Day Six - Drive to Artesia

Started the day off by going back to Old Town, Albuquerque. We spotted a really awesome turquoise necklace on Saturday, but wanted to keep shopping to find "the right one." Turns out, our gut instincts were right, and that first one was it. So that was my birthday present, and it's fabulous! Sterling silver, natural turquoise and opal. The pic shows it on a crappy chain, because I need to shorten the one it came with, but for now, crappy chain is better than no chain at all.

My birthday present!

A fun little park in Albuquerque...

I'd been craving a cupcake from Cupcake Fetish in Albuquerque, supposedly the best cupcakery in town. They have great looking treats, awesome sounding flavors and mediocre tasting cupcakes...they were good, but not "oh...my...god delicious." I wasn't overly impressed. Bummer.

Sleepless in Albuquerque on the left (mocha), and Half Baked on the right (cookie dough and choc chips)

A while ago, I read about a museum called Tinkertown that a man started in the 60's as a hobby. He's an artist and hand carves all sorts of sculptures and wooden figurines. He also collects historical "junk" which is amazing. Tons of circus memorabilia, wedding cake toppers dating back to the 20's, the world's largest man's shoes and clothing, all his figurines, a jeep that he mosaic'd (how do you spell that?!) and decked out with random collectibles, etc. Unfortunately he died a few years ago, so his wife now runs the museum to keep his dreams alive. Anyone who visits Albuquerque should definitely spend the 3 bucks to check it out.

Justin's foot against the world's largest man's foot. Size 22 shoe, 8'4, 450 pounds.

Circus carvings -- truly amazing. Pictures don't even begin to show the detail that goes into these hand done pieces of art.

Tinkertown metal sign

hah!

The walls of the museum are all made of glass bottles, wine bottles, beer bottles, etc and mortar. Very bizarre, but really cool at the same time.

Then our 4 hour, most boring drive ever, started. I kid you not, Justin never turned his wheel once. It was a straight road for about 200 miles, no exits, rest stops, gas stations for about 80 miles, just farm land, ranches and cattle. Sooooo boring. Thankfully we have various Jim Gaffigan CD's to keep us occupied, because it's way too easy to get highway hypnosis on these roads otherwise.

We were hoping Roswell, AZ would at least provide a fun roadside attraction. Not so much. What a dull town that is! Every storefront says something about Aliens or UFO's but the town is so tiny, if you blink, you'll miss it. So I took one picture to say we were there, and that was it. :(


Anyway, we're now here in Artesia, New Mexico. What a dingy town this is. It's kept alive by an oil refinery, farming and light retail. I'd say 90% of the 7000 people here work at the refinery. It's just a gross town, but it's only 30 miles from Carlsbad Caverns, which is on the books for tomorrow, so it's convenient. We're staying in a really cool B&B though, totally surprising from the looks of the town. I started to worry we'd be sleeping in a roach motel, but it's actually very cool inside and the innkeeper is very sweet. She assured us that there will be a hot breakfast when we wake up, and that the popcorn by the microwave is free for taking.

That's it for now...time to watch some TV and get to bed. Tomorrow is Carlsbad Caverns and then a 7 hour drive to Dallas for sushi!