Unpacked: S3, E5: Unpacking Albuquerque

AFAR

In season three of Unpacked, we're introducing "Unpacking," a series that explores some of our favorite destinations around the world. First up: Albuquerque, land of hot air balloons, chiles, and some fantastic outdoor spaces. Join host Aislyn Greene as she unpacks the Southwestern city's outdoorsy roots.  Read the full transcript here: https://rebrand.ly/mnmmxah  Discover more episodes of the Unpacked by AFAR podcast here:  https://link.chtbl.com/AFARYouTubeUnpacked  ---- CONNECT WITH AFAR Afar.com is a digital and print magazine that publishes travel tips, guides, news, and stories: https://www.afar.com  Get updates on the latest articles, travel news, and more from AFAR by signing up for the AFAR newsletter: https://afar.com/newsletters  Follow AFAR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfarMedia Follow AFAR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/afarmedia Follow AFAR on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afarmedia Follow AFAR on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/afarmedia

Transcript

00:00 Hey everyone, and welcome to the third season of Unpacked, a podcast by afar. I'm Aislinn,

00:05 and as you can probably tell by this giant microphone in front of my face, I host the show.

00:09 Every week on the podcast, we unpack a different tricky topic in travel,

00:15 and this week is no exception. This is Unpacked.

00:28 The story of Albuquerque is a story about outdoor spaces. This southwestern city is one of the

00:35 oldest in the United States. It sits within the Rio Grande Valley, which was created 10 million

00:41 years ago. So the connection with the land runs deep here, infusing everything from the hotels

00:47 you might book to the New Mexican wines you'll drink. Let's start from the top, literally.

00:53 I am more than 300 feet above the ground in the Sandia Peak Tramway that's zooming me,

00:59 and a bunch of others, up to the top of Sandia Peak. As we look around the cliff faces surrounding

01:04 us, I'm sure you've noticed I have a reddish pinkish hue. This is actually where the Sandia

01:07 Mountains gets their name from, Sandia meaning...watermelon. Yes, when the first Spanish

01:12 conquistadors came to the Native American settlement in Albuquerque, they looked up at

01:16 these mountains during sunset to see them look a bright pink. It made them think of a nice slice

01:20 of watermelon and the name has stuck ever since. The mountains are a lovely shade of pinky red as

01:25 they sit by, though we're far from sunset. We reach the top and I step out into chilly alpine air.

01:32 Most people head for the shorter, easier trails, but I want something a bit quieter.

01:37 So I follow La Luz Trail, which zigzags along the side of the peak. This, by the way, is also

01:43 the trail that you can use to hike up or down if you want to skip the tram. I recommend down because

01:48 it's 7.5 miles one way. About a half an hour later, I stop. I still haven't encountered a single other

01:56 person on the trail. It's late November, but the skies are blue and the sun is warming me.

02:01 With 310 days of sun each year, this is a city that does outdoors right. It's so quiet I only

02:09 hear the wind and the leaves rustling. I can't believe I'm only 15 miles from downtown Albuquerque

02:14 because the city feels a world away. But I know that Sandia Peak is much more than an incredible

02:20 recreation spot. It is also sacred land. For the Sandia people who have lived here for more than

02:27 700 years, the mountain is a spiritual source as well as a food source. We'll hear more about

02:33 the Sandia people as well as the other 18 pueblos in the state later in the episode. But for now,

02:39 I simply acknowledge that I am walking through the traditional homelands of the Tewa people.

02:44 And I know that as a visitor, I have much to learn.

02:47 When I arrive in Albuquerque, it's late. The city glows, beckoning as we land. I pick up my

02:55 rental car and slowly make my way to Los Poblanos. If you've been to Albuquerque or read about it,

03:01 you may have heard of the inn. It's famous for its iconic lavender-covered campus designed in

03:07 1932 by John Gaw Meem, the architect known as the "Father of Santa Fe Style." As I drive north

03:14 toward Los Poblanos, I notice that it's getting increasingly darker. And by the time I park and

03:19 turn off my lights, it is utterly dark. I step out, I look up, and bam, I am hit with the clearest

03:26 night sky I've seen in the last year. The stars twinkle down as if to say, "Yep, we're still here,

03:32 and we're still gorgeous." It feels at that moment like a blanket settles over me, calming and

03:37 tranquil. And that feeling continues as I check into my very cozy room. There are hardwood floors,

03:44 colorful rugs, and a separate living room and kitchen with a gas fireplace that I immediately

03:49 turn on. Sleep, as you can imagine, comes easy that night. When I wake the next morning, a very

03:56 different sight awaits. The sun is rising, clouds are streaking over the sky, a perfect day for a

04:02 walk around the 25-acre grounds with Sarah Sheesley, director of marketing for Los Poblanos.

