The last full day of vacation is always the worst … you try to enjoy it, but you still know that tomorrow you’re going home.

We spent the morning and early afternoon in Old Town, the historical section of downtown Albuquerque. These quiet, shade streets are lined with quaint little shops and art galleries and other neat stuff to look at.

We had lunch at La Hacienda, one of the local restaurants famous for its chimichangas (and I will vouch that they are good). The sopapillas that came with our meal were also delicious.

By 1:00pm we had exhausted what Old Town had to offer. Without any other definite plans, we did a little relaxing at the hotel room, and drove around to see the University of New Mexico and Kirtland Air Force Base.

We’ve got an early flight back tomorrow, so it’s dinner and early to bed.

Like last Friday, when this all began, today was a travel day, with the goal being to make it back to Albuquerque. We checked out of the hotel and left Flagstaff at 9:00am (see a pattern here?) and headed east on I-40.

Our first stop was at the Meteor Crater. Formed over 50,000 years ago when a meteorite about 150 feet across impacted with Earth at 40,000mph, the resulting crater about 400 feet deep and a mile across in the middle of the flat Arizona desert. After seeing the Grand Canyon, you can only look at a hole in the ground for so long, so we spent about 30 minutes going through the adjoining museum dedicated to astro-geology, meteor craters, and the astronaut program (all of the Apollo astronauts trained at the crater before going to the moon).

We got back onto I-40 and continued west for a little while more until we came to the Petrified Forest National Park. We drove on a small winding road through the Arizona desert for about 20 miles before we finally got to the park itself. Our first view of the petrified wood came as we hiked the Long Logs trail. The rangers and signs remind you that taking petrified wood from the park is a crime punishable by a $275,000 fine and possible prison time. We could see why people want to take these rocks … they look like old wood, but have so many colors in them (from trace chemicals left when the trees were fossilized).

We continued through the park through the Painted Desert, another beautiful sight, and eventually made it back to I-40. We continued on to Albuquerque and made it to the hotel around 6:00pm. Dinner was at The County Line, a barbeque place near the Sandia Peak Tramway, the largest tram in the world that goes up the side of the Sandia Mountain. A dip in the pool back at the hotel rounded out the evening.