Sandia Peak

Once we got to Albuquerque, it took us a while to find an available hotel room for the night. We finally found one that was too cheap to even provide an alarm clock. With comforts withheld, we were up first thing the next morning and heading towards the mountains. Sandia Peak is home to the world's largest aerial tramway and travels nearly 3 miles up to the top. We had intended to do this on our way to Taos, but with the rain and fully clouded sky, we figured it would be pointless to get to the top of a mountain when you can't see a thing.



What a view! From the top we were able to see a panorama of hundreds of miles and we even made out the peaks of Taos in the distant haze. Under the ski lift (now retired for the season) I took the opportunity to lay in the grass and watch the clouds as they played in the mountain air. This was something I often daydreamed about at my office job.



After making it back down off the mountain, we began our long journey home. (We gawked at the lines that had formed to take the tram and were thankful that we had gone up earlier in the day.) We had started our trip with gloomy cold weather, but now things had cleared up and it was actually getting rather hot. With the heat, the Trooper became grouchy and threatened to overheat. The rest of the drive was made with the windows down, heat on. I was pretty happy to be home when I finally made it back to Phoenix.