Hello, Pyramid Rock in Red Rocks Park in Gallup, New Mexico

November 29, 2021, 8:48 PM PST by Parkzer • Hiking

Using the day I gained in my schedule by departing Albuquerque, New Mexico early, I decided to stop by Gallup, New Mexico, a small city on Historic Route 66 on the western side of the state near the Arizona border. Gallup is adjacent to Church Rock, a census-designated area in McKinley County that has boundaries that include Red Rock Park, a park with a convention center, a museum, campgrounds, and rodeo grounds.

My hike of choice in Gallup was the Pyramid Rock Trail, with the trailhead starting deep beyond the horse stalls and extending to the summit of Pyramid Rock, the highest point of the park.

This was a fairly well-trafficked trail, so it was a very pleasant hike. The path was clearly marked a majority of the time, and in areas where there might be some confusion, there were rock towers built by other hikers to show people the way. (I contributed a rock to one of the towers.)

I’m great at falling for false summits, and it happened again on this trail. It seems like I took a wrong turn at one of the intersections, because I ended up in a dead end with a moderately nice view.

This clearly wasn’t Pyramid Rock, though, because I could see the actual summit off in the distance. It seems like I wasn’t the only one fooled, because there was another woman there with me. I took in the view for a bit, snapped some photos, then retraced my steps back to the intersection to take the other path.

As I got closer and closer to the summit, I realized that I was clearly getting closer distance-wise, but not necessarily height-wise. This hinted me towards the fact that there is probably a tough, steep, strenuous climb right before the summit (and I ended up being correct).

I didn’t bring any snacks and only had a single bottle of Powerade Zero, so I was mildly concerned about running out of energy, especially at this elevation of about 7,000 feet above sea level, and also considering that I was already getting tired.

As you might have guessed, I did indeed make it. Reaching the summit was very rewarding. There were a few people coming down from the summit who cheered me on and told me I was almost there. Once I got to the top, the sweeping 360° views were amazing. The woman I saw earlier at the other summit also joined me about 10 minutes later at the true summit of Pyramid Rock.

So far, I think this is one of my favorite hikes that I’ve ever done. If you’re a beginner who’s looking for a challenge to step up your hiking, I think this is a fantastic intermediate trail to try out.

This hike feels like a real hike and not just a walking trail. There are sufficient obstacles, but the more difficult ones are assisted (i.e., the steepest rocks you have to scale have cut-outs for your feet). The path isn’t just a mindless straight line; you’re not going to constantly get lost, but you do have to use your eyes to look around and think about where you’re going to go next, which I think adds an important element of mental stimulation to the hike.

I also think the summit is very important—it’s pretty disappointing when you reach the end of the trail and there isn’t really much there. The view from the summit here couldn’t get any better—not only is there a view from all different directions, but I’d go far as to say that each quadrant of the view had unique elements that made it look like you were at multiple summits at once.

The hike down was obviously much easier, and I managed to survive only having a single bottle of Powerade… though I did eat two protein bars that I had in one of my storage boxes once I got back to my truck. If you’re going on this hike and aren’t used to high elevations with lower oxygen saturation, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to bring some snacks along with you.

Goodbye Albuquerque

November 27, 2021, 8:20 PM PST by Parkzer • Hiking, Travel

As of today, my five days in Albuquerque, New Mexico have come to an end. My original plan was to stay for six days, but I shortened my stay by one day and decided to spend one night in Gallup, New Mexico, which is on the way to my next major destination, Flagstaff, Arizona. I did this for two main reasons, the first being that I wanted to break up the monotony of my drive by cutting it in half and doing it over two days instead of one, and the second reason being that I wasn’t really that big of a fan of my hotel room.

You might already know this, but I have a very acute and sensitive sense of smell. If there’s mold, mildew, or mustiness in an area, I’ll notice it immediately, no matter how subtle it is, and if I’m in the area for too long, I’ll start getting headaches. This was a massive problem back in St. George, Utah when the air conditioner spewed out a horrible smell of mold and mildew akin to dirty gym shoes, and the curtains had some strange musty, metallic odor to them. Since then, I’ve been much more careful about picking out newer hotels, and generally haven’t had this problem anymore.

