Toast Ranch Ramblings

Gourd Artist Strikes Again?

2011-05-21T16:58:00.004-06:00

OK, so I don't know if this is the mystery gourd artist at work again or not (see earlier post). But someone has been altering adopt-a-median signs around town. You know the ones - they usually look like this-

The first one I noticed was on Old Santa Fe Trail - it's made of bundles of sticks-

The next one I found pretty quickly, right down the same street, and it was made of seed pods strung together -

That was all I found for awhile. But then last week, I found another one and it was my favorite yet - on Cerrillos Rd.-

A side view reveals more-

How funny! I wonder how long it's been there and how many millions of times I've driven right past it.

Anyway, all of these are on the same streets as the gourd street signs and I'm betting there's a connection.

Happy spring! Go make some art!!

Neither rain nor snow....

2011-04-07T15:29:00.006-06:00

It started off as a really gloomy, drizzly, cold day today. Not the kind of day you would jump up out of bed and want to go letterboxing. Except that today, I had already made plans with lionsmane and rubberpeace to go letterboxing and find what would be my 1000th find. The 3 of us have a sort of pact that we will make special boxes for each other for our 1000th finds (or at least to celebrate our 1000th finds). I know a lot of you don't like to count your finds and that's all well and good, but we Santa Feans like to count ours! It just seems to be fun and a cause for celebration. I'll never forget my 100th find - at Bridal Veil Falls, it was a letterbox by KAT. #500 was a box by allemyn at Union Station in Denver. And 1000 was to be a box by lionsmane. I had planted his 1000th box and now he was doing the same for me. He had secretly dropped off a lovely packet of clues on Sunday-

By packet of clues, I mean specifically that there were FIVE puzzles I had to solve.

Thank goodness they weren't too too hard. It would have been embarrassing to have to ask for help on my special box.... But luckily, the hardest puzzle had a hint that helped a lot. I figured out all the puzzles and was ready by Sunday evening to go look for the box. But we had to wait for a day when we could all go look for it together (lionsmane, who wanted to photograph the event, and rubberpeace, who had contributed to the box). So today was the day.

So - I bounded out of bed. I knew that the box had a mid-century modern (MCM) theme and the name of the box was "Dreams of Eames." Perfect for me (who is MCM obsessed and lives in a MCM house). I knew there were going to be stamps by a variety of letterboxers in it. I couldn't wait.

The first stop was to meet lionsmane up at St. John's College. There was a box there that I had planted / relocated recently and he hadn't gotten it yet. I went with him to find the box,

and then we went over to rubberpeace's house to pick her up. Then we all went over to the Mystery Location of "my" box. We followed the clues and had no trouble finding the box. It was threatening to rain and the ground was still wet from the rain last night, so we took the box to the place we had chosen to go to lunch nearby. There we were able to spread out and look at all the goodies. And have a really fabulous lunch. There were amazing stamps from 8 different letterboxers that I know, all with a midcentury modern theme. Wonderful! And there was a great FF certificate, a Dreams of Eames LTC, little starburst magnets and as an added bonus, lionsmane had carved a return address stamp with my address and a carving of the front of my MCM house!! Wow Wow Wow!! What a box!

While we stamped in at the restaurant, it poured outside. We were glad to have the rain, but we were also glad to be inside, out of it all. Much better to be inside, eating pie....:-)

After lunch, the rain had stopped again so lionsmane and I stopped and got another letterbox we hadn't found yet (a bonus box called Hi Desert Spring). I was on a roll and having a terrific time with all these great carvings so when lionsmane and I dropped off rubberpeace at her house, rubberpeace and I decided to continue letterboxing and go find Beatles Series #15 "Revolution" (lionsmane had already found it). The weather was holding out and even though the mountains were fogged in (or snowed in), the sun was starting to come out where we were. (There's an old saying in Santa Fe: Don't like the weather? Wait 5 minutes.) We had a great time finding our last box of the day.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Dreams of Eames box, and to my letterboxing pal lionsmane especially. He put in a ton of work on this box, and I hear he learned a lot about MCM design in the process! :-) I had a blast figuring out the puzzles and looking at each little stamp treasure in the box. Way too much fun. I encourage you all to do the puzzles and find this amazing box!

