Here is the Isleta Casino which is not too far away from the Catholic Church. Cameras are prohibited inside these Indian casinos, but before we found that out, Carrie's niece Austin took a photograph of the two of us inside the Sandia Casino, below. We didn't gamble at Isleta as we did at Sandia, but only had martinis and dinner (chilled oysters on the half-shell, crab medallions and smoked chicken quesadillas) on one of the upperfloor terraces on the left side of this photo. These casinos are quite posh on the inside, and like all casinos everywhere, the food is excellent and fairly reasonably priced. One objection that I had to these New Mexican Indian casinos is that you can't drink at the gaming tables or slot machines, only in designated bar areas, quite unlike Nevada and Louisiana.
The above and two following photos are of Carrie's sprawling condominium complex at Corrales, a suburb north of Albuquerque. Generally speaking, the above photo is looking west, the following looking north, and the third looking east towards the clouded-covered top of the Sandia Mountain, which dominates the horizon from all parts of Albuquerque. Between Corrales and the Sandia Mountain, one can easily see, especially at night, the brightly lighted Sandia Casino off in the distance at the base of Sandia Mountain.
Carrie's condo complex, like a lot of other places in New Mexico, utilizes "xeriscaping", i.e., using only those plants that are indigenous to the area, to avoid wasting precious water on grassy lawns and the like. Also, rabbits, squirrels, roadrunners, lizards, snakes and other animals inhabit Carrie's area. She pointed out a roadrunner in her side yard, and I saw numerous rabbits all over the place. There is one shrub called a "rabbit bush" or something like that. The rabbits like to hide under it, thinking they can't be seen. When I was out at the Petroglyph National Monument, I asked a park ranger where all these animals get their water. He said that during rainy periods, water collects in the rocks for a while; but in dry periods, the animals' metabolisms are geared to extracting all the water they need from within all the desert plants that they eat.
The two photos above were taken from the bridge over the Rio Grande River in the Albuquerque suburb of Alameda, just south of Corrales. The first view is looking north. The Rio Grande is a shallow river and continues as such south throughout New Mexico and then along the southern Texas border with Mexico from El Paso/Juarez to Brownsville/Matamoros. These "islands" in the Rio Grande reminded me of similar "islands" in the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma. At this point in Alameda, the Rio Grande is about 100 miles south, as the crow flies, from the Rio Grande Gorge west of Taos.
In the second photo, looking northeast, the watermelon-shaped Sandia Mountain is prominent in the background. The Indian word "sandia" means "watermelon" in English. The tramway peak station is located on the right side of this view of the Sandia Mountain.