That is, until Albuquerque. This was clearly an older hotel, and it wasn’t really maintained the best, so my room smelled very musty when I arrived. I intentionally picked the full-service corporate-run Marriott Albuquerque so I could have a nice view, enjoy free beverages and snacks in the lounge, and have a nicer stay. Although I had an amazing view out of floor-to-ceiling windows, the lounge was still closed due to being short-staffed from the pandemic, and the room was clearly dated and a little bit rough around the edges.

With all that considered, I figured that it wasn’t worth the extra cost to stay at this hotel, so I decided to leave a day early, which not only gave me an opportunity explore another city for a day, but also saved me a little bit, because I booked a SpringHill Suites instead. (Just to be clear, the Marriotts branded as just “Marriott” are usually very nice and have a lot of amenities, and I would highly recommend them; it’s just that this particular one in Albuquerque was disappointing.)

I already have two dedicated blog posts from two of my major tourist activities in Albuquerque, one where I went to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, and another when I explored the Sandia Mountains. I went on two additional hikes, but I felt they didn’t warrant their own blog posts, so I decided I would put them in this Albuquerque round-up instead.

The first hike was at the Albuquerque Volcanoes, which are in the general area of the Petroglyph National Monument. There are five volcanoes in that cluster, and I hiked around and onto three of them—the JA, Black, and Vulcan Volcanoes. The first two, I was able to summit, but the third one was blocked off so hikers couldn’t get to the top. I snapped some photos from the two volcanoes I was able to climb up, then took a photo of the volcano that I wasn’t allowed to.

My second hike was the Canopy Loop at the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park. I figured it would be a mistake to visit New Mexico and not see the Rio Grande up close, so I found a hiking trail that went right alongside it.

My favorite part about this hike was how visually different it was from all the other hikes that I’ve done recently. A majority of my hikes throughout the summer and fall have been exceptionally green, so it was a nice change of pace seeing a lot of trees that had finished going through their autumn phase and were now ready to weather the winter.

Hello, Sandia Mountains in New Mexico

November 24, 2021, 10:16 PM PST by Parkzer • Hiking

For my next tourist activity of Albuquerque, I wanted to check out Sandia Crest, the highest point of the Sandia Mountains in Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties, east of Albuquerque. Many tourism websites suggested doing so via the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway, a 15-minute tram ride up the western side of the Sandia Mountains.

When I went to buy tickets, I saw that a round-trip tram ticket cost $29, there was an extra $3 grounds fee, and tax came out to an additional $2.06, for an overall total price of US$34.06. I thought that was fairly steep for a tram ride, so I looked into an alternative, which would be to drive up to Sandia Crest myself. From my hotel, it was 31.6 miles there and 31.1 miles back, and at the IRS average mileage rate of 56¢ per mile, that is the functional equivalent of spending $35 to drive there instead. The price difference was negligible, but I would have much more control over my sightseeing schedule and get to stop at many other locations along the way with my own truck, so I decided to drive.

I’m glad I did, because on the way out to the mountains, I took Historic Route 66 and went over the musical highway to listen to America the Beautiful. There’s a location on Google Maps for the Musical Highway, but it’s marked as permanently closed, and the reviews state that you can’t hear anything anymore. Through first-hand experience, I can guarantee that, as of today, the musical highway is still there and still singing. The notes aren’t that crisp, probably because the New Mexico Department of Transportation decided not to service the grooves in the road anymore, but as long as you align your right-side tires properly, you can definitely still hear it.

Sandia Crest’s elevation is 10,678 feet (3,254 meters) above sea level, so I knew it was going to get cold up there, but I didn’t realize just how cold. Not even halfway up the winding Sandia Crest Scenic Highway portion of New Mexico State Road 536, there was already snow piled up along the side of the road.

I eventually made it up near Sandia Crest, but quickly reached a point where I couldn’t advance further due to severely limited visibility.

I went back to the fork in the road and tried to take the other path, but I had no luck there either—it was a decently steep hill, and my truck ended up getting stuck in the snow. I did what felt like a nine-point turn to get out of the snow, and just parked in a random spot on the side of the road.

Of course, to add insult to injury, a small blue Subaru showed up from behind me and just zoomed right up the road that I failed to summit.

