Views from My Place

There isn't a day that goes by but that I'm sitting outside, looking at the expansive view across the Rio Grande Gorge, which is probably one reason it has taken me so long to unpack.  Here are some examples of what I see.

Dust devils (think mini-water spouts but composed of dirt).

Every morning, at least two (sometimes four) hot air balloons lift off the valley floor.

One of many drop-dead gorgeous sunsets I've seen.

Another Road Trip

My mother's sister, Evalyn, turned 100 on September 1st, so many of her extended family attended a birthday celebration in her honor in Pueblo, CO, which is about three hours from Arroyo Hondo.  On the way back, I passed through wild horse country in southern CO and snapped the following pictures of two different herds.  (Yes, those are wild horses on open range!)  Note that there are some foals, too.

Road Trips

 One of my friends and I made a trip to Silverton, CO, (a funky old mining town with some original buildings) to see the sights and also to visit his son.  Below are pics of some of the killer scenery we saw along the way.  Sorry, I don't remember the names of the mountains.

One thing for sure, for a girl who's been used to driving the flat land of New England for the past 30+ years, real mountain driving was a very interesting experience!

Northern NM.

Coming down from the pass in the previous picture.

Just outside of Silverton.

In CO.

Still in CO.

Back in NM.

Ketchup (i.e., Catch Up)

Yikes!  I haven't updated this blog in almost two months!  Sorry about that.  Once my furniture arrived (11 days late!), I was faced with the daunting task of trying to fit everything into the casita, which just didn't work.  I have a storage unit filled to overflowing, but as of this morning, the artwork is up on the walls and all of the boxes are gone.  While unpacking, I've also been taking road trips, visiting museums (including the O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe), enjoying the weather and sunsets, and eating as much Mexican food as my intestines will allow.  :-)  See additional entries for more about some of the above.

Home At Last

After an uneventful trip across southeastern CO from La Junta to Trinidad, Scout and I crossed over Raton Pass and into NM on August 3rd.  There had been a forest fire on the pass and the blackened trees and soil were disturbing to see.  However, from the top of Raton, you can see forever and ever into the northern part of NM and that was totally glorious.  After I hit the plains, I turned back west into the mountains, drove past the entrance to Philmont Boy Scout Camp, and turned once more into the mountains.  The air was fresh and clean so I rolled down all the windows as we climbed the pass to Eagle Nest, which was just drop-dead gorgeous.

From there, we dropped down into Taos where it took me no time at all to be totally overwhelmed by the commercialism (and traffic) that have devoured the Plaza and surrounding downtown of Taos.  It has also grown a great deal and there are new houses and developments creeping up the sides of  the mountain.  There are still open pasture areas and the road to Taos Pueblo didn't appear to have been overcome by fast food joints, tourist stops, etc., etc.

My new casita is everything it appeared to be in the photos and I'm totally charmed by my new landlords, Bob and Mary, who were putting the finishing touches on the place when we arrived.  I had dinner with a friend that night at a great little Mexican food restaurant and then slept like a rock except to get up every once in a while to gaze at the stars, which seemed close enough to touch, and listen to the coyotes.

On the morning of the 4th, still being somewhat on MA time, Scout and I went for an early walk, just in time to see the sun peek over Taos Mountain and illuminate the floor of the Rio Grande Valley, where a hot-air balloon was lifting off.  Then I had breakfast at the picnic table outside my casita and watched as probably a dozen hummingbirds flitted through the pinon pines and hit the feeders in Bob and Mary's yard.  Totally magical!

I'm writing this post on the computer of two new friends, Tammy and Denny, both of whom are incredibly talented artists, not to mention fantastic cooks.  Their house is located on a hillside overlooking a stream and we had dinner on their deck last night.  They also have three dogs, one of which (Tula) has completely charmed Scout--they spent about an hour playing in the stream and then throwing themselves in the dirt for a good scratch yesterday afternoon.  I think Scout has his first BFF in Taos!

My next project is to get my internet connection set up, so I probably won't write again until that happens.

Almost There....

Today Scout and I crossed the remainder of KS and into my home state of CO.  Tonight we're staying in La Junta, which is not far from Rocky Ford where my mother was born and raised on the family farm.  Unfortunately, because of the length of today's trip and the fact that I didn't think Scout could take one more minute in the car, I didn't get to go exploring for the old place.  Instead I took Scout to a public park to throw his ball and release some of his pent-up energy and, wouldn't you know it, we weren't 5 minutes into the game when he heard thunder and immediately went into his panic mode.  That was it for the ballplaying.  Tomorrow should be a much shorter day, however, and I'm going to try again as the stress of the trip seems to be wearing on him.

