The Magical Land of ABQ

A few weeks ago, The Tieg Dog (I shall refer to him as T) and I (Liz) got the wonderful opportunity to travel down south to see our very very VERY good friends, the Gards! Elly, Matty, and Mr. and Mrs. Gard are what maketh up the Gard family :)

When we arrived, there were mustaches and a big sign waiting for us. I nearly ran down the escalator and jumped into the arms of my best friend. We hadn't seen each other in over a year and frankly, it felt like we had just seen each other the day before.

Elly was just as awesome, Matty got taller (he is now taller than me), and Mrs. Gard... she stayed the same :)

Day 1

Day one consisted of driving 5 hours to the airport and flying for another 2 hours before actually getting to ABQ. For dinner, we went to Chick-fil-a. It was my first time eating there and it was delicious! We then proceeded to the Gard residence, got the grand tour, and were completely wired! I don't think we went to bed until around 1am that night :)

(Sorry, the picture quality isn't the greatest) The Gard's with
their sign and mustaches!

Day 2

Creepiest. Museum. EVER! Period.

The Tinkertown Museum has everything from miniature wood people, to Disney princess figurines, to swords, to boats, to dolls, to automatons, to fortune-telling 25-cent machines. Our imaginations were running wild in that place and Elly and I have concocted a short story idea from it muahahaha. 

Then a supposed 1-mile hike turned into a 4-mile hike up the Sandias (know to the Gards as the Watermelon). Mrs. Gard convinced us (basically forced us) to do this easy (not so easy) 1-mile (4-mile) hike on the Watermelon. There was a burger place at the top and it's haunting aroma nearly made us all die. But, I'll admit, it was fun and now we have lots of stories to tell about it. So thank you, Mrs. Gard for making us go on that "1-mile hike". 

During this time, I introduced the group to the game 'What are the odds?' which we ended playing almost everywhere we went. I had to kiss the ground once. It wasn't pleasant.

On that fateful night, I was introduced to BBC's Sherlock. My life will never be the same. I got hooked and now I am a Sherlockian. We watched all 9 (*sobs) episodes during the course of the week. Yep, I'm addicted. 

Day 3   

*Grabs camera to see what they did next*

All the days got jumbled in my head, so I am using my camera as a reference for when we did what.

Clears throat Alright, day 3 started off with a Nerf war during which me and Elly almost died. We were feeling very lazy and tired. I think Mrs. Gard finally got tired of our whining, and gave in to our request of Starbucks. 

After Starbucks, we went to this place called... Goodman's I believe it was. There, I convinced Elly to buy a Giraffe, Girard Tobias XI, that she had her eye on for six months and I bought Tartar Sauce a.k.a. Grumpy Cat.

...I am talking about stuffed animals, of course.

Ah yes! I caught a fish! His name is Franklin the fish. Basically from day one I was out at the Gard's pond trying to catch a fish. When I caught Franklin, I nearly fell over I was so excited! 

The rest of the day we spent chilling out and making epic t-shirts.

Day 4

(This is going to be the longest blog post in the history of blog posts)

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE DOTS WAS BORN! We refer to our little quartet (Elly, Matty, T, and I) as The Fellowship of the Dots.

We started the day not really knowing what to do. Then (I think it was Elly) had the brilliant idea to make Lord of the Rings skits. We made a few (as you saw on the previous blog post) that are hilarious. From that moment on, I was Samwise and Elly was Frodo. 

We referred to each other as 'Sam' and 'Frodo' for the rest of the trip. We are nuts :)

The zoo! Oh how I loved the zoo! That's where our name, The Fellowship of the Dots, came from. We were eating Dippin' Dots and someone somehow came up with that name and it stuck.

We ran around the zoo like wild pansies acting out Lord of the Rings, tripping in the dark, freaking each other out, eating Dippin' Dots, and taking thousands of pictures of all of the animals. It was great.





Day 5

*Wiggles cramping fingers*

SANTA FE! Oh I cannot tell you how much I loved Santa Fe. We wandered around the State Capitol Building (and probably went places we weren't supposed to go), saw the oldest church in America, saw the spiral staircase, saw (and attended mass at) this beautiful church with relics (I LOVE saint relics), went shopping, ate delicious food, saw really cool art galleries (we saw the Chuck Jones gallery which was so cool!), rode the Rail Runner (a train), and just spent the day goofing off, laughing, and having a good time as friends. 

 








I love Santa Fe so so much!! :) (The pictures are being stubborn. That's as good as it's gonna get)


Day 6

(Almooost there I promise)

We swam in the Rio Grande. Like, legit swam in it. We waded across it, made a mud castle on a small island in the middle of the river, and crossed to the other side and found trampoline mud! We proceeded to use said trampoline mud as ammo and had a mud fight. It's very rejuvenating for the skin :)

We went back to the Gard residence and caught Samwise the frog. He was fat and had yellow feet. We also got a tour of the Gard's Grandparent's new house! It's a pretty awesome house with a shower that Grandpa Gard said, "You could have a dance party in!"

Day 7

I think Mrs. Gard was getting tired of our loudness and obnoxiousness (is that a word?), so she dropped us off at this cool cafe called The Flying Star. We drank milkshakes, played board games, and laughed our brains out for a few hours before getting whisked away in the Gard van. 

Hi, I'm Liz and I have a gambling problem.

It's not just me, though, it's me and my Wonder Twin, Matty. We went to the movie theater and saw Guardians of the Galaxy (an entertaining movie, not the best, but entertaining). This movie theater had a few arcade games like any movie theater. Matty and I could not pull ourselves away! The sensible ones, Elly and T, told us to stop, but we couldn't. We have a gambling problem. That night we also went to dinner AT A CASINO! We were dying.

After the movies, we went to this store. It's seriously geek heaven. I can't remember what it's called but it has everything you could possibly want! Dr. Who, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Game of Thrones, you name the geek thing, they probably have it's merchandise. 

Day 8

Our last full day :( How depressing.

Elly and I went to the mall! The ABQ mall is HUGE! It was tons of fun but, unlike average teenage girls, we didn't go to the mall to 'shop' per-say. We went to goof off and have fun. We bought Build-A-Bears for crying out loud! (We're 17 and almost 16... you're never too old for a Build-A-Bear). 

 





It was lots of fun :) and I curled Elly's hair! She was being Frodo :) We didn't want that night to end. That's also the night (I'm pretty sure) we played Ghost in the Graveyard.

That game... NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PLAY THAT GAME WITH T! He is flippin scary. Matty and I almost died that night. No joke. 

Day 9

The horriblest day of the trip. The day we had to leave the magical land of ABQ and fly home. We put off saying goodbye for as long as possible, but it was inevitable. 

So it wasn't goodbye, it was "See you later, alligator."

That week was so much fun. I can't thank the Gard's enough for letting us invade their house and letting their lived get turned upside-down for a week :) I miss you guys so much!! 

The Fellowship of the Dots shall be re-united again! 

Thanks for a great time guys :)