Travels with Owen

Taking a train trip via Amtrak (http://Amtrak.com) to Winslow, Arizona from Albuquerque, New Mexico is as close as one can come to time travel to the old wild West without a time machine.

The train ride was smooth enough that one lady wrote and addressed 100 postcards. I jotted down notes in my journal using my fountain pens, and admired the beautiful scenery. The trip was sponsored by the Wheels Museum in Albuquerque. The train was immaculate and comfortable, with lots of leg room. There is a cafe onboard, with light snacks and a wonderful observation deck with huge windows.

For booking cheap travel, I found the wanderu (http://Wanderu.com) website helpful and often easier to use than Amtrak’s beautiful but sometimes overwhelming site. Wanderu also can be used to find deals on buses, trains, cars, and hotels.

Arriving after dark, guests exited the train to be immediately welcomed by the hotel lights. The train stops at the hotel’s back gate.

La Posada was designed by one of the first women architects, Mary Colter. Like Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright, she wasn’t a registered architect, so she wasn’t the architect of record on the blueprints, but she did the design for this and many other buildings in the Southwest. She also designed the lovely gardens with all their quiet conversation spaces.

An absolutely incredible corn/bean soup. The ladies are part of the group from the Wheels tour.

Recently, I was in New York City for two weeks visiting a new grandbaby. Since it was an unexpected trip, I had a lot of unfinished business back in Albuquerque.

Fortunately, I was able to track my mail with the USPS informed delivery service. It let me see what was arriving each day, so if I needed to follow up on something,I could have my husband open it, PDF it, and email it. If you don’t already have this service, you should definitely sign up. If mail is predicted, but doesn’t arrive, a quick check mark alerts the USPS to the problem.

Recently, we visited Bosque del Apache to see the snow geese and sandhill crane migrations. The ideal time to visit is at sunrise in mid November, so one can see the cranes vortex up to the sky at dawn, and when the cranes and geese are at peak numbers. Still, even in January, there were still a lot of beautiful birds to see.

The preserve leaves plenty of grain in the fields for the birds. They seem appreciative, dancing and chortling in big groups.

We stopped at Socorro Brewing in Socorro on the way back. Unfortunately, the new owners hadn’t gotten their new beer and wine license yet, so no IPAs for us, but the food us great, and the license should arrive soon.

We walked through the old city quarter (referred to as “Altsdtadt” on the city’s indispensable directional signage) in Koblenz, Heidelberg, Cologne, and Trier.

Finding a landmark that we wanted to visit was a challenge. For example, in Trier, after viewing the imperial Roman baths, we searched for Karl Marx’s birthplace.

We enjoyed wandering through the streets, admiring the architecture, and quaint squares, like this one.

However, figuring out which of several narrow byways to take out of the square was difficult. Our Android GPS kept finding alternate routes, so we’d wander one way or another and, according to the GPS, were always a mere 500 meters from Marx’s house. Frequently, we’d find ourselves re-entering a square via the portal of another street.

That the skies were overcast and frequently drizzling didn’t help the GPS, either.

The main streets in German Altstadt quarters are favored locations for upscale shops and restrict auto traffic so that pedestrians can wander about shopping without worrying about cars and buses.

During the Christmas season, holiday lights are strung over the streets…

and temporary holiday markets fill the Altstadt squares offering stocking stuffers, wurst, beer, and mulled wine for folks strolling through the quarter…

and carnival style rides for the kids.

Local shops add glitter to their windows. Germans love chocolate stores, and so did we.

Cologne re-built its Alstadt after it was leveled during World War 2 bombing raids preserving the medieval byways and replicating the architecture. (Similarly, after the Great Fire of London in 1666, Christopher Wren’s plan to straighten the streets into something more grid-like with wide major thoroughfares failed to be adopted because property owners feared losing bits of their land in the process.)

Rural villages retain their medieval streetscape, but their small size make navigating much simpler than the urban Altstaedter.