KS was very interesting to cross.  Immediately upon getting onto the interstate, I could see a huge wind farm in the distance.  There must have been 60-75 of those gigantic turbines, all going in different rotations--even with their stark whiteness, they are almost sculptural and not as intrusive on the landscape as I might have imagined. When we turned off the interstate and onto a state highway (parts of which turned out to be on or near the old Santa Fe Trail), we encountered another one, around Dodge City I think.  I also saw fields of sunflowers which were really pretty and all kinds of different birds, including a couple bald eagles and magpies.  Still haven't encountered a meadowlark--that will be a sure indication that I'm in the West.  I'm now in Mountain Daylight Time, too, which means that I'm 2 hours behind all of my friends in the East.

Tomorrow we head southwest to Ft. Garland, CO, and then south to Arroyo Hondo, where we should arrive by early afternoon.  To say that this has been an interesting trip would be an understatement.  We have gone from completely green MA to the semi-arid Great Basin of the center of the country and in many ways traced the path of my ancestors as they made their way across the country.  Of couse, everything is different now in a multitude of ways, but it's still possible to catch glimpses of what it must have been like for those early pioneers.

I'm very much looking forward to becoming a New Mexican tomorrow and starting the next chapter in my life.  This may be my last post for a while since I've not decided which internet provider to use.

Until then.....

One Day Closer via Salina, KS

This morning Scout and I left St. Louis at 7:30 in the most unbearable heat and humidity I've ever experienced.  Last night at 9:45, it was still 94 degrees, and when I opened the door to the hotel room, it was like stepping into a sauna.  This morning's drive across the top of MO would have been quite scenic if not for the constant barrage of gigantic billboards advertising everything from the local university to Grandma's fudge to one car dealer who seemed to like doing Burma Shave-type sequential signs.  We also crossed the mighty Missouri River which was actually in flood, which surprised me.  This must still be the result of the gigantic snow melt in the Rockies this year.

Then we entered Kansas City, where they seem to like their professional sports a lot (multiple venues for multiple teams) and where the drivers act like they learned to drive in Indianapolis (although I didn't see any blimps).  As we drove west across Kansas, it got hotter and hotter and less humid and there was an amazing shift in the scenery along about Manhattan and Topeka.  First, the vistas opened up dramatically and it was easy to see for miles and miles in any direction from the highway.  There were fewer trees and crops and more open grassland.  About the only things that broke the horizon line were grain silos and electronics towers.  Both of my parents' families migrated across this section of our great country to Colorado, and I wondered today as I sped along in air-conditioned comfort how this arid and barren land must have appeared to them.

Salina is probably a very nice little town but in the 107-degree heat (114 with the heat index), Scout and I didn't spend much time looking about except to get gas and escape into an air-conditioned motel room.  Even he couldn't take it and he'll put up with just about anything to play with his ball.  Right now, he's asleep on the bed behind me, with his nose toward the AC.  I am carrying a very special oil painting by Chief Muraina Oyelama, an amazing Nigerian artist who was a Copeland Fellow at Amherst College when I worked in the Black Studies department.  I didn't want to take a chance of shipping it with the movers because I thought the van would get too hot for the oils.  Well, tonight I brought it inside the motel room just in case it got too hot in the car!

Thoughts on today's travels:
- Kansas motorcyclists join their brothers and sisters in other states in the anti-helmet campaign.  Today I would have also worried about sunstroke!
- Kansas has a 70 MPH speed limit, which means that it's okay to do 80!
- I'm getting terrible gas mileage, which is probably a function of the load in the car, running the AC, and the heat.
- A sign at a Salina Midas Muffler shop:  "Don't play leapfrog with a unicorn!"  (No, I'm not kidding.)
- Saw my first Herefords today (those are the white-faced red cattle for those of you who are wondering), along with stock pens, cowboy hats hung in the rear windows of (lots) of pick-up trucks, and had some authentic Mexican food for dinner tonight! 

Tomorrow we drive to La Junta, CO, which is close to Rocky Ford, where my mother's parents homesteaded and which is where I spent the best summer vacations of my childhood.  I hope to spend some time looking around, visiting their old farm (unfortunately long gone from the family), and revisiting some very special old memories, before I head toward home (in Arroyo Hondo) on the 3rd.  Part of the drive tomorrow will not be on the interstate, which will be a welcome change.  If we hadn't had to beat the movers to NM, I really would have loved to have taken some of the scenic smaller roads to our destination.  We truly do live in a great and amazing country and to experience it at a less frantic pace and on its own terms is very special indeed--I know this from personal experience.

Until tomorrow then......