04:07 So these are our culinary gardens, and we have herbs and edible flowers and various perennials

04:16 and animals here and then out in the fields beyond. We're surrounded by the inn's gorgeous

04:23 lavender fields. They are blooming now but will become a riot of purple in June and July.

04:29 This whole property was originally, it was been farmed for millennia by the Pueblo people that

04:37 lived here for a long time. And then over the years, it was farmed in different ways.

04:44 And then the Rembes, they moved to the property in the 70s and just lived here with their family

04:51 for 20 years. And before they decided to open it up as a small B&B and started growing

04:58 organic lavender. The Rembes still own and operate the inn, by the way. Los Poblanos is so deeply

05:05 connected to the earth that it extends to all facets of the inn. Since the 1970s, Los Poblanos

05:11 has used lavender in lotions, salves, soaps, and honey. Now they even use it along with other

05:16 botanicals in their two new gins, which are delicious. Of course, lavender shows up on the

05:22 plate at the on-site restaurant called Campo. And the inn has much bigger ideas, Sarah tells me,

05:28 as we walk into the busy restaurant. Lots of good stuff on the menu that connects to

05:35 like this bigger stories of the land. Sarah tells me that Los Poblanos is working with

05:42 New Mexican farmers to bring back heritage grains to use in the kitchen, in the on-site bakery,

05:48 and to sell at the farm shop. Head chef Chris Bethany also sources as much meat as possible

05:54 from New Mexican suppliers. And he really loves working with corn, a New Mexican staple.

05:59 So we grind our own corn, nixtamalize it, and then make masa. And all the tortillas are made

06:09 from it, made from scratch. That's a lot of work. Yeah. You know, make your own masa.

06:15 But he's found a way to build it into the operations. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. He's always

06:23 preserving things. We have things like jujubes and walnuts and the hawthorn. It shows up in the menu

06:32 in all kinds of ways you wouldn't expect. We're going to come back to food, but first let's

06:37 explore how modern Albuquerque came about. The city's commitment to its outdoor spaces goes back

06:44 to the early 1960s. There was a guy who had moved here. His name was Rex Funk, and he came from

06:53 California in the 60s, the late 60s. And he had seen this like massive development there, you know,

06:58 strip mall after strip mall. I mean, people are on top of each other. And it's really sad, especially

07:03 like Orange County. They had these great orange farms and all this like farmland, and it's just

07:08 gone. That's Elaine Briceño. She's a local journalist and a history buff. Think of how

07:14 great that would have been to kind of preserve that for people to say, like, not only is this

07:18 our history, but here is part of, you know, a different part of life, not just the urban kind

07:24 of setting. And so he didn't want that to happen here. It's dusk now, and we're standing inside

07:29 the Biquequi Open Space, a 27 acre park in the North Valley that's not far from Los Poblanos.

07:35 Birds soar in the distance and all around us people are walking or running or biking or

07:40 wheelchairing. But this wasn't a sure thing back in the 1960s when urban sprawl was, well, sprawling.

07:48 At the time, there was a big push to turn the Rio Grande, which is just steps from us,

07:52 into what would essentially be a huge ditch. They had wanted to

07:56 pave, put like an artificial paved, kind of like a giant ditch. So, you know, kind of get rid of the

08:05 river, flow the water through there and rip out all the trees because they thought they were taking

08:11 up too much water. Elaine says that there was also a paper mill that wanted to move in and cut down

08:17 all the trees in the mountains and use the water for the business. The people, inspired by Rex,

08:22 said, "Uh-uh, not in my backyard." Much political back and forth ensued, but eventually this led to

08:29 Albuquerque's open space program, now part of the Parks and Rec Department, and Rex became their

08:35 first superintendent. In the 1970s, they built the city's iconic Paseo del Bosque, a 16 mile forest

08:41 and multi-use trail that parallels the river. Bosque, by the way, means forest in Spanish.

