Visitor from the past and tourists for a day !

I caught up with a friend of mine from long ago in SLC when he came to Albuquerque to promote his new documentary Paperback Dreams.  It was a fantastic documentary about two iconic independent bookstores from the Bay area and their survival in the days of Amazon.  Check it out if you can, it is screening on your local PBS station soon (schedules on the link above).

While he was in town, Ali and I got the chance to play tour guide, which we always enjoy.  We started our Sunday morning by a quick hike out the volcanos on the edge of the western city and a great view of the Rio Grande Valley, the changing leaves, and the Sandia mountains in the distance.  From there we went to Petroglyph National Monument - with hundreds of petroglyphs carved into the volcanic rock, but oddly surrounded by suburbs.  Very weird to see ancient art next to the sprawl of modern civilization, which was strangely the highlight of the place.

We finished up with an obligatory trip to Old Town - the town center of Albuquerque when it was founded over 300 years ago.  Now it is mostly full of cheesy souvenir shops peddling southwestern nick nacks (dream catcher anyone?) but still fun to go to.

It was great to catch up with Alex and I hope so visit with him again if he wanders into our neck of the world again.