Roadrunner Food Bank – Thanksgiving for All

New Mexico – Friday, October 4

I had driven down to Albuquerque last night from Santa Fe, so I was ready to start a day around the Albuquerque area. I wanted to take care of my donation first, and that was going to the Thanksgiving For All program at the Roadrunner Food Bank. They’re already working toward making sure all their partner agencies are able to help everyone have a good Thanksgiving meal. Once I made my donation, Tula and I were ready to start walking.

I was going to stay in the Albuquerque area today, and the first place I headed for was the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park. This park bordered the great Rio Grande River, and Tula and I walked for 3 miles. Then she waited in the van while I went out to walk on a couple trails that dogs weren’t allowed on. These trails were in a “bosque” – a word I’d never heard before. A bosque is a Spanish word that means wetlands, and it frequently refers to the wetlands and river forests along the Rio Grande. I covered another 2 1/2 miles on 2 trails in the bosque. Then Tula and I headed to another open space to walk that was literally called The Open Space. A good part of it seemed to follow a dry canal, and we walked another 2 1/2 miles in that area.

Then I headed for the historic part of downtown Albuquerque. Like Santa Fe, most of the buildings in Old Town were adobe or stucco, and some had lights strung on them, and there were musicians in the central plaza, and it was a fun place to wander around. There was another pretty mission church, complete with attached convent, and they were getting ready for a special blessing event over the weekend. The historic part of Albuquerque didn’t seem to be as big as historic Santa Fe, and we pretty much saw all of it after walking about a mile and a half. That made a total of almost 10 miles for today, and I headed back to the motel. I tried to get packed up as much as I could because I was going to be getting up really early in the morning to head to the opening day of the Hot Air Balloon Festival.