Albuquerque Urban Assault

This weekend has been all about experiencing Albuquerque. Friday night started out at the Marble Brewery (big shocker there!) I tried their new beer... The Other Blonde, and found it to be quite delicious. Then I headed to the student ghetto for some more cocktails with a friend, and finally downtown to Burt's tiki lounge via the Rapid Ride. I really enjoyed being car-less and it was fun to watch all the new UNM freshmen interact with a city bus for the first time. I went to Burt's Tiki lounge, which kind of reminds me of tortilla flats in nyc. There was some sort of band that ended their set with a mosh pit where people were throwing stuffed animals with one another?! Apparently it happens at every show? Who knows. I had a drink called a Zombie, and the things are hazy at best... Oh yeah, that and the walk from the bus back to my car was precisely 17x as long as it had been earlier in the evening.
On Saturday I continued to savor the flavor of Albuquerque. Wine tasting at Savoy. 4 small plate food parings and an assortment of 6 red wines, all rated 90 or higher by wine spectator. Pinot Noir, Malbec, Syrah... all very delicious and paired with salmon with a raspberry jalapeno glaze, egg chorizo pizza, fingerling potatoes with taleggio and a apple fritter. All very delicious. The rain poured down as we tasted the autumnal wines, and cleared up when we were done, with the cooler temps leaving me in the mood for some scotch. I passed the rest of the afternoon at O'Neills on the patio. Drinking beer and sipping scotch while a pinky purple sunset smoldered low in the Western Sky over the Desert Sands motel (the OTHER no country for old men motel).
On Sunday, after all the weekend's debauchery, I decided to go for a hike. Nothing strenuous, something local, something different. I went to Montessa Park. It's mostly a frisbee golf course, and would be most easily described as "across from the motocross tracks you see before you hit the runway as you land at the Sunport. The short hike wanders through an ... apcolyptic landscape. It's out by the bio containment area (ZOMBIES!) and you can hear the pop pop pop of the Zia gun club as you wander into the scrubby desert. Aside from some weird "obstacles" (abandoned junk) on the disc course you hike out following a wash to some abandoned railroad tracks. The soil was soft and dusty with lots of ants and a good sprinkling of wildflowers. I didn't encounter another soul the entire time I was out there. The disc golf course was empty and Dixie traveled confidently through across the sand off her leash. I'm not sure if it was the mid afternoon sun and hotter temps, but since I didn't see another person I look forward to more hiking on the martian landscape I discovered today.