Tinkertown

This museum can pretty much speak for itself. It was one of the most random eclectic places I have ever been. In the 1960's this man began carving as a hobby a western town. Eventually it became this place. We stopped by on our drive behind the Sandia and Manzano mountains this past Saturday. We enjoyed our drive so much we didn't take any pictures :( But it was beautiful all the same. We'll be heading back to a lot of those places for sure because there are some good trails we discovered. Anyway, back to the museum:

Hello random wagon wheels and walls made of bottles and cement...

This was the man's shop where he carved everything. He had a quote that said "I did all this while you were watching TV"...sad but probably true.

Here is an example of part of the western town. There was also a hotel, a bar, an Indian trading post, a restaurant, a toy shop, a drug store, and probably one or two other things that I can't remember.

He had a bunch of random collections throughout the museum. He carved almost all of the characters in the scenes you see in the pictures and there were a ton more that we didn’t take a picture of. The museum had a yacht that had taken ten years to travel all around the world. The display included the log of the travels and a world map with key events and where they took place pinned. There was display of wedding cake toppers. One of them were two fleas that were dressed...who thinks of stuff like that?? There was a huge display of a circus, lots of random carnival type things that you put a quarter in and it tells you your strength, a fortune teller woman, and a one man band. There was a collection of dolls that this brother and sister had collected on their way around the world. Random neat stuff. This was part of the sword collection.

Cool place. Fun day as always!

The Badlands

A week and a half ago we went to El Malpais national monument here in New Mexico. It was named that by the Spaniards because of the vast volcanic field. Supposedly the lava from a number of volcanic eruptions contributed to the area. We stopped by a natural arch there, nature is amazing.

We drove around the area for a while seeing what we could find. In one part we found this old rancher's settlement. There were some neat ruins there.

 This was a cellar of some sort:

A washboard? Mining tool?

and then headed to hike along a sandstone bluff that overlooked the lava fields. It was quite the hike and we were able to find some pottery and some evidence of ruins. The hike itself was kind of strenuous because there was cacti everywhere and some thick sand in parts of it. It was a beautiful day for a hike though and we are looking forward to going back to the area to visit the lava tubes they have there!

A trip to the east

Stan had a conference in Princeton, New Jersey the first week of October and so I tagged along. His conference started on Tuesday but we flew there Saturday and were tourists on Monday :)

This was our gourmet Sunday dinner in the hotel :) Nothing quite like canned soup!

We headed to Philadelphia to see what we could. It was quite inspiring to be where the founding fathers of our country have been

Of course we had to try some real Philly Cheesesteaks for lunch!

supposedly this alley (Elfreth's Alley) full of houses is one of the oldest residential streets in the United States.

We went to the church where some of the constitutional writers went. We happened to sit in the same bench as the Franklin's would sit...woowoo.

The rest of the week we just enjoyed hanging out in Princeton. On Thursday though we headed to Washington Crossing State Park in Delaware. It was really neat. We had spent some time listening to 1776 and so with the full story fresh in our minds, it was again inspiring to be where such sacrifice for freedom was given. 

Mt Taylor

In March we went on a drive through Mt. Taylor but were thwarted from getting to the top by snow. Having learned well in February that mountains and snow and better enjoyed when you aren't stuck, we keep well away. So in September we headed to summit Mt. Taylor. On beautiful clear days you can see it in the distance west of Albuquerque. It was once a huge volcano, we are glad it blew up a long time ago. It was a beautiful spot, and although the mountain is super tall and we look cool because it looks as though we hiked far for this one, we really didn't...

We drove back out a different way than we had come in and it was such a beautiful place. There are many times that we'll comment that a specific view looks like the mountains we love in Utah, this shot below is on of those times. We miss the Aspen filled mountains in the Wasatch Mountains!

Anniversaries

September always marks the beginning of different anniversaries for Stan and I. I have a knack for remembering dates, and we don't do anything super special to celebrate, but we always have fun reminiscing them. I wish I had more pictures of the beginning ones, but that might have scared Stan off if I had taken pictures of the first time we met...

September 11, 2011: Stan and I met. His roommate was picking up my roommate for a CES fireside. His roommate brought Stan along, my roommate invited me to join them. Bam, love at first sight...well at least we weren't repulsed by each other and enjoyed visiting together that night.

September 22, 2011: First date to JCW's for ice cream.

September 14-15, 2012: Stan surprised me by showing up in Provo, we had a romantic evening of sushi, JCW icecream, and then he proposed on the 15th. (for full story: http://melssweetlife.blogspot.com/2012/09/that-one-time-stan-asked-me-to-marry.html)

There are lots more over the next few weeks...first kiss, my first trips to Albuquerque, moving to Albuquerque. Such wonderfully fun memories!!!

No Trespassing!!

One of the most frustrating parts about our adventures here in New Mexico has been the vast amount of private and reservation land that blocks our way to where we want to go. Stan enjoys looking at the maps and figuring out where we can find neat stuff to see and I enjoy going with him to see the neat stuff, it works great! We have lots of land use maps from the bureau of land management and so we make sure not to go where we shouldn't.

Well the first week in September, there were these ruins that we really wanted to go check out. We got in the car with all of our stuff and headed out. We were pretty disappointed when every road led to a locked gate with signs that said "No Trespassing!". We looked at the map for quite a while trying to see if there were anyway around it but it would have meant a 12+ mile hike and cliffs...bad combination for a hike starting at noon.

On our drive we did enjoy seeing an old ghost town, New Mexico has quite a few of those...

Of course there were some other Indian ruins that we were able to find. They were pretty neat. Their ability to build these stone houses into such perfect shapes is so impressive. Still amazes me where these people chose to live. I wonder how they kept their little ones from falling off the mesas...

And of course we drove through some arroyos...

The area had a great western feel for it. We could just imagine a wagon pulled by horses on this road:

We headed on some untraveled roads to find one more ruin that evening. It was another neat one with cool pottery all around.

After taking the above picture, Stan turned around to see this guy hiding beneath the stone right by him...can you see the snake? There have been way too many close calls for my comfort with those rattling friends.