All Aboard the Rail Runner

Corey came home with this novel idea on Saturday morning after going running. "Let's ride the train today!" I thought, hmmm, this sounds like something fun and different, okay, let's do it. So, we climbed aboard the Rail Runner (a somewhat new venture for our city) around 11 am with our friends Dain and Ingrid (and their kids Dallin and Julia) ready for an adventure. Asher was thrilled about the idea. The plan was to ride it to the end of the line and back (which is about a 45 minute ride with a few stops) with a stop downtown for lunch at Tucanos. That was the plan.

Julia is such cute, chubby baby! Dallin and Asher bugging each other on the train.

We had a fun little ride on the train with a view of primarily the tagged and graffiti-ed cement and crumbling brick backs of old buildings, and some old houses in the less than desirable parts of town. Our stop for lunch was great, minus the 30 minute wait with starving children, and adults too for that matter. We all ate a little too much, which is usually the case at a place that keeps rounds of garlic and salt slathered meat coming to your table until you tell them to stop. I always leave wanting the secret to their heavenly pineapple though.

Anyways, as we were leaving the restaurant, we realized none of us knew exactly when the next train would be coming, and as we arrived at the train platform and checked the schedule the true fault in our plan was discovered...we forgot to plan our trip home. I just figured Corey and Dain had checked and knew the details of our little adventure for the day and was fully trusting in them to make our little journey a success. The next train wasn't coming for another hour and a half (which really doesn't sound disastrous, I know) and we had nothing else on the agenda. What did we do with our time? Wandered the streets of downtown Albuquerque, our first stop leading us to a random little store called Gizmos that Dain said was a sort of Department store. We are going to have to take him shopping more often. Next we headed another block down to the Hyatt hotel get some AC and let Asher indulge in yet another "bel-vater" ride. We found a Keva Juice and stopped there (as if our poor stomachs really needed anymore), and finally headed back to our train ride home. What a wierd afternoon it was! Our downtown area is in desperate need of some good shopping, etc for the poor tourists that get stuck down there!

Pink dinosaur (oops, cut off his head, he had a military hat on) in front of Gizmos.

Our poor planning resulted in some very tired parents, a missed nap, a missed birthday party (a friend of Asher's), and a new perspective of our city. We did finally make it home though, and I think next time the ladies will be doing more of the planning.