(Day 3) Trinidad, a Polar Bear, and the last CCI.

(So... I found out Blogger and my Tablet don't play so nice and the joy of auto save when the draft of this entire post got deleted and saved over as I was typing up the conclusion... pretty much losing about 3 hours of work... So this is the second time I've had to make this post... and I pretty much half-assed it because I was annoyed)

Woo, Albuquerque day!

So in the original planning... Some of the parks on the trip hadn't yet posted their 2015 hours.. So I was doing my best to judge what they might be based off what they posted for 2014. We knew Cliff's wasn't gonna be open on Monday's (and that Mile High Flea Market was weekends only) so I got that all settled at least... The plan for the day was start at the Rio Grande Zoo and try and get to the Sandia Peak Tramway before heading over to Cliff's for the afternoon and continuing onward to our hotel somewhere halfway between Albuquerque and Colorado Springs. Well, as the parks started updating their sites for 2015 hours we found out Cliff's would be closing at 5 pm the day we would be there, with the park adding their late night hours the very next week. In the end it was helpful since now we could get a hotel further out of Albuquerque and have less of a drive the next morning and I wouldn't have to be driving late at night into the Rockies.... But it also meant we wouldn't' have time now for the Tramway... Oh well, next time?

So I knew the city had a Zoo since I had found its website doing a quick Google search... But I didn't realize it was part of this whole "ABQ BioPark" complex, home to not just the Rio Grande Zoo, but also a Botanic Garden (with working Heritage Farm), and the Albuquerque Aquarium.
(with a combo ticket for all 3 available)

Uh, welcome to the ABQ BioPark

Just don't take photos!!!
Because the Aquarium and Gardens opened an hour before the Zoo we started over here.
The Aquarium, while nice.. is tiny. I'd go as far to say its probably the smallest one I've been to, even smaller than the former Washington DC Aquarium
(that I didn't had closed until I looked it up for this post :( )

The Atlantic Coral Reef display.

Fish tanks... and stuff..

OMFG! WE FOUND NEMO!
Now lets never, ever, make that reference again. Thanks.

Oh man, little Seahorse Buddy!

Also, this sad and lonely looking Cuttlefish.

Ugh, and some awful Jellyfish.

But.. Sharks! :D

The Aquarium's restaurant, Shark Reef Cafe  also looked into the large Shark Tank.
Kinda neat.

Also, downstairs is 'Ship's Cove' featuring a bunch of model boats.. I think they used to have more tanks down here or something but now its just the models. After finishing a quick second lap of the Aquarium we made our way next door to the Botanic Garden.
The gardens are divided into little themed areas based off geographical regions or seasons of the year. The place is actually pretty big and was rather nice. We didn't rush the place.. but we walked kinda quickly to try and see as much as we could but still making it over to the zoo area for its opening.

Starting off with the Children's Fantasy Garden and its Living Dragon.

And the tunnels of Bug Bend... where we got to be mites.

And.. uh.. these giant carrots?
seems like something that belongs at Six Flags...

Oh man! Ducks! Uh, the first ducks of New Mexico?
Annddd they were super pretty male Wood Ducks!
(quack quack)

One of the ponds within the garden.

Nymphaeaceae, one of my favorite kind of flowers....

Pretty pretty Lily Pads.

Also, Cacti! Lots and lots of Cacti!!!

In fact, they had an entire section of them in the Desert Conservatory.

Uh... pink... flower.. thing?
They really needed to have better labels, ha.

White Lilies

Sasebo Japanese Garden with rock garden.
(Sasebo is a Sister-City of Albuquerque)

The waterfall and Koi Pond.

Lots of pretty flowers.

Yellow/Orange Roses in the High Desert Rose Garden

Again, I wish they had better labels.. these were pretty neat.
Maybe if I were a botanist.

And hidden away in the back is the Rio Grande Heritage Farm where we kept seeing bunnies.

The zoo and the gardens actually butt-up to each other but because their entrances are on opposite ends... you can either take a model train between the two, or drive about 2 miles to the other parking area. The train ran on cycles of every half hour and because we had limited time, we opted to just drive over in the car.

After the quick drive, we made it over to the Zoo's entrance... Where we quickly found out it was School/Summer Camp Field Trip day and the place was going to be packed with lots of awful screaming children.
Yaayyy!

Woo, the Zoo!
(uh, opened in 1927)
Once inside we quickly looked past the Tropical America section, trying to outrun all the kids...

Mr. Gator welcomed us to the reptiles house.

And Miss Eagle greeted us in the Raptor area.

