June 18, 2025
Albuquerque

Our day started with a lovely breakfast at the cafe less than a block away. Ros particularly enjoyed her egg on roasted sweet potato and mushroom with cauliflower rice.

Then most of the morning was spent booking flights from Albuquerque to Tri Cities, Tennessee for the 20th, and a shuttle to take us back to the point on the Appalachian Trail where we left it last time in 2022. We also planned the logistics of the first section we will be hiking.

We made a trip to the nearest grocery store to buy supplies for the trail as well as for DIY meals here in our accommodation. This time we took the underpass and again rubbed shoulders with the city’s homeless who looked to be either under the influence or giving a live demonstration of IVDU. As we left the grocery store, another fellow was being offered free accommodation by officers from the PD for preparing his fix IN the grocery store! We opted to take the overpass on our way back to our bnb!

In the afternoon we decided to visit Albuquerque Old Town. The trip did not start well as I snibbed both doors of our Airbnb and closed them while answering “yes” to Ros’s question “do you have the keys”. I didn’t. There was a lady cleaning the adjoining unit but she could only find a spare key for one of the doors. We left anyway and the situation was resolved by the time we returned at the end of the day.

Old Town was pretty touristy but had interesting shops and a great museum/art gallery. We are able to get around to many places on the city’s free air-conditioned buses.