I'm lazy. I'm just going to post the email I sent the kids this morning:
We arrived in Abiquiu after an adventurous day at Bandelier Nat'l. Mon. (more about that another time). We were exhausted. Our hosts, Jeff and Marilyn, crossed us on the road as they headed out to dinner. They seem like wonderful people (mother and son), and the thoughtfulness with which they've appointed this "casita" nearly overwhelmed us. It is great! They thought of everything, and the fridge, cabinets and closets are stocked with an endless supply of.......well, pretty much everything.
The view from the back porch is of the Pedernal and Black Mesa. The front yard has a table with umbrella (where they set the morning paper for us) right next to a pinon tree decorated with very busy hummingbird feeders and other bird feeders. They have Arabian horses which we have not seen or met as yet and two Jack Russels which I spied racing around the house last night. I've been promised we will get a chance for an up close and personal meet and greet. Yay!
Right now I'm half sitting, half lying on the sofa while the laundry gets done. I don't know where dad is. I think he's wandering around the property. Neither one of us are in a hurry today. Our bodies are still kind of adjusting to the altitude, which has hit us this time for some reason. After lunch I guess we will drive into town and check out the shops and look at the 2 or 3 restaurants and bars. There are 2 other towns within 1/2 hour from here. We'll explore those too.
I suspect we will tour Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O'Keeffe had a studio and painted some of her more famous landscapes. There are also several places where we can hike.
For a little extra spice, we learned from our host that Shirly MacLaine lives just the other side of the hill, and Marsha Mason lives about 1/2 mile away.
July 12, 2008
How Not to Take a Hike
There could be some training involved for this event. It's up to you. Personally, I took drugs to regulate menopausal symptoms that caused me to inexplicably gain weight, making everything a bit more difficult. You can also toss and turn on a bad mattress the night before. I feel this enhanced my bad hiking experience. It's up to you. Get creative!
On the day of the hike:
On the day of the hike:
- Dress inappropriately. Wear heavy jeans. Navy blue is a good choice for that monochromatic look. Add jewelry. Rings and bracelets will especially make the total experience more fashionably ridiculous.
- Eat a very light breakfast.
- Don't actually plan to hike. Do it on the spur of the moment! This will assure that you really have done no planning whatsoever.
- Do it in July or August in the Northern Hemisphere (reverse for Southern). It's really so much hotter then.
- Be sure to arrive late in the morning when the day is heating up nicely. We found noonish works well.
- Do not - repeat - do NOT eat lunch before you leave for the hike. Plan on eating afterwards. Leave all food in the car.
- Forget to take water. Water just slows you down - right? Who needs water in the high desert in the summer? Sissies.
- Miscalculate just how far you will be hiking.
- Make sure the hike involves precipitous increases in elevation due to very long, steep ladders up cliff sides.
- Hurry up those ladders! Don't want those behind you to be waiting while you take your time. Plus, you don't want to be thinking about the height involved.
I did all this yesterday at Bandelier National Monument, where we decided to hike up a trail we missed on our last visit. The trail involved climbing 4 Pueblo Indian style ladders. When I finally made it to the top, my heart was racing and I started to get really dizzy. Mentally, I just kept telling myself that it wasn't a heart attack. There was no pain. A stroke....maybe.....but probably not a heart attack. Two wonderful wonderful young women (not American but spoke English very well, and we were really too upset to ask from where) came over and gave us water and snacks and stayed until they were absolutely sure I would be okay. I wish we'd seen them afterwards.
Obviously, I got down safely. Stupidest thing we've done in a long time.
July 9, 2008
Petroglyphs, Mole & Mariachi
So here it is our last night in Albuquerque. Tomorrow morning we will head on up the road to Jemez Springs where we have a rustic little hideaway awaiting us for the night. From there it is on to Abiquiu.
We spent quite a nice day doing all the trails at the Petroglyph National Monument. Some we'd done before, but the whole petroglyph thing is something we enjoy. I took far too many pictures, so feel free to zip on through them. I promise not to be insulted.
Today we drove up to Santa Fe using the Torquoise Trail, which is a scenic byway. Along the way we stopped in Cerillos, which is a remarkably sleepy little town that seems to have lost track of time. The centuries old adobe buildings and the dusty streets made the perfect background for films such as Young Guns and Lonesome Dove. Where else would you find a functioning town with hitching posts outside all the establishments? Again, I got a little trigger happy with the camera. :)
Frankly, Santa Fe is far too bustling a city for me. The traffic heading into town on Cerillos Rd. is awful. Once you get to the center of town, however, things do calm down a little bit, and it really is beautiful to behold. We were hungry, so we headed straight for a restaurant we remembered Rachael Ray recommending a few years back. She pointed us to an incredible restaurant in Tucson, so we decided to try the Rooftop Cantina atop the Coyote Cafe. The quality of the food is the same as the pricey, chi chi restaurant on the ground floor, but it is basically an open air bar, and the prices are far more reasonable. We both enjoyed a Santa Fe pale ale before marveling over the chicken tacos with mole sauce. It was accompanied by arroz verde (green rice - yum!), pico de gallo, and the most wonderful beans. Wow! It was terrific.