Luckily, my feet and legs have all-wheel-drive, so I used them to walk up the hill instead. When I got to Sandia Crest, shivering in the cold and being plummeted by powdered snow being blown airborne by the wind, I went to the railing and looked out past the trees—the precise location where you’re supposed to have sweeping views of Albuquerque. Well, that clearly didn’t work out.

Having no choice but to admit defeat, I returned to my truck and figured that today just wasn’t the day for a successful Sandia Crest visit. However, I did have other plans.

As I mentioned before, one of the benefits of me driving to Sandia Crest instead of taking the tram was that I could make more stops along the way for some more sightseeing. When I was headed for Sandia Crest, I drove straight up there without stopping, but on my way down, I stopped at literally every single possible stopping location to take in the views.

As I got further and further down the mountains, the weather got increasingly better, and I was able to walk around a bit without being turned into an ice statue.

My hope was to get a nice photo of Albuquerque, which clearly didn’t happen, but I got an alternative that was good enough—a nice, sweeping view of the opposite side of the mountains facing towards the east.

Even further down the mountains, I found a little building nestled in the trees. It looked like it was a commercial building and not a residential one, but if you were in fact allowed to have a residential property out here, this seems like an incredible place to have a second home. I’d definitely want a place where I could come out during times when I want to take a break from the city so I can breathe some fresh air and go on hikes through nature.

Seeing as I never actually took the Sandia Peak Tramway, I can’t necessarily conclude that driving is better, because I never actually experienced what the tram was like… but I think I did myself a huge favor by driving. The Sandia Mountains are much more than just the top, and if you’re into nature, I’d rate the Sandia Mountains as a must-see if you’re in the Albuquerque area.

(Though, as a side note, try to download an offline map of the area before you head over… I didn’t, and it was mildly disconcerting not having cell signal in the middle of a snowstorm on the top of a mountain.)

Hello, National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in New Mexico

November 23, 2021, 8:16 PM PST by Parkzer • Tourism

For my first tourist activity of Albuquerque, I decided to visit the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. The museum officially lies in an unincorporated area of Bernalillo County, but still holds an Albuquerque address.

A bulk of this museum was fairly traditional, with a mixture of some interactive exhibits, objects on display, and plaques with text. The museum opened with an area called the “Pioneers of the Atom,” which introduced notable figures who paved the way to discoveries and advancements of the atom.

Next up was a section about World War II. It started with an overview of the countries involved in the war, as well as the creation and use of the atomic bomb. It then dove deeper into things like the Manhattan Project and the assembly of the atomic bomb, and provided video footage of interviews conducted directly with some of the scientists and soldiers involved with the atomic bomb during the war.

There was a section off to the side of the World War II section that was dedicated to the temporary exhibit of the season. When I went, it was an exhibit showcasing the cruelties committed towards the Japanese during World War II, and how the United States reacted very harshly and aggressively towards the Japanese in response to their attacks. Similarly to how I got a lot of the timeline of the civil rights movement mixed up, this section made me feel particularly ignorant when I learned that this forced relocation of the Japanese-Americans happened as recently as the mid-1900s.

The next section focused on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First it showed the bomb casings of the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities, then it explained the Japanese post-war recovery process, and how the atomic bombs affected the Japanese for a very long time.

Next up on the timeline was the Cold War. Again, not having been much of a history enthusiast throughout my youth, a lot of this information was pretty new to me.

The most amusing piece of information I saw was about the concept of “MAD,” which stands for Mutually-Assured Destruction. This doctrine states that, if one side attacks the other with a nuclear weapon, they functionally guarantee the destruction of both parties, because the defending party will retaliate with equal or greater force. Thus, it is in everyone’s best interest for all parties to have extremely powerful nuclear weapons, because then, nobody will attack each other in fear of getting destroyed themselves.

At this point in the museum, there was a door leading outside to Heritage Park, which held a lot of planes, rockets, missiles, and other military equipment.

Looping back inside, the exhibits started getting closer to modern day, with nuclear medicine and radiation being the next sections. I took a little interactive quiz about radiation exposure, and apparently, my exposure is very average. Right beside it was a look back at atomic pop culture and the dawning of the Atomic Age.

