Thanksgiving in NM Photo Dump Part One: Hanging out with the kids.

I have a couple months of trips and photos to blog, and a lot of photos I've already uploaded but not yet sorted through.

The first trip was for Thanksgiving to visit New Mexico and my youngest child as well as my newest grandchild (the later was only a couple weeks old!)

I drove cross country with Cinnamon, and we stopped two nights each way to make for an easier drive. Gone are the days where I'd drive 15- 17 hours straight! On they way down I stopped at Barstow and Holbrook. Both stops were pretty uneventful. Because it was raining most of the trip, I didn't make any of my usual stops, and I was a bit sad passing the Continental Divide landmark without snapping at least one photo due to the pouring rain.

After Thanksgiving I had more opportunity to use the camera, driving into the BioPark in Albuquerque on Saturday to visit the zoo and Sunday to go to the Botanical Gardens for the River of Lights.

For some reason Blogger uploads them in the reverse order of my selection, so we'll travel backwards in time with these for my trips with the kids:

River of Lights: Albuquerque BioPark

I was really happy with the River of Lights this year, and with the upcoming changes and increase in the garden layout both for the day to day operation and for the holiday lights.

always happy to see a whale ;)

The Japanese garden had some new additions to the light show, including these really pretty lit globes.

Each area of the garden was themed. The Children's garden was closed this year, and the items that were in that area of the park were now in other places.

The dinosaur area behind Heritage Farm was new to me if not brand new. It was a fun space.

The Rio Grande Zoo (Albuquerque BioPark):

I was so excited about seeing the penguin house for the first time, since it was in early stages of planning when I left NM for CA. I have to admit I was disappointed. I got better penguin viewing at the Cal Academy, and the interactive parts of the exhibit were not functioning, which was a bummer not only for me, but for my grandson as well.