While the trails stayed open until sunset, the parking lots closed at 5pm. There were only a few parking spaces outside the lot. We stamped our passports, grabbed a junior ranger packet (which we wouldn't be able to turn in, but he told us we could mail it) and hurried to the closest trail, Rinconada Canyon. While it was the closest, it also had the least amount of petroglyphs, but we felt it was our best chance to see any. When we arrived there weren't any available parking spaces outside the lot, so we parked in the lot with only 20 min. before it closed. We started our quick hike.

After about 10 minutes we started seeing petroglyphs.

But then we started wondering, "How many of these were real?" I don't think these were:

I wish there was a sign next to the real ones, or some kind of a pamphlet with a map showing which were the real ones. By this time we only had about five minutes until the parking lot closed. There was no way Melodie could make it back so quickly, so Rocky ran ahead. When Melodie and I made it back we went to the restroom. "Mom, it's a porta potty." Melodie told me. "No it's not," I told her (there was a toilet and it was in a building). Then she exclaimed, "It's a hole!"Sure enough, there wasn't any plumbing. Then she started laughing, "There's air going on my bum." I started laughing so hard I cried. After we left the hole in the ground we saw the park rangers getting ready to close the gates to the parking lot. Whew! We weren't locked in.
 On our way to Gallup we pulled to the side of the road when we saw another sign that caught our interest. It was a marker showing different points of interests. Off in the distance we saw Pueblo Laguna.

We ate dinner on the road (McDonalds for the first time the whole trip - Mel was happy). When we arrived in Gallup we stopped at the El Rancho Hotel to look around. Melodie wasn't interested so Rocky and I took turns going in the hotel to look around. I didn't feel she would miss anything by not looking around and she had looked at so many things that just weren't interesting to her already that I didn't feel the need to push the issue. None of my pictures from inside turned out, but it was a quirky hotel with pictures of all the stars that had stayed there.

And then we stayed the night in Gallup, NM.