New Mexico Trip kickoff: to Albuquerque

For our first flight in nearly 2 years, we decided to treat ourselves... we booked first class tickets round trip for the short flights. We shut down early for the day, took an Uber (again, our first in nearly 2 years) to the airport, and made our way through security. Because we were flying Alaska, we were able to use their fancy lounges -- something we couldn't do with our Priority Pass access. So we found a nice little table by the window and settled in. Ahh. 

The lounge isn't Beijing lounge nice, but it was airy and pretty and relatively quiet. The limited food may have been due to COVID? Not sure. But we had a couple of drinks and some snacks and relaxed. Feeling antsy, we left and went for a walk, popping in to one of the other lounges, too. Because, well, why not? We were on HOLIDAY. 

The flight was short an uneventful. We had preordered our meal (???!!!???), a "harvest grain bowl" that was fresh and lovely. And of course we had a drink or two. See, it turns out that when I booked the rental car, the rental car office closed at 10pm, so we wouldn't be able to pick it up until early the next day. 

We arrived, got our bags, then called for the airport shuttle. The room was nice, quiet, and spacious. We tried going for a walk to see if there was anywhere open to grab a bite to eat -- we had an amusing moment at the Burger King, where we walked in and surprised a crew member ("how did you get in?" "umm, through the front door?") and ordered two Impossible Whopper meals. We got our drinks and waited, and another employee saw us and yelled "why are there people here?". The woman told him what we had ordered, and he told us they couldn't make it because the grill was turned off. (Huh?) They asked us what we wanted to change our order to, so we pretended not to know that NOTHING ELSE WAS VEGETARIAN. So they gave us a refund and we left. Note: this is the only bad dining experience we had all week long. 

Back in the room we ate cookies, I had a hot shower, and we went to sleep. 

Tomorrow: to Santa Fe!

** A quick note about this post -- I'm going through my New Mexico memories and backdating blog posts to each day.