Book a room yesterdayFamily (wife, then 9yr old boy, and 4 year old boy/girl twins) are thinking about going to October 2018 festival.
Anyone been and have any recommendations/thoughts/etc? Tia.
Not one of my favorite cities that I've lived in. Great food though, red or green on everything.I might be moving there
Seems cheap and not as many people to deal with every day.Not one of my favorite cities that I've lived in. Great food though, red or green on everything.I might be moving there
High crime and southwestern motifs.Seems cheap and not as many people to deal with every day.
I'm from Detroit, lived in Naples Italy, and enjoy a sombrero.High crime and southwestern motifs.Seems cheap and not as many people to deal with every day.
Bolstering, and now looking this thing up. You win.Don't hijack my thread!!!
Book a room yesterday
As wikkid mentioned, the "special shapes" day is probably the coolest special event to hit. I think otherwise days don't really matter, except for weather, but there's little that can be done to plan around that. I went back in 2016 (my in-laws live in ABQ, so had a free place to stay), but had some bad rain luck. I can try to help on ABQ in general -- I'm out there pretty often, and just got back from there.Anyone with some thoughts on 2019 balloon fiesta? It's like a 9 day event in October (5-13).
as I would likely only make a 4 day trip, I take it the last 4 days are better. Any thoughts?
Did you? I might be as well. I'd love some advice on where to live where to avoid (I would prefer to live downtown/near university in a high rise if ABQ has them) etc. Anything else I should know would be great. Also @bananafish, did you live there at one point? I might be mistaken on this.I might be moving there
Downtown is not the safest part of the city to live in. If you are interested in more of an urban type of experience (walking distance to shops/restaurants/etc), Nob Hill might be a neighborhood to check out (close to the UNM campus). Still a decent amount of crime there too though.Did you? I might be as well. I'd love some advice on where to live where to avoid (I would prefer to live downtown/near university in a high rise if ABQ has them) etc. Anything else I should know would be great. Also @bananafish, did you live there at one point? I might be mistaken on this.
Some of that down by the Zoo, but i feel about downtown Burque the way i do the New England Patriots - it was so lame for soooo long that i simply cant digest the new love for downtown development or Huning-Highland or whatever the hot new part of town that once was a sad old part of town is.Did you? I might be as well. I'd love some advice on where to live where to avoid (I would prefer to live downtown/near university in a high rise if ABQ has them) etc. Anything else I should know would be great. Also @bananafish, did you live there at one point? I might be mistaken on this.
I was at a restaurant in Huning-Highland last week. Definitely a neighborhood on the way up. Pretty solid food there, but solid food all over ABQ.Some of that down by the Zoo, but i feel about downtown Burque the way i do the New England Patriots - it was so lame for soooo long that i simply cant digest the new love for downtown development or Huning-Highland or whatever the hot new part of town that once was a sad old part of town is.
Albuquerque is a city that was populated by tuberculosis (a row of TB hospitals on the slope between downtown & UNM) and radiators (that wouldn't make Rte 66 or I-40 to LA). An accidental town. It was lovely when it was the northernmost brown town in the USA when i moved there in '79, but if you're wanting to live in the coolest section over that which suits you best, you are violating the spirit of extraordinary ordinary upon which it is based . Unlike Santa Fe, which can be cool no matter where you are, Albuquerque is Omaha with hills, a blank canvas. Find your corner or don't bother.
Okay, I have an open mind for living in a different area. I just figured I'd want to live where younger professionals do. I have no wife or family and I don't want to be surrounded by that. Is west of the river a good place to look? I was at a restaurant in Huning-Highland last week. Definitely a neighborhood on the way up. Pretty solid food there, but solid food all over ABQ.
Agree with your post. I don't think I'd want to be locked in a condo or high-rise in ABQ. Housing is pretty cheap, and it's not like there is much of a yard that needs upkeep in the desert. If I ever moved out there, I'd find an adobe house with a nice backyard view of Sandia, which I can stare at while drinking some Elevated IPAs and grilling up some homemade green chile cheeseburgers whenever my heart desires.
