A Child's View of Life. A six-year-old boy told his father he wanted to marry the little girl across the street. The father, being modern and well-schooled in handling children, hid his smile behind his hand.

"That's a serious step," he said. "Have you thought it out completely?" "Yes," his young son answered . "We can spend one week in my room and the next in hers. It's right across the street, so I can run home if I get scared of the dark."

"How about transportation?" the father asked. "I have my wagon, and we both have our tricycles," the little boy answered.The boy had an answer to every question the father raised. Finally, in exasperation, his dad asked, "What about babies? When you're married, you're liable to have babies, you know." "We've thought about that, too," the little boy replied. "We're not going to have babies. Every time she lays an egg, I'm going to step on it!"

CASINOS, CASINOS, CASINOS

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position. - Mark Twain
It is good to see that the American Indian is finally getting some of it back. Albuquerque is ideally positioned to get you to umpteen casinos (some with hotels and golf courses, one with fishing available) in less than two hours. Many only minutes from where you are visiting. Now, please don't think of them as rivaling Foxwoods or a Vegas Strip hotel, but they're sure a leg up on most of the downtown Las Vegas hotels.
I want to digress for a minute. I have never seen toilets like the ones in the Fremont hotel in Las Vegas. We stayed there for a couple of free nights and my Wild Thing discovered it first. The toilets in the bathroom of our room were, well, different. First of all, they are set at an angle in the corner. Ok, no big deal. Until it's time to flush. There is abolutely no way to use that lever unless you put the cover down. Not the seat. The lid. Only place I've ever seen with that "feature".
Our Indian casinos all have the automatic flush johns. Thank heavens.
Most of the slots are "paper" payouts. You get a bar coded ticket when you cash out (good luck) and you can turn that in for cash or play another slot. The table games are equal to those in casinos all over the States.
The food is excellent in some, boring in others. One of them has a little diner next to their all-you-can-eat. That diner serves the biggest (and one of the very best) green chili burritos in the state. You need to be hungry to finish it.
For those who smoke, the reservation land has Indian smoke shops where you don't pay federal nor state taxes. And don't let anyone tell you you must pay a sales tax. We have never had a sales tax. What is here is a "gross receipts tax". That is levied on the seller, not the buyer. On the other hand, most all sellers pass it on to you. Due to the way it is passed back to the state, they make a profit on it. Indian lands do not collect that tax, either.
Enjoy yourself in The Land Of Enchantment.

THE NATIONAL ATOMIC MUSEUM

I couldn't find a picture of an exploding nuclear (pay attention to the spelling George W.) bomb so just imagine one. We've got the only Atomic Museum in the world here. The reason for this is that the very first bomb was exploded on one of our deserts, White Sands by name. And the people who live near ground zero do not glow in the dark. At least not now.
But they don't have The Museum, either. Those people had to settle for Roswell where the BEMs (Bug Eyed Monsters) were supposed to have crash landed.
Albuquerque has The Museum. It used to be on Kirtland Air Force Base and if you were really interested in it, admission was free. It was moved off base after 9-11, but the powers that be didn't take the free land they were offered. That would have saved us all a buck or two. Instead of that, it was moved to our old town (Albuquerque goes back to the 1600's and the vicious conquistadors). I've always had a tough time figuring out how the twentieth century fits in with the seventeenth century. Now they charge admission to tour it. I mean, how many visitors (other than the Japanese and terrorists) want to pay to see photographs? And mockups? I guess somebody thought that the balloon visitors would pay to see it.
If you're interested, and you should be, it's in the area where Indians (and non-Indians) sell silver and turqouise jewelry, there's a bunch of good restaurants there, too.

THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT

Take your choice. Our winter was ridiculous this year. More snow than we have ever had. Plenty of water for our water table. Both of these pictures fit well. Back in the nineteen seventies, I was told by a native "if you don't like our weather, wait fifteen minutes." He was right. Or almost. We had one spell when midweek temperatures were in the 50's and the weekends brought snow in big quantities. That's what you get for living in the high desert and suffering global warming. Sigh.

Our state motto is "The Land Of Enchantment." At one time it was "The Sunshine State". But I think some of our influential citizens moved to Florida and we sold that motto to them. I have no idea how much we got for it. (Albuquerque is known as the Duke City. Don't ask.) On the other hand, we still get more annual sunshine than they do. Nyah, nyah. And we don't have hurricanes. Nor an ocean. But as soon as that big earthquake hits, we may have beach front property for sale.