Albuquerque: Day Two

If you're looking for a great buffet breakfast -- the kind you'd have at home, if you'd bought Apple in 1984, thus enabling you to maintain a full-time kitchen staff devoted to your every whim -- it would in no way resemble the buffet at the Club House Suites in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Two words tell the story: powdered eggs.

You need no more details.

After breaking our overnight fast in less than heroic fashion, Ann and Lulu set off for the Albuquerque Zoo, accompanied by sister Kat and her two boys, Dietrich and Ian. Barry worked out for exactly 41 minutes on an elliptical machine located at a nearby fitness center that welcomes Club House guests.

The zoo was amazing: beautifully built, laid out in a way that makes it easy to find your way around. Lulu loved the big cats the best, as well as the meerkats, and Ann could have watched the polar bears all day. Not that they were doing anything except lounging in the water. But since it was in the high 90s, that pool sure looked good, even with bears in it!



After the train ride from the zoo to the Aquarium/Arboretum complex, we revisited the farm -- Lulu was desperate to pet the pig. The farm holds a special allure for Lulu; she's an animal lover of the first order, expressing a love for all earthly creatures -- usually out loud. "I love you, Mrs. Cow," she said as we were leaving. And at the zoo, there was one jaguar that didn't look well, and she told it, "Just remember, I take care of all sick or lost animals until they get well and find their families."

We also went to the Butterfly Pavilion at the Arboretum. Lulu loved it! All the butterflies fluttering around her, and so beautiful -- she couldn't get enough.

By the end of the day, we were melting from the heat, so we went swimming at the hotel, and took a dip in the hot tub.

At the pool, Ian was typically rambunctious; the more cerebral and serious Dietrich looked on with bemused detachment -- his most endearing quality.

After the pool/hot tub excursion, Kat and the boys bade us goodbye, and we went to dinner in Albuquerque's Old Town. As a jazz band played to a sizable sit-down crowd in the town square, we checked out a few of the restaurants. At last we settled on La Placita, situated in a restored 1706 structure that, over its many years, has been a private home, a fort and since the 1930s, a restaurant.

The food was terrific and sure seemed authentic. Meantime, Lulu was impressed by the mature tree situated smack in the middle of our dining room, which originally had been an open-air courtyard before being enclosed.

Tomorrow is our last day in Albuquerque before Friday's very, very long drive down Route 66 to Amarillo.