ABQ Tour

We did the narrated 90 minute ABQ Trolley Tour yesterday and I highly recommend it.  That said, I can only give it 4 stars out of 5 due to hard, uncomfortable seats and a way-too-loud speaker system.  Two UNM (Go Lobos!) grads started the business a few years ago and are doing well with it.  It's narrated all the way, the narration enhanced with interspersed videos and pictures shown on 2 closed circuit TV screens.  Here are pix taken along the way.

The Kimo Theater.

You've heard of art deco?  They call this pueblo deco.

There are lots of large murals downtown.

This is the largest, titled Floating Man.

The narrator commented on this building, don't recall why.

Bart doesn't live here anymore.

Bart does live here, next door to where he doesn't live.  We're talking about Bart Prince, a Querky architect who designed lots of wild and crazy homes, including the 2 above.  The house in the first picture above, where Bart doesn't live, houses his art collection.  Here's a link to more of Bart's exotic designs:

https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&q=bart+prince+house+images&oq=bart+prince+house+images&gs_l=hp.3...2997.6076.1.6365.12.12.0.0.0.0.174.1415.1j11.12.0.cpsugrccggmnoe..0.0.0..1.1.15.psy-ab.Ah5BfK9rCHo&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47244034,d.cGE&fp=c6cd012b547d47c3&biw=1241&bih=615

Louie the Lobo on the UNM campus.

This building, one of the oldest on  the UNM campus, used to be a classic bricker.  About 30 years ago, the University president took it upon himself to tear off the roof, cover the brick with stucco and convert it to its present pueblo revival style.  The University board didn't like the conversion one little bit and promptly fired the president for his efforts.  Now, every building on campus has this same style and color.

Querky's AAA baseball team, the Isotopes, plays here.  I assumed the name Isotopes came from the large role NM played in the Manhattan Project.  Nope.  It came from The Simpsons TV show.  Some years back there was an episode in which Homer's hometown baseball team was going to be moved to Querky.  Homer was instrumental in defeating the move so the team stayed where it was.  The episode was, understandably, quite popular with folks in these parts so when the owner of the new team asked the residents to vote on a name for the team, Isotopes won by a landslide.

I like it.