I spent this past weekend in New Mexico for my brother’s graduation from UNM. I drove down on Thursday evening and got into Los Alamos at about 10:30pm.
On Friday, Dad, Micah, and I got up and had Chili Works breakfast burritos on our way down to Albuquerque. We ran a number of errands in Albuquerque including getting Ivy’s car fixed, and getting Dad’s tuxedo measurements taken for my wedding. We then went and had lunch at Sadie’s, which is one of my favorite New Mexican restaurants. We then went and ran a couple more errands before heading back to Los Alamos.
On the way back to Los Alamos, my dad points out this drip line of paint on northbound I-25 starting at the Tramway Blvd. exit in Albuquerque and says, “Watch where it ends.” As we drive back toward Santa Fe and get off on the Santa Fe Bypass route, the paint line is still going strong. The paint line stays in the right hand lane all the way to US-84/285 and gets on going north toward Pojoaque. This paint line continues all the way to the Los Alamos/Cities of Gold Casio exit where they clearly had to stop and there is a splash of paint at the stoplight. At this point they turn left and immediately go off onto the shoulder where they must have finally noticed the paint drip after nearly 100 miles!
Once we got back to Los Alamos, Micah and I played a couple of games of Madden 06 on their PC. Micah is quite good at this game, especially for a 10 year old, and I only managed to go 2-2 against him over the weekend. We then went to dinner at the Trinity Beverage Company before heading back home for the rest of the night.
On Saturday, we got up and had Chili Works again for breakfast and I played Micah in Madden again before we headed back to Albuquerque for Daniel’s graduation. Once in Albuquerque, we went to Christy Mae’s for lunch, and then went over to the Johnson Center at the University of New Mexico for the graduation. Daniel’s graduation was a nice ceremony and took about 2 hours. The graduation was just for the Anderson Schools of Management where Daniel got his Bachelor’s in Business Administration. Daniel will be going to work for the Vanguard Group in Scottsdale, AZ starting in June. After the graduation, we went to Daniel’s graduation party at Boston’s Pizza. The party lasted for about 3 hours and we had a good time socializing with friends and family before we headed back up to Los Alamos.
On Sunday morning, I got up and Dad had made pancakes for breakfast. I then helped show Dad how to use his new photo printer before I headed down to White Rock to hang out with Scott and Marianne for a while. I hung out with Scott, Marianne, and their 8 month old daughter, Adrianna, for about 45 minutes before I headed back up to Los Alamos for my Grandma Church’s Mother’s Day BBQ. At the BBQ, we had to move inside because it began raining, but I had a good lunch with Grandma Church, Dad, my Uncle Alan, and his girlfriend, Claire.
Following lunch, I finally headed out of Los Alamos on my way back to Denver. Along the way I stopped in San Luis, Colorado, the oldest town in Colorado, because I had been curious about the church on top of the mesa in town. It turns out that the church is the Stations of the Cross Shrine, one of only two officially recognized Catholic shrines in Colorado. On the trail leading up to the chapel, are a series of bronze statues depicting the stations of the cross by San Luis artist, Hubert Maestas. The mesa is officially known as “la Mesa de la Piedad y de la Misericordia” or the Hill of Piety and Mercy.
Following my hike up to the Stations of the Cross Shrine, I continued home to Denver, ending what was a good weekend with family in New Mexico.
