Holiday in New Mexico

We just got done watching McCain's acceptance speech. Overall I thought it was a solid effort on his part. I've liked him for a long time, but nevertheless been struggling with actually being able to support him in this election. In the past few years he has lost some of my support and admiration through his kissing up to the Christian right wing of the Republican Party/Bush and his exceptionally weak stance on illegal immigration. While I thought Sarah Palin was great in the Van Halen Video, Hot For Teacher, back in the 80's, I'm pretty sure she isn't ready to be president should anything happen to McCain. And while I'm sure Cindy McCain is a great person and she seems to be a person who is willing to put her money where her mouth is when it comes to helping other people, she came off as plastic and syrupy in her speech and I had to change the channel.

But that's not why I am writing this evening. Thursday afternoon after I spent all day at an off-site meeting at the lovely Wilshire Inn here in Denver, Bree and the whole gang came down and picked me up and we drove down to Taos for Labor Day weekend. Thankfully we had a free place to stay that had been arranged for us by our friends John and Piper. The drive down went very well. For Rachel's first long car trip she performed admirably. We only made one stop at a gas station south of Pueblo for her to have a bite to eat. We were able to listen to most of Obama's speech on the radio, although when he was speaking we were making our way over La Veta Pass and had to switch radio stations a few times to try to maintain an intelligible signal.

We got to the little adobe two bedroom home on the northern outskirts of town around 10. The house had been left completely open by the owner who was out of town for the week. Spanish language music was playing rather loudly on the stereo when I stuck my head in and felt about for a light switch. It felt a little spooky in a way. When the dogs came in they both immediately smelled the cats and went about in a frenzied effort to locate their mortal enemies. We found one, a long haired orange tabby, cowering on top of a bookcase, clearly not interested in meeting our German Shepherd, Oscar. I put the cat outside after a while, as the cat's owner said that her cats were primarily outdoor cats and would do fine on their own for the weekend with the dogs in the house. I never saw the 2nd cat that was supposed to be there, and that was the last I saw of the orange one. I hope they are ok.

Everybody, including the dogs had a tough time getting to sleep that first night. There were paintings propped up against several of the walls and potted plants sitting on the floor. I think my wife and I were both concerned that our dogs would do damage to this woman's property. In the end things went smoothly, but from the way the dogs acted that first night, we never would have expected it.

The next morning, before John and Piper arrived, we went into town to walk around a bit. We stopped to share a sandwich at the Cafe Renato, which we later learned was the former site of the home of a local entrepeneur who whose decapitated corpse was found there after some failed business deal. There was WiFi avilable so I could contact John and let him know that the hideaway bed that I had thought would be in the living room and available to the kids had been replaced by something that was not suitable for sleeping on, even for a 5 year old. After a lite lunch we had a nice time walking around with Rachel who was riding comfortably in her new and overpriced Ergo Babycarrier.

Piper arrived with Evelyn and Lorelei a little after 5 while I was sitting outside and reading a copy of Slaughterhouse Five which I had found in one of the many bookcases. I've never read the book before although I know it is one of those books that I probably should have read at some point, preferably when I was in my early 20s. However, when the Wohlbier girls are up and about there isn't much time for reading anything, although I did get a thorough introduction to Hannah Montana. Sorry Kurt Vonnegut.

John came a short time later on his new BMW Dakar 650. He had taken the long road from Los Alamos through the hills and had a nice ride. He barely beat the rain when he arrived. It seemed storm clouds were closing in on both sides. We stayed up late that first night drinking Pabst and talking. We didn't have much dinner, so that left plenty of room for more beer. John stoked up a fire in a portable fire pit he had packed into the back of their car and we got to work polishing off the better part of a case of beer.

We all went downtown the next morning and walked around a small art festival. For us, the farmers market was much more interesting, though. There were actually several vendors there selling fresh vegetables, which is almost unheard of here in Denver where the local farmers markets are an excuse for businesses to get out and sell their fancy artesian breads, flavored pastas, jars of pesto and other wares of that nature. The market in Taos seemed to attract people from all over northern New Mexico, which of course is not exactly known for its produce, with the possible exception of peppers. I took the motorcycle out for a ride that afternoon and was riding up the long canyon toward the Taos Ski Area when it suddenly started to rain very hard. I wasn't surprised. The whole time I was riding up the canyon I was chasing an enormous rainbow silouetted against the backdrop of a large dark cloud. It was gorgeous and exillerating but since I am out of practice on a motorcycle I decided to turn around and head back. I felt really cool whenever I passed another biker coming in the opposite direction. The would always give a little underhanded wave off the handlebar. I tried to replicate it but I'm sure I looked awkward doing it. I was afraid they would pick me out as some sort of poser. That night we had dinner at the Outback Pizza restaurant which was very good, as well as being kid friendly.

