Breakfast at VM

 VM Coffee is the most elaborately designed of Albuquerque's many coffee shops.  The downtown location makes it most accessible by car (or bicycle for the more fit coffee drinkers).  Margaret had been treated to a brunch there recently, so she insisted we visit the place on a Saturday morning to partake of the coffee and a big carnitas burrito, which we shared.

 The fellow in charge of roasting the coffee beans treated us to a guided tour of the shop's roasting machinery in the big warehouse space behind the inner bank of widows.

 Adjacent to the shop is a large parking lot museum of vintage signs and vehicles collected and restored by the shop's owner.

On The Road Again

 We visited the Albuquerque Museum on Wednesday and saw there was a new Visiting Artist installation in the Main Lobby by Eric J. García entitled Since 1776 .

 

An Albuquerque native, García is an Assistant Professor of Painting & Drawing at the University of New Mexico.  He is well known for his massive murals of political cartoons.  This one features U.S. Democracy in peril, with Liberty's right hand chained to the foundation myths and the torch-holding left encircled by razor wire. 

 We enjoyed a brief chat with the Curator of Digital Collections, Jill Hartke, who had set up a table with samples from the photo collection featuring celebrities who have visited the city over the years.  A handout gave a good description of the Collection's holdings which encompasses 200,000 items, along with an account of the sophisticated gear and procedures used to preserve the photos and slides at optimal low temperatures.  The handout also included a link for the Albuquerque Emuseum which I had not seen before.

We did a quick walk-through of the big Route 66 Centennial exhibition.  I'm feeling more charitable toward it than on my first visit.  A lot of effort was made to collect and display the historic items. 

For Margaret the show again called up a torrent of fond memories of a cross-country trip with her parents and two older brothers from Boston to the West Coast.  She turned five on the road. and was ecstatic when she found that her parents had secreted her birthday presents in the car.

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THIRD THURSDAY

August 20, 5:00-8:30 p.m.

Free night at the Museum: 

 

Mural Celebration

6:30pm

Lobby

Celebrate the completion of the Museum's newest lobby installation titled, Since 1776... by Eric J. García. Join the artist for a brief talk about the inspiration behind the work, his creative process, and the symbolism woven throughout the mural. 

 

 

66

 The Albuquerque Museum has mounted a big show about the history of New Mexico's portion of the famous highway.  It is nicely put together, though for me all a bit overly familiar.  For Margaret it evoked memories of a cross-country road trip with her family in the 1950s.

La Bajada

New Mexico History Museum, Photo Archives Collection

Before it was re-routed in 1937, Route 66 included a rugged section which wound up over an escarpment near the canyon of the Santa Fe River.  We took a walk this morning along the lower section of the roadway, known as La Bajada.  I made some pictures of the Native American rock art which can be found on the slopes that go down toward the river, and I've put them in a page about La Bajada on my New Mexico Rock Art web site.

A excellent account from the National Park Service about La Bajada's long history is available on line.