Afterwards, we headed to the O'Keeffe museum where I was happily surprised to find the special exhibit for the summer was Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe! It is difficult for me to describe the feelings when confronted with the original works of both these artists. I smiled my way through most of the rooms.
We walked down to the plaza and enjoyed eyeballing the Navajo crafts artfully arranged on blankets, and then headed to the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. It was a beautiful church, but I can't help but get a little queasy whenever confronted with colonial Spanish art. It is rather a bloody affair.
The Loretto Chapel, with its spiral staircase that seems literally suspended in mid-air was great. The carpenter remains unknown (or so the tale goes). He arrived one day and offered to build this incredible piece, asking no compensation. He disappeared as he arrived, and the staircase still stands. It is truly a work of art.
We will be returning to Santa Fe again. There is still much to be seen in the city.
When we got back to our hotel, we discovered there had been an invasion of children. It seems Albuquerque is hosting a Junior Mariachi competition. The management was wise enough to put them all on the other side of the hotel, but the pool was overflowing with children. The older kids did serenade the guests with mariachi music at dinner time. Lord help us at breakfast. I can only hope they sleep late. The last group (I think the last one was softball) emptied the milk and filled most of the tables. Oy.
We spent quite a nice day doing all the trails at the Petroglyph National Monument. Some we'd done before, but the whole petroglyph thing is something we enjoy. I took far too many pictures, so feel free to zip on through them. I promise not to be insulted.
Today we drove up to Santa Fe using the Torquoise Trail, which is a scenic byway. Along the way we stopped in Cerillos, which is a remarkably sleepy little town that seems to have lost track of time. The centuries old adobe buildings and the dusty streets made the perfect background for films such as Young Guns and Lonesome Dove. Where else would you find a functioning town with hitching posts outside all the establishments? Again, I got a little trigger happy with the camera. :)
Frankly, Santa Fe is far too bustling a city for me. The traffic heading into town on Cerillos Rd. is awful. Once you get to the center of town, however, things do calm down a little bit, and it really is beautiful to behold. We were hungry, so we headed straight for a restaurant we remembered Rachael Ray recommending a few years back. She pointed us to an incredible restaurant in Tucson, so we decided to try the Rooftop Cantina atop the Coyote Cafe. The quality of the food is the same as the pricey, chi chi restaurant on the ground floor, but it is basically an open air bar, and the prices are far more reasonable. We both enjoyed a Santa Fe pale ale before marveling over the chicken tacos with mole sauce. It was accompanied by arroz verde (green rice - yum!), pico de gallo, and the most wonderful beans. Wow! It was terrific.
Afterwards, we headed to the O'Keeffe museum where I was happily surprised to find the special exhibit for the summer was Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe! It is difficult for me to describe the feelings when confronted with the original works of both these artists. I smiled my way through most of the rooms.
We walked down to the plaza and enjoyed eyeballing the Navajo crafts artfully arranged on blankets, and then headed to the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. It was a beautiful church, but I can't help but get a little queasy whenever confronted with colonial Spanish art. It is rather a bloody affair.
The Loretto Chapel, with its spiral staircase that seems literally suspended in mid-air was great. The carpenter remains unknown (or so the tale goes). He arrived one day and offered to build this incredible piece, asking no compensation. He disappeared as he arrived, and the staircase still stands. It is truly a work of art.
We will be returning to Santa Fe again. There is still much to be seen in the city.
When we got back to our hotel, we discovered there had been an invasion of children. It seems Albuquerque is hosting a Junior Mariachi competition. The management was wise enough to put them all on the other side of the hotel, but the pool was overflowing with children. The older kids did serenade the guests with mariachi music at dinner time. Lord help us at breakfast. I can only hope they sleep late. The last group (I think the last one was softball) emptied the milk and filled most of the tables. Oy.
July 6, 2008
Get Your Kicks.........
First of all, if any of you know what I did with the plastic baggie filled with state quarters, please advise. I put them in a safe place. 'Nuff said.
We got to Albuquerque a day early and decided to see if we could check into the Best Western, which was a go. They disappointed us horribly this time around. I suppose it is still a bargain for a place so close to downtown and Old Town, but they no longer offer free breakfast, the beds we got were terrible, and we saw 3 roaches, which to a seasoned Floridian signals a mad infestation. We will not return.
Picked up the kids without incident. They landed within the promised five minutes of each other. It was wonderful to be togeether again, even in the cramped quarters of one double room.
