New Mexico, November 20 - 23, 2008.

Thu 11/20. CO flights from Newark to Albuquerque via Houston were uneventful. We checked out our rental car and drove the 200+ miles to Durango, much of it in the dark through sparsely populated terrain. We were surprised to see the Durango lights below us as we got close since we didn't know we were driving on a mesa. It's a skiing town, but it was too early for the ski season, so the town was quite quiet. Looked nice enough, though.

Fri 11/21. Drive from Durango to Mesa Verde took over an hour. Anne had to find a payphone to call in to a conference call (no cell phone service), so I wandered about the museum. Drove the “Mesa Top Loop” and looked at various sites that showed the “evolution” of housing from AD500 to AD1500. Then took a guided tour to see the “Spruce Tree House” named after the way the discoverers of the pueblo got down to the site. It's a largish area with a population of 80 people at its peak – an estimate arrived at from the 8 kivas that accommodated about 10 persons each.


The Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde National Monument.

Aztec National Monument. The pueblo wasn't built by the Aztecs, but the name stuck. We actually had a bit of traffic in this little town. Walked around the ruins.


In front of the Aztec pueblo ruins.

Sat 11/22. Skytram to top of Sandia Mountains took us on a 2+ mile run in 15 minutes, rising from an elevation of 6000 ft to over 10,000 ft. Got to see the valleys and mountains surrounding the area, with the highest mountain at over 13,000 ft. Albuquerque is flat, but surrounded by many high mountains. Very prominent on a reservation is a casino, I wonder how they get enough patrons to sustain the many casinos in the area.


View of Albuquerque from the tram. Notice the casino in the upper middle part of the picture.

Sante Fe. Town has a strict ordnance on how it should look like, and all (most) buildings were different shades of earth tone. The original name of the town was “La Villa Real de la Sante Fe de San Francisco de Asis” befitting the Spanish governor Peralta that gave it the name. Walked around the plaza. Had lunch and then drove to Sante Fe Opera.


Many buildings in Sante Fe are decorated for the holidays. Notice the "paper bags" on the rooftop.

Bandelier National Monument. About 100 miles from Albuquerque. The estimated population here was 700, with a lot of rooms in the valley and others in the hills. We even hiked to the Alcove that is ½ mile away from the development. It rises 140 feet above the valley floor and we had to climb 4 sets of ladders to get to it. Had to jog part of the way as park closes at 5 pm. Somehow city planning is the same across all cultures: the masses and elite live separately, and the latter live in places with a view.


Climbing up the ladder into one of the cliff rooms.


One of four sets of ladders to get to the Alcove. The alcove itself is quite small.


Sun 11/23. We had time to visit the Indian Culture Museum. It is dedicated to the 19 pueblo tribes in the Northwest New Mexico area. I was surprised to find some of the pueblos only had a few hundred people. The short stroll in Albuquerque's Old Town was not particularly interesting. They do have a very old church where a service was just finishing up. We heard a lot of foreign accents there.

The flight from Albuquerque to Houston was via a 737 (it was a regional jet coming over). We were surprised how much they could pack in: passengers and carry-on luggage kept coming in. Flight from Houston to Newark was a bit late, but we got home in good time.

Overall, it was a good trip. We were a bit overwhelmed by all the pueblos we saw on the trip. I was somewhat disappointed that there didn't seem to be a great effort to put the people in the area in context, though.

Chicago, October 31, 2008 to November 3, 2008.

We made a short trip to Chicago. It's a city I had wanted to visit (again) for quite a while, with its proximity to Lake Michigan, museums, and other attractions. We booked a trip (air + rental car) via lastminute.com

Friday 10/31/08. Newark-Chicago on United. Flight okay. Anne and I each had a row to ourselves. Stayed at La Quinta by O'hare.

Saturday 11/1/08. Art Institute of Chicago. I was looking forward to visit this place, with its claim of a large collection of impressionist paintings. Alas, they are building a new “modern wing” for the museum, and thus many of the pieces were in storage. I am sure some van Goghs were on loan to MoMA for the van Gogh “Colors of the Night” show (which I saw several weeks ago in NYC). Fortunately, there were still quite a few well-known pieces like Wood's American Gothic, Hopper's Nighthawk, and Seurat's A Sundady on La Grande Jatte (see below).




We had to wait for 45 minutes or so before we could get into the Shedd Aquarium. They certainly could have run a more efficient ticketing operation, but that would make the exhibit too crowded. I always look forward to aquarium visits but come away a bit disappointed; this was no exception. Surprisingly there was no obligatory shark tank, perhaps we missed it?

To round out the evening, we saw a performance of “The Damnation of Faust” by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Sunday 11/2/08. Walked to Navy Pier. Had a Chicago-style hot dog with pickle and chili pepper. Took the 1-hour architecture river cruise. The tour guide was quite informative (actually we got an information overload) as he talked about the history of the city, the different architecture styles, and some of the landmarks. Buildings we saw included the Sears Tower, the Trump Tower (still under construction), the Lyric Opera, and the Post Office. He also mentioned how the Chicago River was dammed so the polluted water would flow downstream (to St. Louis?) instead of into Lake Michigan. Indeed there are locks to control access to the Lake.

We took the Water Taxi from the Navy Pier to Shedd Aquarium (on Lake Michigan) to visit the Field Museum. We bought tickets for the Aztec exhibit. It was disappointing as I didn't walk away having any deeper understanding of the culture. I did learn the Aztecs empire lasted only 100 years or so. Other displays weren't all that great either. We did get to see Sue, the T. Rex skeleton unearthed in 1990. Another display indicated that out of the last 5 mass extinctions 3 were caused by global cooling and 2 by global warming (if I remember correctly). They are attributing the current mass extinction to man.

Dinner with Cornell friend Emily and her husband Wen at an all-you-can eat Sushi restaurant. We had a lot of food (14 rolls altogether). The food was great, especially when we first started. At about $16 per person, it was a bargain. Time well-spent with old friends.

Monday 11/3/08. Millennium Park. It is a short 15-minute walk from the Comfort Inn we stayed at. Park has many interesting architectural pieces such as the "egg" and the Gehry-designed outdoor concert hall.


The "Egg" (officially called the Cloud Gate) designed by Anish Kapoor.

Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio in Oak Park. Anne is much more of a fan of Wright than I am. All this integration with nature is a bit of after-the-fact rationalization as far as I am concerned. I still don't understand why he liked such enclosed spaces, and why the chairs tend to be so small. What's most memorable, though, is the smell of the rotten gingko fruits.

Flight Chicago to Newark. Upgraded to first class and got a free snack (yay!). We are joking we should plan a “Food Tour of Chicago” next time as there are quite a few attractive looking restaurants. As the tour guide said, every thing about Chicago is bigger. Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better though: CSO (compared to New York Philharmonic), Field (Museum of Natural History), Shedd (Baltimore), Art Institute (MoMA), and I can go on. Nonetheless, the trip was quite enjoyable overall.