My first agenda in Albuquerque was to take my bike in for an oil change and safety check. Back in Tucumcari, something felt and sounded weird whenever my front forks dove. I thought it had something to do with my flyscreen support. I couldn't figure it out and let it go considering it's an old enough bike and had taken some abuse from the past couple weeks to have some funny sounds and what not.
Then my last evening in Santa Fe, I was determined to tighten the flyscreen to eliminate that weird clicking sound. I took out my allen wrench to hunt for a loose bolt to tighten. And I did indeed found one bolt from my front fork had rattle itself loose but another bolt on the opposite side had rattled itself completely out and was missing.
Well, that's not good and a bit scary. But there wasn't anything I could do about it at that point since it was a Sunday evening. The next morning, I went to a Lowe's in an attempt to find a matching bolt. Thankfully, I was able to. Screwed that sucker back in and the clicking noise went away. Second on the road fix.
Everything I know about Albuquerque I learned from Breaking Bad. So I had no idea what to expect when I got into town. But from riding around a bit, it appears to be a sprawled city like most other cities. Lots of Mexican food, that's for sure.
I rode to the old town district of ABQ. This is an area very similar to the Plaza of Santa Fe. Lots of adobe building selling art, jewelry, and food. Lots of tourists.
I walked around a bit, had a Mexican lunch, and kinda had enough of Old Town. Granted, I probably only felt this way because I spent so much time at the Santa Fe Plaza just a couple days ago. If you're going to ABQ, it's worth visiting Old Town, especially if you haven't been to Santa Fe.
So by mid-afternoon, I decided to go a matinee. I felt a bit guilty going to a movie while on this awesome road trip adventure. But I was feeling a bit home sick and wanted to do something I know I would enjoy, so fuck it, I'm going to the movies.
I found a theater about 15 minutes away and I saw a 4pm of Gone Girl. The film was pretty good and I enjoyed the two hours in there where I didn't have to plan anything or figure out where to go and where to be.
In the evening, I found a food truck and had a chicken sandwich and sat in an outdoor patio at a bar. An old hippee started chatting me up. It was enjoyable until he started to rant about the 1% and income redistribution and evil boogie man talk. I got out of there and went back to my airbnb. I had to get up at 5:30 AM the next morning for the ABQ Balloon Festival.