We drove along the scenic Turquoise Trail between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. There are a few cute towns with shops and places worth stopping for a visit.
Our first stop was in the town of Cerrillos. There wasn’t much going on in this town, but we did find a gift shop with a petting zoo that the boys loved.
Jesse really didn’t like the animals slobbering on his hands.
Jake didn’t mind.
Then we stopped in the town of Madrid which had a lot more going on. This town was a little crowded and it was harder to find a parking spot for the big truck.
There was a cute little spot called Connie’s Photo Park where we took lots of these types of pictures.
There were lots of cute gift shops like this one.
And we stopped at Jezebel’s old fashioned Soda Fountain for some milk shakes. Yummy!
We continued down the trail to the drive up to Sandia Crest. Tinkertown was a cute museum that we stopped at along the way. This is a collector’s paradise.
I think that Mark Twain might have liked our traveling lifestyle based on this quote.
We made it up to Sandia Crest which is more than 10,000 feet above sea level. It was freezing cold up there so we didn’t stay long. We were all wearing shorts because it was in the 70’s down in Albuquerque, but in the 40’s up on this mountain.
The most exciting part of the day for the kids was finding snow up on the mountain. They only wished they had worn warmer clothes and shoes so they could have played in it longer.
And the least exciting part of the day was a flat tire on the truck. My goodness it seems we have been keeping the tire companies in business lately! And Chris has become quite the expert at changing tires.
At the end of the trail we got to Albuquerque where we rode on the portion of historic Route 66 called the Musical Highway. For about 1 mile you can hear the song America the Beautiful playing as you drive along the road. I really didn’t believe we would hear anything, but we did and we could hear it very clearly. It was so cool!
We had planned to visit Old Town Albuquerque but the flat tire put a wrench in those plans. Once we were fixed up and back on the road we were all ready to find some dinner and then head home for the night.
4 Radical Roadschoolers and a Fat Cat 