Socorro

There is a town about an hour and a half south of Albuquerque called Socorro. A few of us decided to take a mini vaca down there last weekend. Why do you ask? Well, 25 minutes south of Socorro is a small town (with no hotels) called San Antonio where there is a place called the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge. In short: Bird Refuge (and other animals too, I suppose). We heard that during the winter months these huge cranes and geese migrate there and if you go early enough in the morning you can watch them fly away for the day. Big deal right? Well, everyone was telling us that it was SO cool because they fly away at the SAME time! We decided that we had to see it...so off we went.


Of course we also did our research on restaurants down there. First stop for dinner was the Infamous Owl Bar and Cafe in San Antonio. We'd got lots of recommendations for this joint. I had to take a picture of our meals because, I don't think one of us got something without green chilies on it. If you ever come visit New Mexico you'll get used to it. Gary's meal looked a little scary, those beans with a scoop of green chilies on top, yeah, I didn't eat any of that.

This is my Green Chili Burger I ordered. It was really yummy. I think I'm starting to really enjoy this green chili thing they've got going down here. They just might be on to something! (Yes, that green stuff that looks like relish, is not relish, it's green chili)

Another neat thing about this Owl Bar & Cafe is you can write on a dollar bill and pin it to the wall. They don't take them down until the end of the year and when they do, they donate them all to charity. Last year they had $18,000. Although, there were quite a few dollar bills on the walls, I'm sure they looked a little bare compared to December 31st of last year!

After dinner we walked next door to this OLD OLD Gas station (and town store) for ice cream.

Here's Gary and his buddies

Then we went back our hotel...everyone put their kids down and then came over to the party room! (The room with no kids) And we played lots of card games and ate lots of junk food!

It's possible that we might have played games a little too late because we had to be up at 5:00am the next morning, so as to not miss the 'show'

This is my first picture just as the sun was starting to come up...you can kind of see the birds all out on the lake. They sleep out on the lake to keep safe from 'monsters' or other animals that might want to eat them.

At the refuge, they have this deck you can walk out on to wait and watch...Did I mention it was 6:00am and FREEZING cold? I really should have remembered my jacket!

All of a sudden, all these geese flew away off the lake all at the same time! There were over 22,000 of them! It was SO cool...like a ceiling of birds above us and the sound of all their wings flapping was really neat as well!

New Mexico has really pretty sunrises and sunsets...everyone should experience them at some point during their life. This morning was no different.

The cranes decided to sleep in! :) - If you notice, there are little patches of groups of cranes. I thought it was interesting that they all didn't hang out together like the geese did. We later learned that each group is a family and they stick together and sleep together as families.

The picture below was funny. The two cranes to the left decided to take off walking. Well, they are all on a thin sheet of ice and at first as they were walking, their feet kept falling through the ice with each step and then they started flapping their HUGE wings to help them keep balance but then they started sliding across the ice with their feet out in front of them. It was cute!

Eventually one or two at a time would fly away, we stuck around and watched for a while but someone should really let the cranes know that the geese put on a much better show than they did. :)

Where did the birds fly you ask? Oh, about 500 yards away to a big huge field where food is provided for them (Remember: REFUGE) They hang out and eat in these fields all day and then at sunset, they fly back to the water.

Here are the guys at the visitor center getting a little R&R.

We decided to check out of our hotel and hit a park for a little bit to let the kids play for a bit...this particular park happened to have a major horse shoe pit set up WITH BLEACHERS! We thought it was funny...but deep inside I kind of wish I could go watch the tournaments that I'm sure is held there each summer!

Then we went to eat at another recommended restaurant given to us...I really liked this one. Of course, notice the green chilies on my food...it was really yummy!