Ok! It was an awesome experience to visit the Red Rocks. Later in the day, I took a flight to Albuquerque, NM (ABQ), to see all the amazing places from my most favorite TV show off all time – Breaking Bad!
When I was planning this birthday getaway, I made a list of all the places that I wanted to visit during this trip. I made a list of good 10-12 places that were must visit for me, and I was fighting against the time to cover all the places, as I had pre-planned flights and Airbnb bookings done based on the places that I wanted to visit.
On this day, I had only 4 hours before it would get dark, so I made sure that I cover places that are near to each other. To do this and see almost all places that I had planned, I chose to visit the places in the following order:
1. Hank and Mary’s house
2. The Car Wash
3. Walter’s house
4. The Motel
5. Downtown Albuquerque
6. ABQ Plaza – where Walt and Jesse meet in the final season
It was a packed itinerary and I had to pay special attention to the time as I didn’t want to explore the city in the dark.
Hank & Mary’s house
This was the first place I visited in my itinerary. The reason I chose to visit this place was because this was the farthest from my Airbnb and I just wanted to get done with it. Plus, the other spots in my list were nearer to this place and it worked perfectly for me.
When I was driving to this location, I noticed that I was entering a cleaner and quieter neighborhood in ABQ. I was impressed with the creator of the show more when I discovered this small things and realized how detail-oriented the TV or movie creators are.
The place looked the same as seen on the show – which was not surprising to me. The more surprising part for me was the desert and empty land surrounding the house and the area in general. The place looks so deserted to me that I parked my car nearby and looked at the house for a few minutes, before taking a stroll at the nearby walking trail as I saw so many people running and hiking in the Sun. I spent a good 25 minutes hiking there in my T-shirt and Jeans, which I thought would feel weird, but it wasn’t. I controlled my excitement of hiking some more distance as I had to get to other places too.
The Car Wash
This is where I had the most fun. I had rented a red Ford Fusion for my stay at ABQ, so when I drove that car to the car wash, one of the employees thought that I was there to clean it as it was covered with some dust. I told him that I was fan of the show and would like to see the car wash from inside, to which he readily complied and asked me to go inside by parking my car across the street. I found that to be very easy and thought they must be getting so many people like me.
Anyway, when I went in, I found the store to be exactly the same they have shown in the show. I found it to be intentional for the visitors to feel like they are part of the show and I must tell you that you do feel like that. When I walked from the reception to the area where they clean the cars, I could remember all the episodes when Walt walks on the same spot. While walking through the car wash, I saw so many pictures from the show that they had hanged on the right hand wall of the car wash. Before leaving this place, I bought a replica of the “missing” poster from the show and clicked a picture with the poster, with the car wash in the background.
Walter’s house
I was most excited to visit this place and for obvious reasons. Also, this place turned out to be quite a bummer to me and didn’t live up to the raised expectations.
Throughout the show, I had seen Walt’s house from the inside and out, but when I drove up to the street to take a good look, I couldn’t do that as there were barricades and steel gate and fence surrounding the entire property. Before visiting this place, I had read about the owner putting the fence around the house so that no one invades her privacy and enter the house or her driveway, but I didn’t realize it fully until I saw it in person. I couldn’t do anything about it as it was out of my control or hand.
When I was clicking the photo and shooting the video of the house, the owner of the house was sunbathing and I could here her screaming “You jerk” when I was capturing the video. I couldn’t help but chuckle and decide to leave the place as there was a cop car standing a 100 feet away. This place didn’t leave up to the expectations.
The motel
The motel was the shadiest place on my list for the day. I had doubts whether I should visit this place or not as I didn’t know what I would do when I visit it. When I was driving here, I could see a very small parking lot. In the show, the parking lot was much bigger than what I was seeing, so I was kind of disappointed. Fortunately, there was only one spot open in the parking lot, so I took a chance and parked my car there. After taking a look at the motel and sitting in my car for a few minutes, I decided to walk to the reception and just chat for a quick minute or two with the receptionist.
I didn’t know what I was walking into. When I reached the reception and rang the bell, someone came from inside and I was scared to see that she resembled a lot like Wendy from the show. I wasn’t sure it was intentional or not, but it was scary for sure. I wasn’t sure whether I saw the needle marks on her arm for real or was just imagining things. After chatting for a couple minutes, I thought it would be best to leave the spot and get to the next one. Before I know it, I was on my way to the Downtown ABQ.
Downtown ABQ
I hadn’t seem this place on the show, so I had an open mind when I wanted to visit the downtown ABQ. I was not sure what to expect, so when I parked my car and walked through the streets of the Downtown ABQ, I was really impressed. The Downtown area was really nice and kept quite clean, with so many happening places around. I saw so many people out in the streets enjoying the Sun and lovely weather outside, with drinks in their hands. I loved the vibe of the place and enjoyed it. Unfortunately, apart from the tall buildings and the stores and bars, I couldn’t relate the Downtown to the show much, but loved the fact that I got to visit it.
ABQ Plaza
This was the last spot in my list for the day. I wanted to visit this to see how it looked like and how crowded it was since the show talks about the place being quite crowded.
Good for me that, this place was closer to Downtown ABQ than I thought, so I just had to walk to this place. When I saw it for the first time from some distance, I got all excited. But, that excitement was short lived as there was literally no one around. My guess was that the place might be buzzing with people, and I was so wrong. With not many people in sight, I decided to inspect the entire area and call it a day. The day was full of exploring new places and I really needed some rest.
I remember grabbing something for dinner and dozing off to sleep on my bed in Airbnb.
Next stop: Second day of exploration at ABQ – checking out the rest of the places!
stochasticity 
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