If you are here, you are looking to find out more about my trip to Albuquerque in the Spring of 98.

This all started when I was about 10 as my family trekked across Texas, from Louisiana through New Mexico, to visit our relatives in Albuquerque. I wrote a small book, about 3x3 inches in size and about 20 pages long which documented the trip. It has not survived the years, but it does in my memory. Each page was for a day of the trip and had a map of Texas that indicated our progress across the state, and one sentence on what we did that day. One might say that this web page is a continuation of my earlier efforts ;-)

Below are thumbnail images, click on each one to see a larger version of it. All pictures were taken with a Kodak DC 25 digital camera, uploaded directly from the camera to my Mac compatible using Kodak's proprietary software (super easy to use), and manipulated (adjusting lighting, color balance, contrast, and brightness) using that same software. The skating and soccer pictures were cropped using Photoshop.

Thursday afternoon I met with my cousin, Chuck, at the mall field office of the real estate firm he works for. The mall was only interesting in that it was big, so no pics.

The next day, Friday, we went to visit Mun, my Grandmother. She was born in 1906 and is in pretty good health. Only arthritic knees and a little confusion keep her from living on her own. She told me some great stories on her life and my mom. And she told me that I was named after my mom's best friend's father (at least, that's Mun's story and she's sticking to it!).

After visiting with her, we went to the Petroglyphs National Monument, which is right on the western outskirts of Albuquerque. The monument protects 10s of thousands of images hammered into ancient lava stones. The oldest were created by ancestors of the Pueblo Indians in the 13th century, while the newer by Spanish/Mexican shepherders in the 19th century (they carved Christian crosses and such).

The first image is of a lizard holding a rattle, and a sign warning to stay on the paths.

This is my cousin Chuck (who is the oldest of all of us of the same generation, I'm the youngest). He's pointing at a petroglyph!

This is me looking properly cavalier after climbing nearly to the top of this squat ancient volcanic cone.

Here is an image showing two birds, one is obvious, the other is looking to the right inside the box. There is some other image carved into the rock to the right.

This is an image of a man dancing, possibly a warrior. We also see what appears to be a sun disk with a spiral within.

There are a few more pictures of the petroglyphs, I'll post them some other time. On to other events!

That evening, we took Chuck's daughters (my first cousins, once removed), Erica (13, on the left) and Michelle (9) roller skating/blading. As you can see, they forced me to skate. I did pretty good, didn't fall once, didn't skate a whole lot either... ;-)

The next day, Saturday, was soccer games for the girls. I was a soccer-'uncle', which meant I was reponsible for staying 'till the end of Erica's game, and taking us both to Michelle's game, which had already started... except... I didn't get directions, so we got lost until a kindly stranger told us the way. By then I was grumpy... I think Erica was surprised to find out that 'Uncle' Paul could be anything other than fun (i.e. silly).

Erica and Michelle both played great! Erica's team was tied in a really exciting back and forth contest. Unfortunately, Michelle's team got whupped pretty bad. Michelle charged the ball well and kicked hard. Erica challenged opposing players with confidence, kicked with authority, and passed to her fellow players right on cue starting several good attacks! It was a blast to watch them play!

Erica played goalie the second half of their game, and here is a picture of her coming off the field in their way cool new goalie's jersey.

Unfortunately, my pictures of Michelle playing are not very good. Turns out that pictures of people from a distance really suffer with this camera due to low pixel resolution compared to traditional film. (Sorry Michelle!)

I was pretty much out of space on the camera (it holds 15 higher resolution images), so no more pics.

After soccer, I went to my grandmother's for supper and then to watch the Utes! beat North Carolina.

Sunday was filled with another visit with my grandmother, some tutoring my cousin about some internet stuff, then I flew home.