08:47 Forty years later, there are now 30,000 acres of open space in Albuquerque alone. The city is only

08:53 120,000 acres in total. That means that one quarter of the city is parkland. And that means

09:00 that nature is very accessible here, Elaine says. A quick note before we hear from her again. After

09:05 our park visit, we transitioned to a restaurant, so you're going to hear some restaurant chatter.

09:10 You can walk out your front door and, especially if you live in the valley, you're in a forest in

09:16 like five minutes on foot. So it doesn't take all this planning. You don't have to say, "Oh,

09:21 on this day we're going hiking," you know, because you really don't. And the city is still looking

09:26 forward. The next day, I meet with Terry Bruner, the director of the city of Albuquerque's

09:31 Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency, an organization that's spearheading a new type of trail here.

09:36 So the rail trail is going to be a seven-mile loop around the downtown, and it's going to connect to

09:42 our Bosque River Trail. It will be a bike and pedestrian trail. It will take about four years

09:48 to build, but what we'll look at today is kind of the first section that we hope to break ground on

09:53 in the spring. We're walking on a weeded gravel path bisected by rusty train tracks. It's about

09:59 five minutes on foot from the Sawmill Market, Albuquerque's upscale food hall, and just minutes

10:04 from Old Town. Okay, so up here is kind of this really rich corner of stuff that we have going on.

10:11 We have the Albuquerque Museum on one side of the street. We've got the Natural History Museum

10:16 and Explora Science Museum just down the street. So this is an area for a lot of activity,

10:22 and this is going to be the entrance to the rail trail right here. It's a bustling corner

10:29 culturally, but it used to be where trains hauled lumber in and out of the area, and under architect

10:35 Antoine Pridock, who lives here in Albuquerque, all aspects of the city's history will be preserved.

10:40 Along 12 stops on the trail, we'll have little, you know, historic reflections on Albuquerque,

10:47 Native American culture, Hispanic culture, industrial areas, and that should help people

10:53 as they kind of move through the trail really reflect on what Albuquerque is all about.

10:58 As we walk, Terry tells me that the rail trail will connect to the 16-mile bosque.

11:03 Remember that Rio Grande park that started it all? Creating a roughly 23-mile stretch of connected

11:09 pathway. In the early stages of the project, Terry and his team traveled to New York City,

11:14 Chicago, Atlanta, and Detroit to study their rail trails, and one of the things that they realized

11:19 was that the trails have revitalized areas of the cities. This will roll through some industrial

11:24 areas that no one ever checks out, hasn't seen much interest in years, and you know, as we toured

11:32 other trails around the country, we saw that like they kind of, you know, can't stop the number of

11:37 bars and restaurants and cafes and public areas that people want to get to via their trails.

11:42 So we think it can really invigorate the city and give it a lot more attention in the areas covered

11:50 by the trail than they've seen in a long time. One of the most exciting parts of the trail is

11:54 that it will connect Albuquerque's historic neighborhoods. Clockwise connects to Wells

11:59 Park, which connects to our downtown, connects to the traditional Hispanic community of Bareilles,

12:04 and then also back over to our old town community as well. So we think it will be a really nice way

12:11 to connect all those areas, and for people that are visiting, they'll not only see those areas,

12:18 but there'll be these stops along the trail to learn a little bit about those areas and why

12:22 they're so important. Terry has high hopes for what it can do for Albuquerque. There's a lot of

12:27 stuff that attracts people beyond the city sometimes. I think this can bring people back

12:33 into the city to maybe see, you know, Albuquerque's eclectic nature in different ways. As the days

12:41 roll on, I experience more and more of the city's outdoorsy spirit, sometimes in unique ways. I hike

12:48 through Petroglyph National Monument, where I meet a park ranger named Boyd, who gives me the lay of

12:52 the land as we look out at the Sandia Mountains. Those are about 10 million years old for the

13:00 uplift. Wow. This lava flow from those volcanic fissures is a hundred thousand years old. So

13:12 they're babies. Yes. Geologically, it sounds like a long time to us, but geologically speaking,

13:20 it's just the blink of an eye. Wow. At Hotel Chaco, I get a hot stone massage that uses

13:28 stones pulled from the Rio Grande. We're doing a hot stone massage today? Okay.

13:34 I even take a bike and taco tour with Roots, a bike shop in Old Town.