Inukshuk Bay.... with a Polar Bear on the sign?!
Ooooh man

!!!!!!
I had no idea they had a Polar Bear here!!
Annndddd it was swim time!
(it was amazing!!!!!)

Oooh man! And they had a Hyrax too!
(I got to pet one once, at the Cheetah Hunt media event)

The Mountain Lion was not amused to see us.

Although the Tiger sure seemed to be having a nice day.

So... many... ducks!
Almost... too many?
Making our way around the zoo to the Australia area..

We found it was nap time for the little Tasmanian Devil

Awww! And the adorable Tree-Kangaroo was cuddling up with a teddy bear!

 The regular Kangaroo's were all trying to keep cool in the shade since it was 96*'s out.

Uh, Kookaburra
Afterwards we walked over to the Africa section

:O and the Watusi moo moo's!

But the highlight was this!
Big mama Hippo with her calve.
It was hard to get a photo of the baby, but it would come up for air every few minutes and then go back to hiding along side mom. <3

And.. uh.. this Giraffe.

Mire Mire MIRE, Elefante Elefante!!!

And one last zoo photo of one of the many free roaming Peacocks.

The local ABC/7News were at the zoo when we were making our way out
After the Zoo we decided to grab a quick lunch before heading down the road to Cliff's for the afternoon.

Pulling into a Sonic we saw in passing. Man, I love me some Sonic although I don't go as much as I used to.
(before moving to Florida where I live a few blocks from one... I used to always go out of my way to stop at one on my trips)

Yup, Sonic!
Nothing to see here....

Just ignore the drunk and belligerent lady being removed from the premises....

Because I have a Peanut Butter Milkshake annddd Jalapeño Poppers!!!
(mmmmm)

Haha, Rob ended up finding an It'z arcade token on the ground at Sonic. Between 2006 and 2012, It'z had a coaster in it.. but since its long gone we didn't go check it out.
(although the Arcade is still open)
Plus, we had better things to do...

Woo!
Cliff's Amusement Park
One of just two parks in the entire state of New Mexico

And home to this gem of a coaster.....

The New Mexico Rattler!
The last CCI coaster ever built (and barely finished...) and the only reason we made the trek down to Albuquerque.

Dropping down the first hill into one of the many tunnels....

Racing into the final helix.

Rattler is the longest coaster in the state, and based off the two I've ridden... the best.

It's also the only wood coaster in New Mexico..
 And a lot of fun, although its kinda rough toward the back.

Although not unbearable...
Up the lift we go!

New Mexico Rattler pretty much takes up half of the entire parks land... Going under, over, and around almost every ride on the right side of the park.

And because of that, you can get all up under the structure.
(Used here in the kiddie area to provide some much needed shade, haha)

It's also a real pain to get good photos of, unless you take them from on other rides in the park

CCI was known for its use of strong Lateral G-Force and this ride sure delivers with its lack of banked turns!

Almost all of the second half of the ride is in this shot, as well as Wind Rider, the newest ride in the park and the second tallest ride at Cliff's.

It replaced the parks old Paratrooper ride (or maybe Rock-O-Plane)
This was my first time encountering the Park Model version of ARM's Vertigo.

The view from the top, 115 feet up was rather nice.
(the breeze it provided was also fantastic!)

You can see the entire park from the ride, here's the right side, showing how Rattler makes its way around the park.

  You can also see the city itself, including Downtown Albuquerque.

After we made our way over to Cliffhanger, the tallest ride in all of New Mexico. The lovely 120 foot model of the ARM Super Shot. We must have ridden it 8 or 9 times over the day. <3
After our first ride on it, we made our way over to the only other coaster in the park.

A very well kept SDC built Galaxi, one of the nicest ones I've come across.

One of just seven Galaxi's let in the US.
Growing up in New England we had four of them in the area, only one is left

Currently these are the only two coasters at Cliff's although a few years ago the park 'acquired' the former Schwarzkopf Shuttle Loop from Astroworld that had been in storage at Joyland in Texas for a few years before reportedly being moved to Larson's factory in 2012.

Cliff's is also home to a nice Moser Sidewinder

Despite getting third degree burns from the black OTSR that had been baking in the desert heat all day, the ride ran a pretty long cycle and even swings riders out over the water for the Log Flume runoff.

The park model Ring of Fire was down the entire time we were in the park, although we did see active work taking place on the train.

Cliff's was also the first place I've found with a 'Park Model' of the Zamp Happy Swing.
(haha, I've actually ridden two of them down here in Florida :/ )

But there was no shame in riding the lovely Chance Sea Dragon!

