Albuquerque - May 17, 2008 - Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States

We made the decision to head for Albuquerque and left Denton at about noon on Tuesday. We made overnight stops in Vernon, TX and Tucumcari, NM on the way.

Social Susie struck again in Tucumcari where she started a conversation in a restaurant that led to a fun visit with two fellow travelers. Jack and Ronnie are heading eastward in their 2005 See Ya Gold. It was fun to compare notes about See Yas and to learn about their backgrounds and adventures. We arrived in Albuquerque early Thursday afternoon.

That gave us plenty of time to get ready to go to The Outpost and see the performance of the Jeff Brown Trio. We were proud parents as Jeff on the piano, bassist, Asher Barrera, and drummer, Brandon Draper performed two outstanding sets. We were particularly delighted with the first set that consisted of four original numbers composed by Jeff and two completely improvised pieces. Sadly, I forgot the camera and we have no pictures from the performance. It was terrific!

Meanwhile, back at the See Ya, we took it to the Freightliner dealer on Friday morning and, while we went running and walking and then had lunch with Jeff and his friend, Leila (forgot the camera again!), they worked diligently on finding the cause of the noise under the floor. We returned to the dealership and spent the afternoon there while they contined their work. Then we test drove it. There was no change! They did however find the problem with the dash air conditioner to be a break in the high-pressure hose that runs from the front of the coach to the engine in the rear $$. That falls under the defunct Alpha warranty rather than Freightliner.

So this morning we reached a decision to drastically alter our immediate and summer-long plans. We have decided to go to the best See Ya shop in the country. That would be Charlie's in Sunset, UT. So tomorrow morning we will leave Albuquerque and head toward Utah.

But we still had time today for some interesting experiences in Albuquerque. We attended church in Old Town at San Felipe de Neri Church. Across the street from the church the park was set up with chairs and food for a celebration. Although we are not sure what was being celebrated, there was a colorful procession that left the church at the end of mass and proceeded to march throughout Old Town.

Filipino Day

We left Old Town and joined Jeff back at The Outpost for a "Creative Soundspace" performance. Two groups were featured and both played "music" that stretched our horizons considerably and sometimes painfully. The first group

Strange Music

featured a drummer who attacked his drum set in various ways including blowing on the cymbals, scraping cymbals and sticks across the drum heads, and playing parts of the drum set with a bow. Meanwhile the tuba player sat in the center playing chords and the third member played whatever he happened to have on his table. It was unique.

The second group featured a clarinet, vocalist, drummer, and two trombones. They, too, stretched our definition of music although in a more structured way than the first group. I found them much more palatable than the first group. The audience, although small, was highly enthusiastic about both groups!

To close out the night we went to Yani's Restaurant where Jackie Mudd was singing. Jackie is a raw food friend of Jeff's and her music was much more mellow and in tune with our tastes.

Jackie, Jeff and Sue

We're off to Colorado in the morning!