I guess the highlights were the drive we took up north of the city and through Corrales, which they found very cool. We also took the Sandia Tramway. There is a National Forest right on the other side of the mountain from the city, giving city dwellers easy access to hiking, biking and skiing. Pretty great.
One notable meal was lunch at the Chama River Brewing Company. Good beer, good food, good company..........the whole package.
Breakfast at the 66Diner was wonderful, inexpensive, and you can't beat it for nostalgia. The ghosts of the '50s were evident everywhere.
We took them to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, more so that we could shop than for them to see it, but they enjoyed it as well. Between this and the Native Americans whe sell their crafts on the Plaza in Old Town, we are a few hundred poorer than we might have been, but we were happy with our purchases. Jenny got two beautiful rings. Matt liked the wood carvings and also got a raven fetish.
Last night we had a great meal at Kelly's Brewery. Sure, it was just a bar, but it was a good one with good bar food, a sizable microbrewery, and lots going on. We left the kids down there and went home.
The 20-something big city assessment of Albuquerque's night life was that it is "weird" that everything is on Central Avenue in one continuous strip, instead of spread out in neighborhoods like in their respective cities. I guess they are right about this. We are certainly not in a position to judge.
After we dropped them off at the airport (choking up and not dwelling on this part), we took off to the south to have a look at Los Lunas and Belen. Very nice people in both towns but not much else going on, so we headed up to Rio Rancho, just north of the city. The is the city Intel built in a manner of speaking, much the same was Bellvue is the city Microsoft built. It is large and bustling, and we may end up near here if we do move to New Mexico somewhere down the road.
However, we were not that impressed with the hotels in the area and decided to come back to the place we used as home base in the spring. That's where we are now, waiting for a huge load of laundry to dry - this may take some time (those of you who have experienced hotel laundry rooms will understand how slow the driers are - just think all the cliches: waiting for paint to dry, etc.)
Don't know how long we will stay. We aren't due in Abiquiu until Friday afternoon, and we are just bone tired at the moment. This, of course, does not mean we will not head out first thing in the morning for either the Hispanic Cultural Center or Petroglyph National Monument.
I do have some pictures from Albuquerque, which I will try to get formed into an album soon.
We got to Albuquerque a day early and decided to see if we could check into the Best Western, which was a go. They disappointed us horribly this time around. I suppose it is still a bargain for a place so close to downtown and Old Town, but they no longer offer free breakfast, the beds we got were terrible, and we saw 3 roaches, which to a seasoned Floridian signals a mad infestation. We will not return.
Picked up the kids without incident. They landed within the promised five minutes of each other. It was wonderful to be togeether again, even in the cramped quarters of one double room.
I guess the highlights were the drive we took up north of the city and through Corrales, which they found very cool. We also took the Sandia Tramway. There is a National Forest right on the other side of the mountain from the city, giving city dwellers easy access to hiking, biking and skiing. Pretty great.
One notable meal was lunch at the Chama River Brewing Company. Good beer, good food, good company..........the whole package.
Breakfast at the 66Diner was wonderful, inexpensive, and you can't beat it for nostalgia. The ghosts of the '50s were evident everywhere.
We took them to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, more so that we could shop than for them to see it, but they enjoyed it as well. Between this and the Native Americans whe sell their crafts on the Plaza in Old Town, we are a few hundred poorer than we might have been, but we were happy with our purchases. Jenny got two beautiful rings. Matt liked the wood carvings and also got a raven fetish.
Last night we had a great meal at Kelly's Brewery. Sure, it was just a bar, but it was a good one with good bar food, a sizable microbrewery, and lots going on. We left the kids down there and went home.
The 20-something big city assessment of Albuquerque's night life was that it is "weird" that everything is on Central Avenue in one continuous strip, instead of spread out in neighborhoods like in their respective cities. I guess they are right about this. We are certainly not in a position to judge.
After we dropped them off at the airport (choking up and not dwelling on this part), we took off to the south to have a look at Los Lunas and Belen. Very nice people in both towns but not much else going on, so we headed up to Rio Rancho, just north of the city. The is the city Intel built in a manner of speaking, much the same was Bellvue is the city Microsoft built. It is large and bustling, and we may end up near here if we do move to New Mexico somewhere down the road.
However, we were not that impressed with the hotels in the area and decided to come back to the place we used as home base in the spring. That's where we are now, waiting for a huge load of laundry to dry - this may take some time (those of you who have experienced hotel laundry rooms will understand how slow the driers are - just think all the cliches: waiting for paint to dry, etc.)
Don't know how long we will stay. We aren't due in Abiquiu until Friday afternoon, and we are just bone tired at the moment. This, of course, does not mean we will not head out first thing in the morning for either the Hispanic Cultural Center or Petroglyph National Monument.
I do have some pictures from Albuquerque, which I will try to get formed into an album soon.
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