Route 66 Day 25 Nov 2, 2019

Up early and was able to catch some hot air balloons flying overhead, which is always a treat. I would see hot air balloons regularly while I was in Albuquerque, which I thought was odd.  When I did a hot air balloon in Orlando,  I was told they only do them early in the morning because of the air currents and later in the day the air changes and isn't good for ballooning.  Apparently, the rules are different in the desert because I'd see them in the morning and late afternoon both.  It was tempting to take a ride, but I've done it before and I'm on a budget.  Instead, on this lovely fall morning, I headed over to Old Town Plaza.  Figured on a Saturday morning at 8am, parking and crowds wouldn't be an issue.  I was correct.  Very few of the shops were open, but that was fine, I wasn't really there for the shopping.  I wandered around and took photos of plaza and the sculpture garden and the church.  I asked one of the tour guides if any of the buildings were original to the Town Plaza and apparently that is a big no.  The plaza used to be military buildings way back during the civil war and its slowly been converted into a tourist destination.  Some of the buildings are very old, but nothing here is original.  I still got some interesting photos.

After leaving the plaza, I headed over to the library.  I knew they were celebrating Dia de los Muertos from noon until 5pm.  I figured I could get a few hours of work done before the celebration started.  Even after it started I kept working.  The celebration took up most of the library indoors and out, but I'd found a nice little corner that allowed me to stay mostly out of the way while it got started.  I got some more work done and then stowed my computer back in the car and came back to enjoy the festival.  They had lots of photo memorials and girls dressed up in traditional costume and old cars.  There was face panting and artist booths and food trucks.  It was a nice festival.  But the food trucks were running out of food and I was getting hungry, so I soon left to find some tacos.  I ended up at Garcia's Kitchen for tacos.  The taco plates looked like a lot of food, so I decided just to get a plate of nachos.  I didn't ask about portion size and I received a dinner plate with nachos piles nearly as high as it was wide.  I ate on those nachos for three days.  The highlight of Garcia's was cantalope juice!  It was fantastic. 

After Garcia's I decided to hang out in my car for a few hours and watch some NCIS before my Ghost Tour of the Old Town Plaza.  It was nice to be able to just sit and do nothing for a bit.  8pm came soon enough and I headed over to the plaza.  The ghost tour crowd was fairly large and we were broken into two groups.  My guide was a very good story teller and had lots of interesting information.  We talked about the old mountain men that still haunt the old 'bad' saloon and brothel.  At least one lady of the evening is rumored to still haunt the saloon as well.  A high end prostitute that was murdered by the other prostitutes has been known to show up at a restaurant that used to be a very expensive house of ill repute.  The original town 'hanging tree' was used by the town to take care of business.  The undertaker (who's house was differently behind the tree) would often steel from the dead.  When it was strangers or criminals, the town looked the other way.  But the under taker over stepped the bounds when he stole from the dead son of a rich merchant who died in a hunting accident.  He was the last person hung from he hanging tree and he would regularly appear until a storm took out the branch of the tree that was used for hanging.  Plenty of other stories and an excellent tour. 

Again, I didn't want to drive to the far side of town, so I found a hotel parking lot and parked in the corner and had a nice sleep.