I looooved the neighborhood i lived in from '97-'11 (lived around TB Row/UNM in the 70/80s). It was the first neighborhood N of Lomas NE, built in '46 by Sandia Labs for its employees. The streets straddled a hill and, the farther up the hill, the nicer the houses. Mesa Verde was duplexes for the lab techs, Morningside nice houses for the up & comers, Del Sol for dept heads, Manana for VPs and an estancia (since torn down) on Estrellita atop the hill for the Big Boss. Such a sunny goofy housing concept before sprawl took over.I was at a restaurant in Huning-Highland last week. Definitely a neighborhood on the way up. Pretty solid food there, but solid food all over ABQ.
Agree with your post. I don't think I'd want to be locked in a condo or high-rise in ABQ. Housing is pretty cheap, and it's not like there is much of a yard that needs upkeep in the desert. If I ever moved out there, I'd find an adobe house with a nice backyard view of Sandia, which I can stare at while drinking some Elevated IPAs and grilling up some homemade green chile cheeseburgers whenever my heart desires.
I'm in the physics business. I'd be consulting for Sandia and LANL mostly. (I read your post about your dad working in the NIF which is super cool, you should be proud your dad is a science baller). I could just live in Santa Fe, but I'm really more into things bigger cities can provide. Although ABQ won't do everything I want it to do, it's more than those smaller towns. That being said, I don't know a thing about Santa Fe. Maybe I should look there.I have a love/hate relationship with Albuquerque, but the balloon festival is well worth going to. It's incredible, especially when it's dark in the morning and all the balloons are lighting up. Then you'll be getting gas in the afternoon and one will land across the street.
The food is awesome and the natural beauty incredible, but the state as a whole is dirt poor, crimey and the politics is maddening (not in a left/right sort of way but a stupidity/inefficiency sort of way). Someone told me it now leads the nation in car theft It's been a decade since I lived there but around UNM is reasonably safe and Nob Hill which someone mentioned would probably be my choice, or the wealthy suburbs towards the mountains if you can afford it (which is probably not hard as ABQ is cheap). Where are you working @Dedfin? If I remember right you're some sort of scientist. UNM is excels in the sciences which is rather impressive given the circumstances.
I'd rather live in Santa Fe which is much nicer but also more expensive. It has the best parts of New Mexico and the grinding poverty/violence is better hidden. It's also a stone's throw from Los Alamos National Lab which I hear is a good gig if you can get it. One caveat is my alma mater is there so it has a special, idyllic place in my heart which probably clouds my judgement. It was a wonderful place to go to school.
I've got a lot to say about New Mexico and in my mind's eye I could see retiring there. If you have any particular questions or want me to expound further i'd be happy to.
I left in '11, so i might be wrong now, but W of the river is all Sprawful. I would rent close to work & shop. The "wine country" of the N Valley, the gentrified area around Bulldog City, Nob Hill, Foothills, Corrales, Placitas, the zoo area/Old Town is lovely (that's where the old Mestizo-hating Castilian Spanish gentry lived when i moved there in the 70s) or carve your own spot. Just make it for you, not hipness. Hipness is wrong (off thee to Santa Fe), cool is right in Burque.Okay, I have an open mind for living in a different area. I just figured I'd want to live where younger professionals do. I have no wife or family and I don't want to be surrounded by that. Is west of the river a good place to look?
Sante Fe is a bit too artsy for my taste, but YMMV. If you want to be up by LANL, I would take the Los Alamos and White Rock area directly. I'm not a scientist, so not much for me to do out there job-wise, but I told my wife that I would love to retire to that area.I'm in the physics business. I'd be consulting for Sandia and LANL mostly. (I read your post about your dad working in the NIF which is super cool, you should be proud your dad is a science baller). I could just live in Santa Fe, but I'm really more into things bigger cities can provide. Although ABQ won't do everything I want it to do, it's more than those smaller towns. That being said, I don't know a thing about Santa Fe. Maybe I should look there.
