Albuquerque is lovely by night and it certainly is cooler than Phoenix.  When we left Phoenix the temperature was around 105 degrees, but Albuquerque had a balmy high of 96 today.  It’s 78 at the moment and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Our AirBnB room is in a beautiful adobe house in Corales.

Los Alamos is predicted to have a high of 75 degrees tomorrow.  Yessss!  We’ll be taking off around 10am to start in Los Alamos and see how much of our wishlist we can see.

Here are the high points of the trip today.  All of these were taken in Arizona, except the last one.  The red clay soil reminds me so much of my former home in Lynchburg, VA, the first place I ever saw red clay.  It was a challenge for my Mom because that red mud left some serious stains on my brothers’ and my clothing.  But, really, what kid can have fun without rolling in the dirt a little?

We braved the rattlesnakes to walk out there behind the Rest Stop.

These travelers were braver than we were.

You can see that rain coming from very far away.

There were miles and miles of painted buttes like this.  Gorgeous!

It’s easy to imagine 19th century Native Americans or frontiersmen taking refuge for the night here.

Finally, we reached New Mexico.  Although it was too dangerous to stop and photograph the “Welcome to New Mexico” sign, we were able to stop a few minutes later to capture this Santa Fe train rolling in front of some iconic New Mexico scenery.