Our family has been in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for almost a month. Like many largely populated areas, the city has a lot of issues, but it also has a wealth of history and culture, which make it ripe to write about. Here are some things I’ve learned or noticed so far…
1.
Albuquerque has two nicknames (maybe
more): ABQ and Duke City.
2.
It is called ‘Duke City’ because it
was named after a Spanish Duke, Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva.
3.
The TV shows Breaking Bad and Better Call
Saul were filmed here, two of my favorites!
4.
Los Pollos Hermanos from Breaking Bad is really Twisters, a local
restaurant chain that serves burgers and burritos.
5.
The Sandia Mountains border the east
of Albuquerque. The setting sun gives
the mountains a reddish tint like watermelon, sandia in Spanish.
6. The road runner is the state bird. I’ve seen quite a few running around in the
neighborhoods. Seeing them always
reminds me of Loony Tunes!
7.
It is illegal to give the homeless or
anybody else money at street corners.
This doesn’t keep the large number of homeless in Albuquerque from
asking all over the city.
8.
Built more than 300 years ago, the San Felipe De Neri Church is
the oldest building in town.
9.
At 5312 feet, ABQ is the highest metropolitan city in America.
10. At
one point during the Civil War Albuquerque was under control of the Confederate
States of America.
11. Rather than Christmas lights during
the holidays, many people hang luminarias around the city and their homes. These are brown paper bags with candles in
them.
12. The climate in ABQ is said to be one
of the best in the USA. 300+ days of
sunshine, dry with warm days and cools nights.
We have been here a month and have seen only one cloudy day!
13. Speaking of weather, when tuberculosis
was a national epidemic in the 1910’s, easterners flocked to Albuquerque
because they thought the climate would help.
Sanitoriums were built all around the city.
14. I have driven in a lot of large cities
all over the world, places like Paris and Mexico City. Albuquerque drivers are some of the rudest I
have ever encountered.
15. Albuquerque is the Hot
Air Balloon Capital of the world. 500+ hot air balloons from all over the world
compete annually in October.
16. Paragliding is another popular
sport. It is common to see paragliders
near the Sandia mountains. Remember Wile E. Coyote?
17. New Mexico was the second to last
state admitted to the contiguous United States.
It was 47th and Arizona was 48th. Statehood was postponed so long for fear of
Native Americans and Hispanics not being able to ‘assimilate’.
18. Carlsbad Caverns, one of
the wonders of the world, is located about 300 miles south of Albuquerque.
19. Kirtland Air Force Base,
the sixth largest Air Force installation in the United States, is located in
Albuquerque.
20. There are so many different types of
restaurants, more eclectic than almost anywhere I have been, especially with a
Latin American influence. I’ll never be
able to try them all!
21. Albuquerque is in the
heart of Indian pueblo country -- the oldest farming civilization on the North
American continent.
22. The famous river that serves as a
natural border between Mexico and the USA, the Rio Grande, runs through
Albuquerque.
23. The cofounder of Etsy, Jared
Tarbell, is a native of ABQ.
24. There are five volcanic
cones that are easily visible from the city.
They have been extinct for thousands of years.
25. The Petroglyph National
Monument border the west side of ABQ.
The rocks there contain over 20,000 carved images dating from a few
hundred years old to at least a few millennia.
Awesome Josh....would love to visit there one day...bucket list!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely worth a visit!
ReplyDelete