Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The Turquoise Trail

Two weeks ago Noelle and I drove a portion of the Turquoise Trail with Noelle's Mom, Dad and sister Kati. I decided that the road looked interesting and driving it would be an adventure that we could easily go on with my parents. And so, we awoke to a snow-covered car
Falling Snow in ABQ
and some slick roads and headed east and then north to the Turquoise Trail. The first stop on our tour was a short detour to the awesome Tinkertown Museum!
Tinkertown Museum
This is really my kind of place with lots of hand carved wooden figurines,
Tinkertown Band
and walls built of glass bottles, stone and other random found objects.
Wheel
It's a real art environment like Wisconsin's Concrete County Park or the Wegner Grotto. We spent quite some time wandering around the museum
Mom and Bench
Eric & Covered Wagon
License Plates
and even had our fortunes read!

From the Tinkertown Museum we headed north to the former coal mining town of Madrid. We had a delicious lunch at the Mine Shaft Tavern
Mine Shaft Tavern
and then walked around town a bit.
Elk Sculpture
We stopped at a few of the many art galleries
Dad on Porch
Trading Bird
and then found a nice little photo park. Most of the photo opportunities were wrapped in plastic as they had just recently been painted, but we were able to pose at a few!
Balloonists
Madrid Jail Mom and Dad
From Madrid we headed further north still into Santa Fe. We stopped at the Santa Fe Brewing Company for a beer and then headed to the Railyard to spend our dividends at REI. After shopping we were ready to check into our hotel, the very interesting La Fonda on the Plaza. We capped the day off with a delicious dinner at Rooftop Pizza!             

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