Travel Adventures in Arizona and New Mexico, Part 13: Grants to Albuquerque

This is my thirteenth post about our adventures traveling through Arizona and New Mexico. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth posts before this one. Because I blog about educational travel, I received comped passes, media rates, and other benefits for several of the places we visited throughout the trip. Some of the attractions we toured are free to everyone; we paid full price for the rest. What I paid or didn't pay has no effect on my reviews. Everything that I share is something I recommend without hesitation.

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Travel Adventures from Grants to Albuquerque

Have you ever been somewhere stunningly beautiful, but knew the camera wasn't going to capture what you were seeing? The land of the Acoma Puebloans is breathtaking. This is the Acoma Sky City Viewpoint. 

In the distance is Sky City (Haak'u), one of the oldest continuously occupied communities in North America. The Acoma have lived on the mesa for over 1000 years. 

This is the view if you turn 180°. 

We spent a good amount of time enjoying the spectacular views of this singularly unique landscape. 

This is the Sky City Cultural Center and Haak'u Museum. Inside the beautiful building is a museum, cafe, gift shop, and meeting space. Photos are not allowed indoors. We enjoyed the exhibits and were particularly enthralled by a video about the work of Acoma potter Lucy Lewis. The video we watched was much longer and had interviews and demonstrations by Lewis, but this episode of ¡Colores! gives you an overview of her talent. 

We'd really wanted to take the guided tour of the Pueblo, but the timing didn't work out. Hopefully someday. This is a really special place. 

  

There were Acoma jewelers and potters in the courtyard displaying their beautiful artwork. We enjoyed talking with the women and seeing their creations. I really wanted to buy an ornament, but there's no way I could have gotten it home safely. I wish I could show you how stunning everything was, but photos of the artwork was not allowed. 

We took Highway 23 back toward I-40. It was almost as beautiful as the route we'd taken in on Indian Service Route 38. 

Back on the freeway, we headed toward Albuquerque. The scenery was really unique and interesting, but impossible to photograph decently at freeway speeds. This portion of I-40 is also Route 66, so there were lots of roadside attractions and themed restaurants and gift shops along the way, in addition to the natural beauty. 

We reached Albuquerque and stopped for dinner at the Owl Cafe. 

The Owl Cafe is decorated with... owls. 

See the owls in this picture? There are a few on the dessert case, but most of them are on the 'shelf' near the ceiling, all the way around the whole restaurant. 

The Owl Cafe features diner classics, some with a New Mexico twist. We shared a chicken fried steak sandwich (with fries, cole slaw, and cream gravy) and a pineapple-strawberry milkshake (which they put in two glasses without us even asking). It's a good thing we shared - it was a LOT of food. And all delicious!

  

We weren't going to have dessert, but when our waitress told us the options we had no choice but to order something called "juice cake." I'd never heard of it before and I'm sucker for trying new foods, especially when we're traveling. It turns out juice cake batter is made with fruit juice (in this case, pineapple, apple, and cherry) and then more of that juice is poured over the cake after it's been baked. It has a cream cheese frosting and they served it with a generous amount of whipped cream. It's hard to tell in the photo, but this slice was enormous. The juice cake was tasty, but we would have needed at least four friends to help us finish it (no exaggeration). 

We left the Owl Cafe and checked into our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express. It was clean, comfy, newly remodeled, and perfectly located near the morning's first destination: The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History (Motto: Reactions welcome.) After a good night's rest and a tasty breakfast, we headed over. 

I love the periodic table design on the floor of the lobby. When I see features like this, I know a lot of thought and care went into the museum. 

Indeed, the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History is an outstanding museum. The exhibits are very interesting, with excellent descriptions for people with all levels of background knowledge (or none at all). 

This was so interesting. The people working on the Manhattan Project in New Mexico in 1944 were issued anonymous drivers' licenses! This engineer is a 5'9" man with medium brown hair; his full name is "Number 224."

The Gadget. 

Fat Man.

I have only one complaint about this museum and that is that there is nowhere to sit while watching their videos. 

There are so many interesting exhibits. 

It's always exciting to see LLNL discussed at a museum. When I was a little kid, almost all of my friends' dads worked at the Lab (affiliate link here and below) and that seemed perfectly normal to me. Turns out, growing up in Livermore is different than growing up in other places!

From my hometown to my current town! "Broken Arrow" is the military term for a nuclear weapon accident. The one that occurred in Fairfield, CA in 1950 killed 19 people, including General Robert F. Travis, for whom Travis Air Force Base is now named. 

I didn't expect to see pieces of the Berlin Wall here, though in retrospect it's not surprising. It's almost as exciting to see Berlin Wall pieces as it is moon rocks. 

  

My favorite exhibit at the museum was about toys and games during the Atomic Age. 

It's fascinating how wildly inappropriate some of them seem from a 2026 perspective. Pencils with real uranium?! A game where you drop bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?!

  

The Boys' Life magazine reminds me of a book I've been wanting to read: The Radioactive Boy Scout. It's a true story and highly disturbing. 

  

Add a flux capacitor to the list of things I didn't expect to see at this museum. Hey - Arco, Idaho! We ate a lousy meal and spent the night there. 

The hands-on kids' space, called Little Albert's Lab, is outstanding. 

Three Mile Island souvenirs?! 

Hey! We were just there!

The nuclear waste is simulated.... 

But the cube of uranium is real. 

Don't miss the temporary exhibit, American Nukes. It's a collection of 90 photos of nuclear weapons displays across the US. Some of them are in expected places, like this museum or on military bases. Others are in public parks and even schools. We've seen a number of them in our travels. 

After finishing the indoor exhibits, head outdoors where there are a wide variety of aircraft, missiles, and other big stuff (technical term) on display. 

  

We had a great time at the Nuclear Museum, aka the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. I definitely recommend a visit. 

We spent over 4 hours at the museum and had a lot of driving ahead of us. Tomorrow I'll tell you all about the last things we did in New Mexico before it was time to fly home.