The parks flume, named Log Flume was about as uninspired as the name itself.

And failed to even get us wet really... even after two rides.

So we gave The Big Flush Water Coaster a try...

This time, I was sure to not ride the black side... Not that it mattered much, it was still insanely hot in the tube. ha

We also took the parks train for a lap, the ride is surprisingly long for how small the park is. It basically does a giant S around the center of the park before making a loop around the property line.

A good portion of the ride is spent either under or right next to New Mexico Ratter

Tucked away in the corner of the park behind the flume is "WaterMania!" and the Splash Fort named "Mega Water Monkeys"

Yup, its called Mega Water Monkeys....

Eww, the park had this rather poor policy that in all of my travels I've only ever come across once before. Like I get why they would do it.. but as far as guest satisfaction goes, its pretty crappy.
(and the park I visited that followed this rule sure did piss off the people in line when they just closed for the night)

Ah, and before getting our last ride on Rattler and hitting the road North, to Colorado, we took the parks Chance built Falling Star for a ride. Due to the extreme heat, every few cycles the ride op would get a garden hose and spray the seats down to cool them off.
(how odd, but also nice for our butts)

It was also kinda funny to me seeing people absolutely loose their minds on the ride that at most other parks would be considered tame.
But with our 250 mile drive ahead of us.. we made our way out of the park and on the way to Southern Colorado.

Ha, it was at this point where we really realized how much of a struggle the poor rental was gonna give us.... Mountain climbing in a Spark... not recommended. At one point even the cruise control automatically disengaged... good times.

Also, how did this happen? In the middle of the desert we drive right into a pretty big thunderstorm.

Neat rock formation we saw along the drive

Yup.. drive drive drive.. We ended up passing into the Santa Fe metro area.. but because we were trying to stay ahead of the storm we had already gotten stuck in, we kept going.

VEGAS BABY!!!
Oh wait, wrong state.....
Lets keep going...

For miles... and miles

You stay over there storm!
"that's where tornado's are born!"

and miles and miles and miles...
But suddenly....

Welcome (back) to Colorful Colorado!
(And Las Animas County! Woo) 

And while we were maybe only 10 miles out from our hotel, we pulled off the highway at a scenic overlook

... For Fisher's Peak at Raton Pass

Look at me! I'm at the most Northern part of Southern Colorado I've ever been!
(Uh, well, at that point at least.)

One last look at Fisher's Peak as we race off to the finish line in Trinidad

As the storms catch up with us, we headed off to find somewhere to eat. My GPS ended up bring us to a Pizza Hut that was so long gone, the building wasn't even standing anymore.... Ha

Ah, beautiful downtown Trinidad, Colorado.
We made it!

Oh man, a candy shop located next to a place called the Duck Inn?
Maannn, we should have stayed here!

While just driving around the town looking for a place to eat we ended up at a park in the middle of the town, Cimino Park

  Steam Engine 638, ranked #8 of the 18 'things to do' in Trinidad on TripAdvisor!

 The Purgatoire River

 Flowers.. and stuff at Cimino Park

 Man... if those kids hadn't been around.. I so would have gone down that slide.

Yup, Trinidad.
I'm not sure what was up with most of the places we visited having giant light up signs overlooking the city with either the name of where we were or just shapes (like say, a giant star)

 The view of Trinidad from our hotel as the massive thunderstorm rolls in.

 Oh man, sweeettt... Second time eating at Sonic in the same day... but now in the different state!

 Because the storm was getting pretty bad, we got our stuff to go and quickly made our way back up the hill to our hotel and called it a night.

Oh man, and back at the hotel... a bear! :D
Ok, sleepy sleepy time.
(well, after updating Flickr, Coaster-Count, and my County Map!)

So yeah, Cliff's was nice.. but its tiny. I knew it was small but I guess Rob was unaware until we showed up, ha. I also kept trying to envision where new rides could be added into the park and make guesses as to where they were gonna squeeze the shuttle loop in... The zoo was pretty nice too.. although because we were early it seemed like there were a lot of 'no shows' for the animals and terrible kids were screaming didn't help. My overall impression of Albuquerque was rather nice (despite the warnings I got about it being dangerous) I'd like to come back sometime but being 'remote' for a 'major' US city, I don't really see myself being back anytime soon.

Yaayyy, and the bonus Twitter stuffs!

Albuquerque Aquarium video (via Vine) - Video

Cliff's overview - Photo

Wind Rider POV (via Vine) - Video

Middle of nowhere New Mexico (via Vine) - Video

 Steam Engine 638 - Photo

Woo

it was even more fun writing this up the second time!!!