Reconnecting

The friends we've been staying with in New Mexico have so many visitors that they've put a B&B-style comment book in their guest room. The first several pages are filled with fond farewells, including Jerry's and mine, from when they left Sea Ranch several years ago. Now we've moved on as well. Among the more recent messages, we recognized the names of many mutual friends. I added our own thanks this morning, before we left for the airport.

Yesterday's outing was a long, scenic drive, the ultimate goal Los Alamos and the enthralling little historical museum there that several friends had recommended. The photo is a replica of an "atomic cake" that someone baked in "celebration" of, I think, the bombing of Hiroshima. Los Alamos has streets named after explosion sites. Just after we crossed Trinity and Bikini Atoll, Linda pointed out the local wellness center, an amusing juxtaposition, we thought. En route home we meandered through the Jemez mountains and some spectacular red-rock country. We had to stop for a while to wait out a fairly intense hailstorm.

We also got to see and share a couple of meals with Cynthia and Jim, another pair of Sea Ranch transplants, including dinner at their cat-filled (four) rancho-style house one evening. And we reconnected with Mary and Gary, who relocated to Placitas from Marin some time before Floyd and Linda made their move. I introduced the four of them via email, and they've since become good friends. Mary and I had breakfast yesterday at Home at the Range, a restaurant/bar in Bernalillo that's a favorite local hangout. She and Gary hosted us all for brunch the day before. They have a spectacular home with a thousand-mile view, endearing kitties (that's The Mook in the bowl below one of Mary's many chicken-themed paintings), and intriguing artwork everywhere you look. I'm so glad I had the opportunity for some gurl-schmooze with Mary, whom I met on the WELL years ago.

Last night, after our long day on the road, we went back to the Range for dinner. Our visit wound down with a couple of hours of quiet conversation back at Casa Floyd e Linda. We're more than ready to be home with our own kitties. But the change of scenery was good for us, and the reconnection with old friends even better.

Greetings from Placitas

We're visiting our friends Floyd and Linda in Placitas, NM, about a half hour north of Albuquerque. They have a wonderful view of the Sandia Mountains, which change dramatically with the light. A friend of theirs quoted the painter Richard Diebenkorn, who lived in this area for a while. He said something to the effect that he thought he'd miss the ocean, but he realized after he'd been in New Mexico for a while that the sky was the ocean here. I can see what he meant, though I'm still a holdout for proximity to large bodies of water.

Every August 4th the Santo Domingo pueblo holds a feast day in honor of its patron saint. Thousands of tribal members converge from all over. They don ceremonial garb, paint their faces and bodies, and form a huge procession, carrying gifts of bread, candles, and pine branches. Corn dances follow. Cameras are strictly forbidden on the reservation for this event, so I have no photos. Floyd's advice was "click it in your head"; I'll do my best.

Our afternoon entertainment was measuring our vitals with Floyd's nifty electronic blood-pressure monitor. You stick a finger into a hole, press a couple of buttons, and the tiny cuff expands to check your BP and pulse and give you a digital readout. Oh the thrill; it's like this generation's equivalent of a handheld video game. Once the competitive excitement ("whose pulse is the lowest?" "yeah, nice reading, but you're on drugs!") wound down, we went out for dinner at a Hyatt resort in Bernalillo. I wasn't expecting much from a hotel restaurant, don'tcha know, but aside from a couple of off-notes, our meals were delicious.

En route to dinner, we stopped at Art Gallery 66, which features whimsical sculptures, garden art and painted furniture as well as prints and paintings. My purchases, before tax, added up to $66. How did I do that? Jer called my attention to these grasshoppers in front of the building, posing on a rusted objet.

The evening's main attraction was an excellent thunderstorm, which we enjoyed from Linda and Floyd's patio until the flashes and rumbles started coming simultaneously and from almost directly overhead. We retreated to the living room, had dessert, and went to bed fairly early in anticipation of an early start on today's big adventure, Tent Rocks National Monument. Words cannot really describe, so I'll let pictures speak.