Yeah, one of my gfs had a rather successful curio shop and was looking to invest the profits. Bobby Jr. was fronting for the developers of Rio Rancho - 85 sq mi of nothing, then called Little Brooklyn cuz a NY-style deli and a dozen houses filled w east coast refugees was all there was, so i met him a coupla times at smokers for that. Lisa invested, I didn't. There's now a major Intel plant and 100,000+ people living in Rio Rancho. She retired @ 45, i'm living in my parents' basement. Just handshakes & chatter w Bobby, but the Unsers were deities in Burque, still dirt-tracked for fun in the area well past their Indy fame.When you lived there did you ever meet/socialize with any of the Unsers (the family of race car drivers)?
green chili cheese fries at Bob's Burgers, maybe?Going to Albuquerque in a few weeks for a conference. Any must sees/dos?
I’m not sure any of these are “musts” but some to get started.Going to Albuquerque in a few weeks for a conference. Any must sees/dos?
Such is our lot in life for opportunities missed....or sumpin like that. (trying to turn a phrase like wikkid but coming up way short)wikkidpissah said:Yeah, one of my gfs had a rather successful curio shop and was looking to invest the profits. Bobby Jr. was fronting for the developers of Rio Rancho - 85 sq mi of nothing, then called Little Brooklyn cuz a NY-style deli and a dozen houses filled w east coast refugees was all there was, so i met him a coupla times at smokers for that. Lisa invested, I didn't. There's now a major Intel plant and 100,000+ people living in Rio Rancho. She retired @ 45, i'm living in my parents' basement. Just handshakes & chatter w Bobby, but the Unsers were deities in Burque, still dirt-tracked for fun in the area well past their Indy fame.
That's the worst Unser story ever.You didn't ask me but I spent a few nights in jail with a lesser known Unser...Mike or something I can't remember. It was really pathetic and I quit drinking shortly thereafter.
The Indy guy who always fascinated me was the guy who built the Brickyard - Carl Fisher. First a bicycle dealer who promoted his product by riding his bikes on a tightrope across Pennsylvania St then a Stoddard-Dayton car dealer who ballyhooed his buggies by using them as gondolas to hot air balloons, he struck gold in car headlights and built the Indy track twice - 2nd time of brick, of course. Then he built the first two interstate highways - the Dixie (cuz he wintered in Fla) and the Lincoln (first cross-country). Then, vacationing in Fla, he saw a half-completed but abandoned bridge across to a sandbar that contained nothing but mangroves & an avocado farm. BOOM - two years later he'd turned that sandbar into Miami Beach (hotels, polo clubs, golf courses, had Pres Harding there for a round of golf with an elephant as their caddy). He tried to do the same in Montauk Long Island, - digging a deepwater harbor so Atlantic crossers could save a day by docking there & taking the train into NYC - but a hurricane wiped out the Miami properties he had mortgaged to begin his new project and that ruined him. Still, a helluva run for a helluva guy (smoked cigars & chewed tobacco simultaneously). Twenty years ago, i tried to write it all up for Tom Hanks (who i knew slightly - he was friends w a gf's fam - and hosted in Albq when he was here in the 80s w the Happy Days softball team) but it never came to anything. One of the great early-20thC characters, though.Such is our lot in life for opportunities missed....or sumpin like that. (trying to turn a phrase like wikkid but coming up way short)
The Unsers are still a really big deal here in Indianapolis. They were probably somewhat aloof and arrogant in their racing days (well earned because they were bad asses and survived a profession that maimed and killed so many). but they've mellowed with age, appreciate their fans and are genuinely nice people imo.
kind of you to say, but it likely wouldnt have added up to much. though i walked my errands every day - Tully's for meat, Sunshine Market for grocery, Dolce Vita for breadstuffs - i was very much a hermit, too, and '08 was one of the worst years of my life (two heart attacks). but i wouldnta said no to a beer now & then if i was outta bed, i spose.I really regret that we never consummated a cornhole when we both lived in Albuquerque back in '08 (I still have the pm's I think). I was a mess and kind of a hermit but I would have forced myself out of the house if I had known what I was missing. You've a brilliant mind, sir.