It was only as we neared the northern terminus of Albuquerque’s fabled Northwest Passage that it occurred to me, “Wait, isn’t this the neighborhood with the giant cow?”

When last readers met our intrepid Better Burque adventure team, we were attempting to push north along the fabled Albuquerque Northwest Passage, that route that allows you to safely bike up the west side of the river without ever having to set wheels upon the dreaded Coors Boulevard (there be dragons). Like John Wesley Powell on his second expedition down the Colorado River, we had stopped midway last Sunday to rest and restock our dwindling supplies (Powell at Lee’s Ferry, Scot and John at Montaño), but today we resumed our campaign.

As you’ll see from the map below, this time we didn’t ride our bikes up any flood control channels (that is very dangerous, kids, ditches are deadly). The key tricks:

• The complex of traffic cones constraining and diverting the flow of Sunday folk at Sagebrush Church.
• The ditch bank north of the City of Albuquerque Open Space Visitors Center
• The tunnel beneath Paseo del Norte that was apparently built for horses and their people.
• Once through the tunnel, some deep sand that required a bit of bike walking.
• The Calabacillas Arroyo, which required a bit of a portage.

And then, on Loretta NW, a giant cow.