Old Town Albuquerque, October 17

San Felipe de Neri Church

We went in to the area known as “Old Town Albuquerque” this morning, and parked in the Museum parking lot.  Since I didn’t have the necessary five dollar bill for parking, I went in to the museum to get change.  The clerk said that if we were going to be visiting the museum, the parking was covered, so we got in for four dollars, saw the museum, and parked for the morning while saving a dollar.

We went on the walking tour of the old town using the brochure from the museum.  Most of the old buildings have been converted into specialty shops, restaurants, etc.  However, the old church which was first constructed in 1706 (though it has been rebuilt and remodelled several times) was open, so we went inside to see it.  It is not a very large church, narrow with only two rows of pews.

They were doing a filming production on the streets around the plaza.  We passed a sign that said it had the working title of “American Girl – Alberta”.  What they were filming appeared to be a parade scene, so they had a lot of extras along the streets, and the signs said that you agreed to be in the film if you were photographed.  Since we really didn’t want to be included, we tried to stay inside the stores while they were filming.  The stores were not very busy as most people were on the street watching. 

The star, a young girl, was riding on a beautiful grey horse.  However, she was very uncomfortable on it, as you could see from her expression.  Two men were actually leading the horse with monofilament fishline, which you could see close up, but probably wouldn’t show in the filming.  There was a stunt double there who also rode the horse and was obviously a good rider.  We stayed and watched the production for a while.  It involved a very large production crew.

At the end of our walk around the old town we went back to the museum.  They were remodelling it, so parts seemed to be closed.  We did see an exhibit called “Machine Wilderness” which highlighted art and technology, “Along the Rio Grande” which is about the history of the Albuquerque area, and their permanent collection “Art in New Mexico”.  After lunch across the street in “Tiguex Park” we returned to the museum to finish our tour.