13:41 Roots rents bikes, but it also has some really cool bike tours, including tours of breaking bad

13:45 sights, urban art, and their latest offering, which combines tacos and history. Such a great

13:50 combination. My guide is a pink haired woman named Heidi. She starts the tour by telling me that

13:56 Charlevoix, the very street we're standing on, was once a street of ill repute. The bike shop used

14:02 to be a brothel, and this was a gunslinger gambling hall right now. So things like showgirls

14:08 and people just think, "Well, well, well, basically," and we still are in different formats.

14:13 So people are just doing what they want to do. As we pedal out to our first taco stop,

14:19 a coffee restaurant event space called Old Town Farm, Heidi shares how Albuquerque likes to

14:24 beautify itself. When you pay your taxes here, 1% of that goes to the arts. So we commission people

14:31 to, maybe a local artist or maybe someone from another country that's known as a muralist and

14:36 maybe also a tattoo artist, they'll bring them in and they'll get paid for it. Albuquerque likes to

14:40 have things kind of be pretty in different formats, like the bridges and stuff. They're

14:45 just not concrete. But one of my favorite ways to taste the outdoors is to literally taste it,

14:50 by drinking and eating. Tacos, yes, but also many other things. You know, New Mexican in its own way

14:57 is, you know, soul food of the Southwest. That's Justin De La Rosa, a local food writer and

15:03 director of outlets for the Samo Market, that food hall I mentioned earlier in the episode.

15:07 We're at El Patio, a restaurant that's famous for its green chili enchiladas. So that's what

15:12 I order, of course. Justin is definitely a fan of the chilies Albuquerque is famous for.

15:17 There's just something really comforting about, you know, like my dad's green chili stew,

15:24 or just something that's completely smothered, kind of drowned in this amazing sauce that's

15:30 unique to where we are. But he's quick to point out that the city has much more to offer.

15:34 We have like a really great Vietnamese and Asian scene here. Yeah, absolutely. So,

15:41 you know, we have Coda Bakery that does like just some of my favorite bahn mi sandwiches I've ever

15:47 had. There's also a bunch of local chefs on a mission to raise awareness and increase New

15:52 Mexico's local ingredients. Places like Campo, the restaurant at Los Poblanos, and... Another

15:58 one up here is Mesa Provision, Steve Riley. They do a great job just maintaining that sort of

16:05 heritage of, you know, the farmers, the grain, everything like that. Farm and Table is another

16:09 one as well. People who are just really about like, you know, keeping it within the state.

16:15 There's also a special complex being built for just this purpose. At the top of the episode,

16:21 I mentioned the 19 pueblos of New Mexico. Well, now I'm standing in front of the Indian Pueblo

16:27 Cultural Center, also known as the gateway to the 19 pueblos. As I enter, I see a busy restaurant

16:34 serving classic pueblo dishes, a gift shop that sells pueblo art, and a wall with photos featuring

16:39 the 19 governors who make up the Pueblo Council of Governors. The sprawling center is part of a

16:45 city block owned by the 19 pueblos. There's a beautiful spa called Rainwater Wellness that

16:50 uses native-made bath and body products, a Starbucks with pueblo architecture, a Holiday

16:56 Inn Express, a bar and grill, and Four Winds, a popular convenience store. And soon there will be

17:01 a complex that supports native farmers. Originally, it was supposed to be an entrepreneur center,

17:07 but then COVID happens, as Bill Stemmel, the entrepreneurial director.

17:10 What we saw during COVID, especially the early days of COVID, was the national food system broke

17:16 down. But the local food systems did not. And it's really shown a brighter light on local food

17:23 systems throughout the country, and especially here in New Mexico, in terms of how can we invest

17:28 in local food systems and how can we avoid what happened back in 2020. Now they are working on a

17:34 multi-phase project that will start with food and agriculture to meet the demands they've seen in

17:38 the last couple of years. The 7,500 square foot building will house a commercial kitchen,

17:44 cold storage, and transportation to help people get product from farms to the complex.

17:49 There will also be a demonstration kitchen and a classroom. One of the goals is to inspire

17:55 younger generations to enter agricultural work. There are 25,000 farms in the state of New Mexico.

18:01 About a quarter of those farms are native owned, about 5,000. But that number has been dwindling

18:07 overall and native owned in recent years. And that's just the first phase. The second and

18:12 third phases will expand cold storage opportunities and maybe even expand into light packaging and

18:18 manufacturing because the ultimate goal is to change the food system. Food sovereignty is a

18:24 very important initiative that we're hoping to help with many native entrepreneurs. Food security

18:30 is another huge initiative throughout the state, and we're hoping to fulfill some of those needs

18:35 as well. We're looking at the current construction, seeing what will eventually become the center.