The end of the museum had what looked like sponsored exhibits, and covered things like nuclear waste transportation, green energy alternatives, and the uranium cycle.

The exhibits were interesting and the military planes and equipment were nice to look at, but I think the most memorable takeaway from this museum is the overview of the historical events.

This is a continuation of something I’ve been realizing lately while going to a lot of museums during my road trip, and something I’ve been regularly mentioning in my blog—the American education system is absolutely horrible at teaching history, and somehow finds a way to make it seem as boring as possible. Now that I’m actually learning about it in a compelling way, all of these events feel much more consequential and relevant, so I’m much more interested and invested in knowing the logic behind why things happened the way they did, and how things ultimately ended up playing out.

The Texas road trip round-up

November 22, 2021, 9:16 PM PST by Parkzer • Travel

Texas is a large state, so it took some time to get through it. On top of that, my stay in Texas felt a bit longer because, not only did I stay for 11 days in Dallas (which is longer than the usual 6-7 maximum days that I spend in each major city), but I also flew to Seattle for a week and flew back to Dallas to continue my road trip.

I did a lot in Texas, but not all my activities warranted their own blog post, so I decided to do a Texas round-up with all the miscellaneous photographs I have that I want to share.

My first entry into Texas was when I was visiting Texarkana, a city that straddles both Arkansas and Texas. From there, I drove to Coppell, a northern suburb of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. My hotel of choice was the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Dallas DFW Airport North/Coppell Grapevine, a nice, clean, modern, straightforward, newly-constructed hotel. As a reminder, I’m a big fan of barebones hotels like this because it gives me everything I need and nothing I don’t need.

A few days after arriving in Dallas, I met up with my friend and former assistant Monica and her newly-engaged fiancé for some all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue. I forgot to take a photo of the actual meat that we cooked, so instead, here is a photo of the aftermath of our meal.

When Monica and I toured Dallas, we each purchased a CityPASS and went to four tourist attractions included in the bundle price. The first two attractions we went to, I already blogged about—the Dallas Zoo and Reunion Tower. The third place we visited was the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, often referred to as the John F. Kennedy Museum.

The JFK Museum wasn’t exactly the best museum I’ve ever been to, but there’s only so much that you can put in a museum about a single president. It was a lot more crowded than I expected (which was probably the case because we had to go on a weekend, because Monica works traditional hours and weekdays), so the first floor ended up being very cramped. What made it worse was that almost the entire first floor composed of big text-heavy posters and normal television-style videos, so people were crowded around and not really moving.

It ended up getting better once you got to the seventh floor, and it felt much more like an actual museum there—there were artifacts from the time period of JFK’s assassination, and there was a window where you could look out to see from where precisely Lee Harvey Oswald carried out the assassination. I took a photograph of it.

That’s not the photograph. After looking at my camera roll, Monica proudly declared to me that I had taken a photo of the wrong street, and that she had “saved my blog from doom” from my mistake. … Here’s the actual street—the location where JFK was shot is marked on the street with a white X.

Our fourth and final tourist activity of our CityPASS was the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. This museum was a mixture of a ton of different things all smashed into one museum; I actually think that this would be a great place for children to learn a fairly broad overview of a lot of scientific topics.

There was a tech area near the end of the museum with a lot of hands-on experiments and exhibits. I don’t really ever take selfies, so when I do end up with a picture of myself, I like to share it; here I am in front of a projector tracking software exhibit thing that took your face and replaced it with a 3D model. It seems like it didn’t recognize me because I had a black face covering on (as was required by the museum due to the pandemic) and my camera was in front of my face, but it recognized Monica.

After my trip to Seattle, I flew back to Dallas–Fort Worth, then drove to Decatur after I landed to get a little bit closer to my next destination, Amarillo, so I could break up the monotony of the drive the following day.

It’s a meme at this point that every Texan drives a large pickup truck. When I arrived in Decatur, I noticed that there were a lot of pickup trucks in the parking lot—more than there were any other kind of vehicle combined. In order to capture this meme moment, I snapped a photo from my hotel room window after checking in. Yes, my truck was indeed the smallest one in the lot.

