Albuquerque/Sandia Mountain

The cat is my youngest grandchild, MaryAnn. I always wondered if Michael liked MaryAnn or Ginger best. I guess I know now. She's 7 months old and SO much fun. She pounced on everything that moved.

We spent the day on Sandia Mountain one day. Michael wanted to run up it. He does that for exercise. I insisted we DRIVE up it. We hiked all over the top anyway. I still had the remnants of a cold the twins lovingly gave me. It wasn't bothering me too badly but Albuquerque is 5,000 feet above sea level and add another 5,000 feet to that at the top of Sandia Mountain and I was dizzy. I've been at that height before in the Rockies and it didn't bother me but I couldn't breathe! It was lovely anyway. Then Duane got to playing with his fancy camera and taking closeups of wildflowers. I was beginning to think we were spending the entire day there but about the time he decided to leave the dirt started moving at my foot. I looked down and a groundhog? popped his head up. I was so startled (and so was he!) that I didn't get a photo. He quickly disappeared. I waited and waited at that new hole but he didn't come back. By then everyone else was sitting in the car waiting on me.
So Michael then decides to take us to the Petroglyph National Park. I told him fine as long as it was on FLAT ground. He assured me it was. (He and Heather had taken Amy when she visited.).

http://www.nps.gov/petr/naturescience/index.htm

Turns out they had only visited a SMALL portion of the park. We were visiting on 9/11 and the Park Ranger was out. He told us to go two more exits down for the main petroglyphs so we did. There is a small mountain there - full of petroglyphs. We climbed it. I was ready to kill my middle son. But I was too tired to do so. And dehydrated too. Not to mention sunburned. And the New Mexico bugs were loving me.
The petroglyphs were so unimpressing to me (sorry petroglyph lovers). There is a boarded walkway to walk between the "mountain" and other rocks/petroglyphs. We headed that way. Some kinda BIG bug landed on me and I started stomping to get it off of me. Michael grabbed me and said, "STOP". I just looked at him (I was nearly to the passing out point). He just pointed at the wooden platform board walkway and said, "Rattlesnakes.". Suddenly I just wanted to go back to see MaryAnn.

Overall it was a nice day. Especially the cool water part after we got out of the Petroglyph Park. And we didn't see any Rattlesnakes.
Chris