18:40 Bill tells me that they have already made a deal with La Montanita, a local co-op that's opening

18:46 a flagship location across the street from the center. Once the co-op opens, it will feature

18:50 native produce, both in its fresh form and as something that's transformed in this very center.

18:56 Later that evening, I head for a beer at one of the coolest breweries in the city.

19:15 We're turning eight next year, and we have gained some recognition as being the first

19:20 native women-owned brewery in the country. That's Lucy Begay. She was born in Albuquerque

19:26 and raised on the Navajo Nation, also known as the Diné Nation. Her wife, Shilah Shepherd,

19:31 was born and raised on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, where she is a

19:35 member of the three affiliated tribes, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations. And together,

19:41 they launched Bow and Arrow Brewing in 2016. As you can tell by the noise in the background,

19:45 we're actually at the brewery as Missy tells us about what she and Shilah are trying to do

19:49 with their company. Our special spot is taking really unique ingredients that are native to the

19:58 southwest in terms of landscape or indigenous culture and finding a way to gently infuse those

20:05 in beers and then surprise people. It is a Thursday night and it is busy. I'm sipping a

20:11 delicious pilsner called Denim Tux that happens to be made with a special ingredient. So not only

20:17 is the name a nod to the official wardrobe of the southwest, right? I can never get enough denim in

20:23 your wardrobe, but what we do is take the grain bill of this and split it with local blue corn

20:30 from Santa Ana Pueblo. So it's an indigenous corn native to the southwest that imparts a really

20:37 light, earthy flavor. So using a really light heritage grain and it's a very classic American

20:43 beer has done really good for us. In addition to making really freaking good beers with indigenous

20:49 ingredients purchased locally, Missy and Shilah are working to further the visibility of native

20:54 people through something called the Native Land Initiative. We brewed a beer called Native Land

20:59 and it was all to just kind of acknowledge the land of the Tewa people that our brewery sits on.

21:05 And then other breweries were like, that's really cool. How can I do something similar?

21:08 And then we're like, we should do a collab. So what we do is we brew like a base recipe

21:14 and all the breweries around the country brew it and they use the same label and they donate

21:20 proceeds from that beer to local Native American nonprofits. They're in their third year now and

21:26 have raised close to $100,000 for nonprofits that support ecological stewardship, access to

21:32 ancestral lands, and revitalization of traditional agriculture and foodways. They've also opened a

21:37 second taproom in Farmington, New Mexico, three hours north. It's right on the cusp of the Navajo

21:42 Nation Four Corners where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet. We chose that spot

21:48 because we really wanted people to like go visit and of course support like the local tourism there.

21:55 But there's a lot of really cool like state parks and national parks out there like the Bisti

21:59 Badlands, which our Bisti, hard to tell where their name comes from. But it's at the gateway right to

22:05 like the Monument Valley and Bears Ears. And it's just like a lot of really cool things happening

22:11 out there. So through that taproom, just trying to expand into more of like rural farming area

22:17 has been really interesting. So hopefully next level we can like do more things to like protect

22:23 land through our Native Land Initiative. The next morning I am back at Campo at Los Poblanos

22:29 meeting with Dylan Stormont, Director of Wine and Spirits, and talking about New Mexico's other

22:34 great beverage. So for those who don't know, we are the oldest wine producing region in North

22:39 America. There are three AVAs or American Viticultural Areas in New Mexico. The Middle

22:45 Rio Grande AVA that goes all along the Rio Grande River. Then there's Mesilla Valley and Mimbrus

22:50 Valley. But historically people have not come to New Mexico for the wine, Dylan tells me.

22:54 I think for a long time there was some misconceptions that New Mexico wine,

22:59 like people came here and they wanted to drink wine from other places in the world. And like,

23:03 you know, we collaboratively as a group are really trying to kind of bring light to

23:07 all of these community partners and, you know, show people traveling here and also locals,

23:12 because locals I think shared that misconception. Dylan says there's a community of wine folks who

23:17 are working hard to share the beauty of New Mexican wine. He says Bordeaux varietals do well

23:22 in the state, as do Rhone varietals like Syrah and Grenache. And there's even a lot happening

23:27 where Los Poblanos is in the North Valley. There's so many vineyards surrounding us and it's, uh,

23:32 it's really cool to see over the last 10 years, seeing this little pocket of Albuquerque become

