When our oldest grandson, Donovan visited us in Albuquerque, my thoughts drifted to how to keep him entertained. So I queried his interests and did my research and planned our schedule for the week — starting with the Unser Racing Museum. Located in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque on Montano Road NW, the museum traces the racing history of the Unser family but has so much more. We both enjoyed seeing all the racing cars from antique to modern along with the racing motorcycles. But my favorite displays were the bronze sculptures. And Donovan’s? The race car simulator. We were there on a Monday at 10:00 AM when the door opened and had the museum docent and displays mostly to ourselves. Donovan was able to run the simulator twice and won the race both times, saying it was very similar to a video game he plays at home.
Continuing our weekly schedule, we popped down to Carlsbad Caverns and spent the day walking the cave.
Carlsbad Cavern – beautiful rock formation
We spent the night in Carlsbad, New Mexico so that we would have time to visit the UFO Museum in Roswell on the way back home. Very touristy, but fun, and some beautiful paintings by fantasy artist Larry Elmore that are well worth the price of admission. After the museum visit we went in search of Pepper’s Bar & Grill which has an address on Main Street, but when walking from the museum, is actually around the corner and cannot be seen until you get there. Well worth the walk and search since they had great burgers and margaritas.
We managed to pick the only day where the sky was clear to ride the Tramway where we looked at mountains of rocks and the beautiful Albuquerque valley.
Colorful rock formation viewed from top of Tram
Donovan looking at the mountains from the top platform of the Tramway
We spent one whole day at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science where Donovan drove the Mars Rover replica, visited the planetarium, looked at petrified dinosaur bones being cleaned and indulged his grandmother’s fascination with gemstone displays. His favorite gemstone was the smoky quartz.
And since we live one block from the Petroglyphs National Monument, no trip would be complete without a hike on some of the petroglyph trails.
Yes, a cave, mountains, gemstones and petroglyphs, Donovan’s trip to visit his grandparents will shall forever be known as “The trip Grammy showed me rocks.”
(We squeezed in an Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game and a couple of movies.)
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