Route 66 Through Albuquerque and Old Town

Once our house sit in Santa Fe ended, we drove down the I-25 toward Albuquerque to the Bernalillo for another sit. This one came up while we were in Santa Fe and it worked out very nicely.

After visiting the petroglyphs that you saw yesterday, we decided to drive along the old route 66 through Albuquerque just to see what we could see.

We drove east of town to where Central Avenue (as 66 is called these days) crossed I-40 and headed back west through the city. Much of what we saw was the usual sorts of things you expect to see in a large-ish city (just shy of a million people live there)... stores, services, auto repair, etc.

But on in town, we started seeing these large murals and we had to stop for a few photos.

There were also some place with interesting architecture to be found. This bar is made to look like a book shelf. Pretty cool, eh?

Even though Albuquerque is not the oldest city in the state, it is still pretty old. Here's a manhole cover celebrating the 300th anniversary. Don't see this in many US cities.

In the main plaza of the Old Town on the western side of downtown is the San Felipe de Neri Church. This area is filled with stores selling tchotchkes and fine art, coffee and meals. This structure is the focal point of the neighborhood.

Even though the lamp is not old, it is still nice to see it against the stucco walls of the church. This church was built in 1793 and is one of the oldest buildings in the city and the old building in the city proven to date from the Spanish colonial period (Wikipedia).