Spring has come to Albuquerque

Traveling west from Oklahoma City today we enjoyed the changing scenery. Farmland and wind farms in western Oklahoma, the boring and very flat Texas panhandle including feedlots, and the desert and mountains of New Mexico. In Albuquerque, it's spring.

The sun was shining in the Plaza in Old Town.

Historic San Felipe church in the Plaza

Even the Mexican curio shops are full of sunshine!

Real spring flowers in bloom in the courtyards with tourist shops.

Wall paintings and benches in sun-filled courtyards

Around an hour before we made it to Albuquerque we changed drivers at a super-touristy roadside attraction called "Cline's Corners." (If you've read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, it's that kind of place, only bigger.) The copied ceramic story-teller statues and fake Indian pots all made in China, the junky copies of Indian jewelry and cheap imitation Indian blankets were depressing, but this was the worst:

"Medicine Man Speaks -- $1.00"

I really could not believe I was seeing this in the twenty-first century! I thought they got rid of this kind of thing long ago.