Next up was Amarillo. This was an interesting hotel experience—I booked a room at the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Amarillo Central, but apparently this hotel is connected to and within the same building as the Four Points by Sheraton Amarillo Central. I’m guessing that the Fairfield Inn part was still “under construction,” in the sense that the rooms were ready, but the management of that side of the building hadn’t been staffed up yet, so the Four Points was overseeing the entire building.

I also noticed that this design and color scheme of Fairfield Inn wasn’t one that I had ever seen before. I’m curious to find out whether this is the new look of all the next-generation Fairfield Inns (as opposed to the blue carpet, black desk, and green chair look that you see above in the Dallas photograph), or if this one was just unique because it was attached to a Four Points.

(And in case you’re curious, no, I wasn’t traveling with anyone in Amarillo—I just had a room with two beds because the rate for this was cheaper than the rate for a single king bed.)

And after a few days in Amarillo (which I mostly used just to exercise in the gym, catch up on work, and relax), I headed out of Texas and into New Mexico. I missed the moment when my truck hit 30,000 miles on the odometer, but I noticed it in time to catch a photo at 30,033 miles.

Next up, Albuquerque.

Another routine trip to Seattle

November 18, 2021, 10:20 PM PST by Parkzer • Cats, Travel

With so many of our new employees being in the Seattle Metropolitan Area, I’ve added a week-long visit to Seattle as part of my routine trips, in addition to the already-existing Southern California trips. This past week, I went to visit some co-workers and friends to get some work done and do some more exploring.

The day after arriving, my plan was to stay around the Seattle area and visit one of my co-workers. The night of landing in Seattle, I stayed in a hotel overlooking Puget Sound; it had a nice view the following morning after the sun came up.

Right before checking out, a friendly seagull came to visit me right in front of my window. At first I was concerned it would fly away, so I started taking photos from far away just so I could make sure I had a picture of it, but as I got closer, it stood its ground; eventually, I was able to get right up to it and get some close-ups. That particular area right next to the window is slightly covered by the ledge above, so I’m guessing it was happily sitting there for some shelter from the rain.

Over the weekend, I visited Doug Wreden, mostly just to spend time together and play video games. On Saturday, I joined him as a guest on his Twitch live stream where we played Tetris 99, TypeRacer, and Mario Party with his viewers. Content from this stream has been added to the “Collaborations” section of my YouTube channel.

After squeezing in a few more work days early on in the week, I spent the final day before departure with Allie, who you may remember as the owner of the cats Simon and Henry.

She has apparently walked past the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in downtown Seattle a handful of times but never actually went in, so we took my trip here as an opportunity to check it out. It’s basically like three very large Starbucks stores put together, with some special menu items and even a section for alcohol. There was also a section where you could see a lot of the coffee-making machinery, as well as a coffee library in the corner that was a lot quieter than the main area.

After coffee, we visited the NEKO Cat Café, considering both of us are cat enthusiasts. You may remember that, the last time I was here, we went to Meowtropolitan; this time, we decided to try out a different cat café that was in walking distance of the Roastery that we were already at.

NEKO was quite a pleasant surprise, because apparently, they had moved all the adult cats to a different location, and the only cats available in the Seattle location were kittens. If you’re familiar with cats, you know that some of them take some time to familiarize with you, so they may be shy at first; these kittens weren’t like that at all, and they were all eager to snuggle and get picked up.

After almost an hour in kitten heaven, we got some dinner at Kizuki Ramen.

We ate at their Capitol Hill location, which made me slightly concerned due to potential political riots after Kyle Rittenhouse inevitably gets found innocent in his ongoing murder trial, but the jury was still deliberating by the end of the day and didn’t come to a verdict, so we were able to enjoy a peaceful dinner.

Afterwards, we drove around a bit in Seattle to do some sightseeing, then I dropped Allie off so she could go home for the night.

After my flight today, I’m back in Texas—I flew back into Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, then drove out to Decatur to spend a night here a bit closer to my next destination so I could break up the monotony of the drive tomorrow by a little bit.

I still have a few photos to share of my time in Dallas, but not quite enough for it to warrant its own entire blog post, so I’m most likely going to do a Texas round-up after I wrap up my stay in Amarillo and make it to Albuquerque.