I found a couple of ways to spend a Sunday off the beaten track. Firstly to visit a restored church in Abeytas, a tiny town of about fifty people in Socorro county. The church is over a century old and was rebuilt in part with the help of recovering addicts. I was actually more enamoured by the completely unrestored adobe building next door.
On the way back I bumped into the Duke City Mustangs, a club of muscle car owners which meet at a traditional burger-and-fries joint in Belen a couple of times a year. Contrary to the stillness of the community church, this group drives in a noisy convoy from Albuquerque to Belen. They then park up at the restaurant to eat, share stories (or “lie to each other” as one woman told me), swap tips and pop the hoods.