23:37 such a hotspot. If you eat at Compo, you'll see these winemakers on the menu. The night I dined

23:43 there, I had a fantastic Sauvignon Blanc from the Sheehan Winery in Albuquerque. One of my main

23:48 focuses of creating a wine list was to have, you know, a full page dedicated to New Mexico and

23:52 finding those key producers and bringing light to them because we had so many people that were

23:57 traveling here to Los Poblanos. And that was another big goal was to make sure that they

24:01 weren't just going to Santa Fe. They were coming, they were coming and stopping in Albuquerque

24:04 first and experiencing this. There's one iconic thing we haven't talked about, and it's possibly

24:12 the best way to see all of Albuquerque's outdoor spaces in one gulp, ideally before a glass of wine.

24:18 All right, ladies and gentlemen, there is something I like to say every time we take off,

24:25 and that is we are flying! Yes, we are flying with our mustachioed pilot Murray Conrad, who

24:35 along with his wife Julie, owns World Balloon Company. As we take off, I can feel the basket

24:41 moving gently in the breeze. It's a perfect morning, not too windy, cool but not freezing,

24:46 with a cloud streaked sunrise lighting up the sky. We hit 5,600 feet above sea level,

24:52 and Murray tells us that there are two reasons that Albuquerque is famous for its ballooning.

24:57 Number one, over 300 days a year we can fly. Number two is our winds. So there's a phenomenon

25:06 called the Albuquerque box. If the box is working, we'll fly all over town, come right back to the

25:11 same field in one hour. There are more than 300 balloon owners in the city, but Murray and his

25:17 wife Julie, who is also a pilot, learned from the master. So Sid Cutter, for those of you who are

25:22 not from Albuquerque, is the father of ballooning in Albuquerque. So in the early 70s, their mother

25:30 was celebrating her birthday, and him and his brother owned Cutter Aviation at the Albuquerque

25:35 International Airport, and they wanted to do something special for mom. They bought a hot air

25:40 balloon. Murray says that Sid just figured it out, and he loved it. It didn't take long for the other

25:47 balloon owners in the world to figure out that Sid had a balloon. So in 1973, they all got together

25:52 in Albuquerque for the very first World Balloon Championships to see who was the best balloonist.

25:57 So we've been in business since 1973 because it didn't take long before everybody in town was

26:02 saying, "How can I get a ride in one of those?" So that's where it came from. We've had different

26:07 owners through the years, but 50 years later, we're still flying, still in business. And that

26:12 competition went on to become the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, the annual hot air

26:17 balloon celebration. In 2024, it'll take place from October 5th through the 13th. And hot tip,

26:23 if you want to join, come during the week when it's less nutty. I asked Murray if he still loves

26:29 every ride and why ballooning is so alluring. It is not, you know, when you fly in an airplane,

26:36 you get that little thing to look out of, and pretty soon you're up above the clouds.

26:41 In a balloon, you're looking right down on God's creation. You can see hundreds of miles here.

26:50 I mean, if it wasn't cloudy, you would have seen the mountains of Santa Fe and Taos and,

26:56 you know, Grants, New Mexico. And it's just amazing. Albuquerque is amazing. It can be so

27:05 easy to focus on Santa Fe, but the next time you're planning a trip to the Southwest,

27:09 go and find yourself a little slice of Albuquerque's outdoors.

27:12 And that wraps our first episode of Unpacking. I'll link to all of the businesses that we

27:21 mentioned here in the show notes, and I'm also working on a list of the best places to eat and

27:26 drink in Albuquerque, including Where to Try Wine, which will come out on March 1st. I'll

27:31 link to it in the show notes once it's out. Ready for more unpacking? Visit afar.com and

27:36 be sure to follow us on Instagram and X. We are @afarmedia. If you enjoyed today's exploration,

27:43 I hope you'll come back for more great stories. Subscribing always makes that easy. And be sure

27:48 to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find

27:53 it. And if you ever want to ask a question or suggest a topic for coverage, you can reach out

27:58 to us at afar.com/feedback or email us at unpack@afar.com. This has been Unpacked, a production

28:05 of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislinn Green and Nikki Galteland. Music composition by

28:11 Chris Collin. And remember, the world is complicated. We're here to help you unpack it.

28:19 Okay, that was our show. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe on your way out,

28:28 and I'll include a link to the podcast below.

28:33 (cymbal crash)

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