Albuquerque Trip

So, I started writing this blog 3 days ago.  It has become so long that I decided to split it into 2 separate blogs.  That happens to me all too often.  But here we go - 

On Thursday evening we got to celebrate my mom's birthday!  Mom, Scotty, Brennen, and myself all went to dinner to mark the occasion.  We had a really great time.  After that, I went to pick up Amber from work and get her something to eat - Then we hit the road.

We left town about 9:20pm and headed to Albuquerque.  Let me tell you - Can you believe I didn't even speed!?!?!  Amazing right.  It seemed like we got there in no time at all.  We just talked all the way till about Cline's Corners.  Then we turned on music - (Amber gets real nervous on the Interstate - lucky for us I was driving!)  But anyway, we pulled into Albuquerque about 12am.  Then we had to find the hotel.  I really thought I knew where I was going.  My gut said, take I25.  My head said follow until you see the sign for the airport.  Anyway, long story short, half an hour later we pulled out 2 GPSs.  Bad idea.  We were stinkin' tired and at one point we were following both of them (at the same time).  Each one was taking us a different way.  Finally, we just picked 1 and put the other one up.  Of course, it was then that we found the hotel.

This blog wouldn't be mine unless something had happened, right!?!  So guess what - they couldn't find our reservations (of course) - but then just as we were about to say forget it and start all over with the info - poof; there were our reservations.  We went to the room and crashed.

Friday we didn't really have any plans but got up in time to eat breakfast.  Then we laid back down for about an hour.  Once we were up, we got dressed and headed out to explore.  For lunch we chose to eat at a steakhouse. (Yum!)  Well, we had picked out Ember's Steakhouse.  When we finally found it (inside the Isleta Casino)  we found out that it was by reservation only and not till after 3pm.  Needless to say, we didn't stick around.  Then we had the best time just driving around looking for another steakhouse.  Can you believe that no one eats steak until 4 in the afternoon?!  Well, we finally settled at the Olive Garden around 2:30pm.  Lunch was very yummy!  I had a citrus chicken something or another and Amber had the Tour of Italy but not before we both finished off some calamari.  I had peach tea - which was decent.  We even got a meal to go by accident (one of their featured promo's right now).

After we left the Olive Garden we stopped at a few places we just drove by and thought were interesting.  We then had to make a run to Wal-Greens.  I needed medicine, Amber wanted a new lipstick, and we had forgotten Q-tips.  (That's a pretty weird thing not to be able to live without for 3 days but, it was really driving me CRAZY!).  When we finished there, we had driven by a Putt-Putt place.  So, guess what we did -

We played Miniature Golf.  The animals around the course is what really caught our eye.  But we just had to stop and play.  We had so much fun.  Although - I would like to testify to the fact that Putt-Putt was not made for really tall people.  

 The lady at the counter when we first went in did not do a good job explaining to us about the course.  Don't you just hate it when someone doesn't do the job they are being paid to do!  We asked her where we start from and she pointed to the right and said that is number 1 but you can start from any of the yellow signs.  Well, being the right brained person that Amber is, we usually follow each and every thing in order.  So, we started to the right at #1.

 We were behind a large family and so we played till we caught up with them and then we skipped two holes and were going to go back to them when they were done - so I set up my ball on the little rubber mat to make my shot.  After my second stroke, I got the ball in the hole and then it disappeared!  Ugh!  (Guess that was then end of our Putt-Putt).

What she didn't tell us was that each yellow sign represented a different course. We thought the whole thing was one course - but it wasn't.  It was 3 courses.  Oh well, we had fun and then we went around just taking pictures with all of the different animals.  

Totally cute right!?!  

When we were done there, we continued just exploring around town with nowhere really to be.  Once evening hit, we went exploring a few clubs.  The first club that we went to was really dead but the people that worked there were really nice so we just kinda hung out and talked to them for a bit.  

After we left there I found out that Amber had never had Jack in the box.  So, you guessed it.  I took her to Jack in the Box.  We really wanted Panda Express but they were closed already.  Then we decided on Popeye's Chicken.  Nope.  They were closed too (at 10pm).  Can you believe that?  I thought this was a big city!  With a night life!  On a Friday!  

So, anyway we stopped at Jack in the Box and put a little food on our bellies.  Then we went downtown to another club.  This one was busy.   It's a little different getting used to things in a big city.  We had to park in a parking garage and then walk to the club.  Not too bad.  This club was bumping!  Music, lights, people, etc..........So, we did some hanging out, and then we did some dancing, and some more dancing.  Then we danced with people we don't even know.  By then we decided to go.  (I didn't want my foot to hurt for tomorrow because I figured there would be a lot of walking and that old broken foot of mine just can't take a lot).  Little did we know it was already 2am.  Back to the hotel we went.  

When we got there, we were really surprised that there was no parking ANYWHERE.  We ended up parking on the street in front of the hotel.  Once I hit the bed I went right to sleep.  I think Amber had a hard time sleeping - but not me.  So when I woke up Saturday morning at 8:30am I decided we could skip breakfast because we were going to eat lunch before the concert.  I kept thinking - ok, the concert isn't until this afternoon so we are good to sleep in.  I never did really add it up in my head.  At 10:30am when we woke again, it was time to start getting ready.  We had originally wanted to leave our hotel by 12:00 since we didn't know where it was or what to expect....