Monday, October 16, 2006
New Mexico is not so much the Land of Enchantment as it is the Land of Making My Eyeballs Explode.
Check it out. That is not a sunset, but a sunrise, from this Saturday morning. It just makes me want to weep. I was up early enough for once, and though it's the first sunrise I've seen here, I am sure it is the most magnificent sunrise ever. And that was just outside our door. Thank you for doing this just for me! We were already running a little late to Scout's, but there was no way I could get in the car without taking a million pictures of this flaming cloud here first. Sigh.
HOW AM I EVER GOING TO LEAVE HERE?!
When I think of the "process" by which we chose to come to New Mexico, I have to laugh. Because I mean there was no process. There was no thoughtfulness, very little knowledge, just a hunch. Two months ago when this little adventure wasn't even a twinkle in our eyes, we were sitting at a bar in Martha's Vineyard talking to this lovely older couple from Phoenix, when suddenly I asked them, "Have you ever been to Santa Fe?"
Why did I ask them this? Because they were from the Southwest? Up until that second, I never gave Santa Fe any thought. Ever. But there we were, and had we not met this friendly couple, who talked up Santa Fe, encouraged us to go, to explore, now, we wouldn't have come. Certainly not as quickly as we did. We would have diddle-daddled and talked about the possiblity of coming, endlessly, until I gave birth to triplets and the possibility died.
I wish I exchanged business cards with them, because I'd be sending them a basketful of puppies right now as our thanks. You guys were right. So right. We went, we ate, we saw, and it was amazing.
Anyway, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. We're still here, there's still more to see. And definitely more to eat.
So Saturday we were on our way to Albuquerque for Breakfast and Balloons at Scout's. It was pretty, puffy cloudy in Santa Fe, but the clouds became thicker and less friendly as we approached ABQ. We saw only two balloons in the sky from the highway, already one hour after ascension was supposed to take place, so I kept my fingers crossed that there would be more to see. By the time we parked at her house, more balloons started to take flight, luckily, but that photo above was the best shot I could get.
Hmph, I guess we'll have to come back next year!
Scout 'n me.
Thank you for having us over!
What a gracious, hospitable host Scout and her lovely family are, to invite us to their place and feed us breakfast burritos and coffee so early in the morning. If there's one thing I've learned on this trip, it's that there certainly are wonderful, truly good people in this world. And also -- it's never too early for green chile! Especially when it is smothering a heaping pile of hashbrowns! Hashbrowns and chile! Just when I thought we'd had all the "chile + x" equations out there.
GODDAMN I'm going to miss green chile.
I nearly kidnapped Scout's little Supergirl. She showed me around every inch of her room, her soccer team pictures (SO CUTE!) and introduced me to her fish which I was informed as "almost dead." I choked back a laugh. Didn't want to appear insensitive. But HAHA! Cutie. Pah. Tutie.
And her son? So well-mannered and charming as to apologize to me for the "mess of the bathroom" after I emerged from it. Ha ha, what mess? Scout I was so close to eating your children you have no idea!!
To top it all off, she gave me a skein of Socks That Rock. I was JUST perusing about it on the web too. I've already started making socks from it:
Scout had to get to work that morning so we just followed her to Village Wools, and hung out there for a little bit before we parted ways. (For now. We want to get together again, if only so Duck and I can bring a whole keg of beer and a kitten to make up for showing up at her house empty-handed on Saturday. Bad bad!).
It was really our first time in Albuquerque since coming to NM so Duck and I decided to hang out there a little longer. We drove to nearby Petroglyphs National Mnmt. I don't know what was wrong with us, but we found the volcanic rocks so near a metropolitan city more interesting than the drawing ON the rocks themselves.
After a few petroglyph sightings (which were not easy to come by) we were like, NEXT!
So then this revealed itself:
"Look, but do not touch. It took me like hours to do my hair this morning."
We saw not one, but TWO tarantulas while on our walks along the trail. That is exactly two more tarantulas than I've ever seen, in the wild, in my life. This second one Duck nearly stepped on. I was walking behind him when suddenly that black bristly thing came crawling out of a hole in the trail with Duck just to the left of it, and my breath became all jagged and raspy. Duck was like What WHAT WHAT?! But I couldn't speak. I was all, Huuuuhhhh aaahh eeahha uhhhh.
Luckily Duck took a couple of steps in the opposite direction before I finally found my voice. And then got close enough to take a picture. Duck was already headed for the hills. Which is funny because usually at home, I'm the one who screams when she sees a teeny tiny spider and he's the one who has to remove them. I guess this one was just too big and hairy for his liking.
It's true, it isn't natural when a spider has hair long enough to brush. But I was fascinated with it. It's not everyday that you're just taking a walk and hi! Tarantulas!
Ah yes. In case you haven't figured it out, New Mexico rocks.
Filed Under: Travel | Santa Fe