The next morning John and I took off for the Wild Rivers Recreation area to do some hiking. This is an area on BLM land that has been set aside with several trails leading down into the deep canyons of the Red and Rio Grande Rivers. We took two short trails. The first of which we were along most of the time on. It descended steeply into the canyon from the rim on a rocky trail that didn't look like it had gotten a great deal of use. We had to thrash our way through some underbrush that had overgrown the trail at the bottom just to get down to the river. It was running quickly here and there was definitely a feeling of solitude down in the canyon. I even saw a small snake but was unable to catch it before it scooted back into the weeds. The next trail was the La Junta Trail, which had been billed as the toughest trail in the area. It dropped almost a thousand feet off the rim to a plateau before making its way down to the very confluence of the two rivers. The trail passed through an enormous boulderfield made up of giant basalt stones. We don't see as much basalt like this up here around Denver. It is a smooth, volcanic rock and is very slippery to walk on when it gets wet. I think we were both grateful for the chance to get out for a little while that morning and stretch our legs, but unfortunately Piper was having a bit of an issue with Evelyn and Lorelei and called John wondering when he would be back. We had already taken more time than we had expected so we hauled ass back up to the rim of the canyon, working up a serious sweat in the process.

She had asked us to stop for some milk and vegetable oil on the way back so we went into the small general store in the town of Cuesta. There are always a lot of rough looking characters around here when I drive through, which is usually at night. It is a small crossroads town that seems to attract weathered, heavy drinking men from all over for a night out in this very poor part of the country. At the only store, which was directly connected to a bar room, we had to ask where the milk was. There was a whole wall full of beer and wine, including a wide selection of my personal favorite, Boones Farm. The woman behind the counter invited us back later to do some partying with the locals, but I don't think either John or myself seriously considered the offer.

To give Piper a break from the kids I took her, Bree and Rachel into town so that they could walk around and do some shopping. It was actually very nice. There is a lot of interesting retail in Taos, if you are so inclined, as well as many fine art galleries. We spent a while at a coffee shop as well where we all, including Rachel, had something to drink.

Bree had a very tough time at dinner later. We were at the small brew pub in town and had ordered our meal a short time before when Rachel started screaming. After being perfectly good all day, she chose the time when Bree's food was being placed in front of her to let loose with a good hearty fuss. I felt bad and wanted to help, but there isn't too much that I can do. If anybody is going to calm Rachel down when she gets into a tizzy, it isn't me I'm afraid. Dinner was good, but hard to enjoy when my wife was feeling so absolutely frustrated.

On the drive home Bree agreed to take a more roundabout route back to Denver by going up through Chama. This ended up taking a lot longer than I had expected. The first part of the drive was amazing. We took Hwy 64 northwest from Tres Piedras through the national forest. For a long time we didn't even see another car. The scenery wasn't spectacular, but was nevertheless beautiful. We drove through rolling hills and forests. Large meadows opened up, some with ponds. It looked like great country for wildlife, although all we saw were some deer. In Chama we parked the car and walked around some. I really liked the town. It has a year round population of 1200 and had a good small, mountain town flavor. It does draw a lot of tourists in the summer months though with good fly fishing and its being the terminus of the Chama Toltec Railroad, which is one of a few old narrow gauge railroads that still runs the old coal fired steam engines for tourists and train freaks.

One woman I talked to in town who was running a small gift shop was from Milwaukee. She informed me that they had gotten 180 inches of snow last winter. The snow caved in the roof of the town's only grocery store and ever since everybody has to make the 50 mile drive up to Pagosa Springs to lay in supplies. Another woman told me that the company that owned the grocery store had told them that they would have another one up and running by September 15th. She was skeptical though, and went in to great detail explaining to me why. For one, she said that they hadn't even laid the foundation for the new building yet, much less anything else, so how were they going to get this thing built and stocked in time to open in 14 days. I had to agree that I thought in unlikely that they would make the deadline. "Well" she said, "I wish they would just tell us one way or another and stop stringing us along. We just want to know the truth so we can make plans." The woman was clearly trying to strategize on how she and her husband were going to make it through this coming winter and wanted plenty of lead time.

After 10 hours of driving we made it home. All of us were very tired, and I had to go to work the next morning. Back to the boring old grind. It was good to be out on the road.