Albuquerque Recap!

We drove down to Albuquerque (about an 7.5 hour drive) on Friday morning & arrived there around 6pm. We drove by the Sand Dunes National Park and we couldn't resist stopping- so our trip took about an hour longer than expected! 

Sand Dunes National Park is seriously so amazing and we are already planning a camping trip there during the Fall! It was so crazy how it was 70 degrees outside and the sand was already burning Stella's paws after only a few minutes. Thankfully there were some muddy streams that we had to walk through to get to the sandy portion (due to the spring run-off) and she was able to cool-off in that. 

You can actually rent surfboards and sleds and slide down the dunes (supposedly you can also ski down the dunes, but I'm not 100% sure about that...). It was so amazing and it's also a really dog-friendly national park (most we have visited have been pretty strict). Once we left the dunes, we were off to Placitas (about 30 min outside of Albuquerque) to our air bnb that we booked! This place was seriously the cutest and the host, her name was Rebecca, was absolutely amazing! It was built in the 1920's and was originally a post office. It was nestled in the mountains and had a ton of hiking trails! 

Friday night we went out to eat at a small Mexican restaurant & went to bed relatively early. On Saturday, we were up by 7ish & I went out for a short shake-out run with Stella while Alex grabbed breakfast! We headed out to the Race Expo to pick up my bib and it was even smaller than I thought it would be (my bib number was 242)! We then headed to the ABQ BioPark Zoo- which was seriously amazing! We didn't end up going to the biopark area and just visited the zoo (to save the legs/ it was pretty hot out- 85 degrees!). 

All the animals were so adorable- including this giraffe! He was the only male and all FOUR of the females were pregnant! What a stud...

We headed out to lunch at the Bosque Brewing Company and had a flight of their various drafts to test out! Had to carbo-load and the Elephant's Parade was AMAZING. It was light, fruity, and honestly did not even taste like beer. We ended up getting growler of it!

I ended up getting the half sandwich (Italian) and half salad (greek) and it was SO good! We headed out to Trader Joes to grab some things for dinner (we were going to cook it and take advantage of the full kitchen that we had) and then back to grab Stella and head out for a short hike before the storm rolled in!

Wind-blown hair don't care. It was beautiful out

After our hike, we headed home to make dinner and relax before race day! Post about the race and my EXCITING PR will be posted shortly and over on my race recap page. 

Stunning sunset in Placitas, NM!

Ever been to Albuquerque or raced there?!?

Zoo, Botanical Gardens, or Aquarium?

What's your favorite part of traveling for races?

Happy Tuesday!