Sudden it's Summer

Suddenly, it’s Summer and I don’t need to dress warm in the morning when I walk or when I bicycle. The flowers bloom without fear of freezing.

Last weekend, we visited New Mexico on a “real” vacation. We went to “Old Town” in Albuquerque, and rode the Tram up the mountains. We went to Santa Fe and then Taos, We visited friends in a rural area south of Taos and north of Las Vegas, New Mexico. We visited Angel Fire and saw the Viet Nam Memorial. We drove and shopped, ate and drove. Touristy stuff, but interesting.

The first day, we just drove to the Continental Divide west of Grants, New Mexico. An interesting drive.

We noticed the colorful New Mexico license plates and I wondered again why Tennessee has such plain, ugly, regional plates. Tennessee is a beautiful state, and the license plates don’t do it any justice whatsoever. Talk about a lost PR opportunity!

I wish I had my bicycle, (although we flew to Albuquerque, so it would have been difficult). New Mexico has a lot of bicycling opportunities.

We enjoyed New Mexico and are already planning our next visit, probably to stay several days in Santa Fe this time.

We flew out of Nashville, so we could use some unused funds from Southwest. (Memphis is a nice airport, but can be excessively expensive to fly from. Frequently we fly Southwest from Little Rock or Nashville, usually Little Rock. The schedule to Albuquerque-I finally learned how to spell that!-from Nashville was so much better that it was worth the extra drive.

We did find the parking at the Nashville Airport is just as bad (or worse) than the “on airport” parking at the Memphis Airport. At both airports, they use the “bus stop” method, with large, mostly empty buses.

In Nashville, the “shuttle” (actually a very inefficient large “city bus” size) drivers were extremely rude and unhelpful. I don’t see how they stay in business. When we were returning, a lady was getting on the bus and the bus driver pulled out and almost caused her to fall. How do they ever stay in business?

In the future, we’ll do as we do in Memphis-use off-airport parking!

Memphis actually charges $11.00 per day and we parked them only one time! Not only are they expensive and use inefficient buses, but it is inconvenient and almost impossible to haul heavy bags to the excessively large “shuttle” bus.

I don’t see how either airport parking transportation meets the requirements of the American with Disabilities Act.

In Memphis we found a very nice off-airport parking with a courteous shuttle bus driver (who normally actually jumps out and helps you load/unload luggage) who drives to your car to pick you up and to your car to drop you off! The price is just over 50% of on-airport parking!

Both Little Rock and Oklahoma City airports have small shuttle buses with courteous drivers who pick you up at your car and drop you off at your car. I wonder why Memphis and Nashville can’t see the light and provide decent on-airport parking.

Other than the rude, inefficient on-airport parking in Nashville, we had a wonderful and enjoyable trip. As usual, it was nice to get back to Lakeland, but we enjoyed New Mexico.

Two things we missed we want to see if White Sands and Los Alamos.