Almost a year after moving out to California from my home state of Illinois, I look back to a portion of my Albuquerque trip: Old Town and the Albuquerque Botanical Garden.
After smelling all of the wonderful scents at the zoo, I wandered off to the Albuquerque Botanical Garden. This had to be one of the best parts of the day. The gardens were a cool and refreshing relief from the intolerable desert heat.
The entrance to the gardens featured a tall, druidic dragon!
Red chilis hung about the entrance way as well…definitely a new site to me in the SouthWest..
This giant ant was part of the children’s walk-through garden, which featured giant sculptures of animals, vegetables, and plants, to give the visitor a bugs-eye view of what it is like to traverse through a backyard garden.
The entrance-way to a giant walk through pumpkin..
The inside of the walk-through pumpkin was complete with a ceiling full of giant, hanging seeds.
A jade plant nestled near a building, my eyes were slowly becoming used to the plentiful amount of succulent plants present in New Mexico, also a new sight to a native Midwesterner.
Another part of the children’s garden featured tunnels and giant mushrooms basking in the shade.
This was a lovely quote that reads “There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.”
This is the view walking toward Old Town. I loved seeing the huge clouds above and the mountains in the distance.
The cactus everywhere was a new site to me as well.
There were lots of lovely boutique shops in Old Town Albuquerque. This particular shop featured beautiful, flowing hippie dresses. The shopkeep was very adamant about convincing me to try on all of the dresses.
I was told to try some of the local, authentic Albuquerque food for dinner, but it was just so hot that pistachio ice cream was the only thing that would suffice..
Another thing that was new to my Midwestern eyes were all of the Catrina (Day of the Dead) dolls displaying in all of the tourist shops. The influence of Mexican culture was a lot stronger in Albuquerque. I loved the art styles.
This mural says “Environmental change is the primary cause of the extinction of animals, but now the changes are greatly accelerated by human activity…” Some food for thought, I suppose..
Some beautiful murals walking around Albuquerque, this mural features Mary from Christianity.
A lovely, quaint field with a calming mountain view. I found this little farm while getting lots outside of Albuquerque, it was a good place to get lost..
It is hard to believe that almost a year has passed after that epic drive from Illinois to California. I was so thankful to be able to explore Albuquerque and experience its unique culture.