Rubberpeace will be at 1000 soon and lionsmane and I are already putting the finishing touches on her special box. Can't wait until she finds it. That'll be another post. But in the meantime - thanks to everyone for inspiring me creatively with your great letterboxes and for leading me on such great letterboxing adventures. I love love love this hobby and it's all because of your creativity that makes it such a grand adventure. You just never know what treasures you're going to find. Love and hugs to you all!!!

- from Astro D and her fabulous MCM cat, Eames, who now has a letterbox named after him :-)

A Swing through the Panhandle

2010-11-25T09:10:00.005-07:00

It's Thanksgiving time again, and John and I headed out to west Texas to see my mom. We always try and take a new route out here, so this time, we decided to go explore the Panhandle of Texas a bit.

The drive out to Amarillo was easy enough - an hour's drive down to hit I-40, then it's a straight shot into Amarillo. We got into Amarillo mid-afternoon and stopped by the famed Cadillac Ranch our way into town. You can see it from the highway, but you could drive right past it and never see it (which I have done).

The 10 Cadillacs are nose down in a cow field. When this art installation was first done, the Cadillacs all had their original paint jobs. But now, people have covered them in spray paint and graffiti and actually ripped off giant chunks of the cars. You are now even encouraged to paint the cars and leave your mark. There were empty cans of spray paint all over the place and someone was spray painting when we were there. I don't have anything against spray paint or graffiti but I would have liked to have seen the cars in their original state. The cars now seemed like a monument to urban decay.

Thanks to letterboxer jbkokopelli, we took a tour of quite a few other Stanley Marsh 3 art installations. The next was "Floating Mesa," a mesa with a sky-colored fence wrapped around part of it so it looked like the top part was floating. And we also saw The Giant Pair of Legs. This is a pair of legs, also out in a cow field, that was supposed to look like the remains of some old giant statue. In fact, Stanley Marsh 3 had a fake historical marker made that talked about how the legs had been the inspiration for the poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley - “I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said ‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone, stand in the desert....” Of course, this poem was written in the early 1800's, so the whole thing is a big joke. Loved it. Again, the legs have been creatively painted by sightseers.

Stanley Marsh 3's Cadillac Ranch has inspired a few copycats - there's now a Slug Bug Ranch about 20 miles east in Conway, and there's a Combine City on the southeast edge of Amarillo. We ended up skipping the slugs bugs but had to see the combines. We really enjoyed those - all 12 are in their original colors, probably because I don't think many people know about this place, it's way off the beaten path. Of course, we found out about it through letterboxing.

We also wanted to go see Palo Duro Canyon, Texas' largest canyon. It's only about a half hour out of Amarillo. So we spent one morning there letterboxing and exploring. It was a pretty spot, with lots of red rock.

When we left Amarillo and headed for San Angelo, we took another detour over towards Turkey, TX. Our friend wronghat had placed a box there that we wanted to find. Plus, there was a Bob Wills Museum there we were hoping to go to. Well, unfortunately, the museum was closed on Sunday. But it was a cute little town

and we found wronghat's letterbox on a lovely little trail on the edge of town.

Our letterboxing adventures that day took us to a spring, a couple of canyon overlooks, and into several interesting old towns.

We finally had to stop letterboxing and get on with our drive to Abilene that night. The next day was a quick drive into San Angelo, with a quick stop for a Boots Tex box in a park outside Buffalo Gap. Unfortunately, the box was gone but we got in a nice little walk (the weather was in the mid 70's so it was a perfect day to be out).

Thanks to all the Texas letterboxers for leading us to such interesting places! And a happy Thanksgiving to you all!

How Can You be in Four Places At Once, When You're Not Anywhere at All?

2010-10-19T12:43:00.008-06:00

Well, maybe by being at 4 Corners? (I dunno, ask the folks over at the Firesign Theater....)

This is the spot where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado all meet. We headed up that way this weekend for a weekend getaway. We used Farmington as a base and made some day trips to various spots.

On the way up on Friday, we stopped off at Angel Peak Recreation Area to find a letterbox by wronghat. I'd never been to this place (actually, never even heard of it) and it turned out to be a great surprise. A few miles off the highway to Farmington were tremendous views of badlands.

A great way to start the day.

Then we headed up to the town of Aztec to go to the Aztec Ruins National Monument (and to get another letterbox). The ruins were really fun - there was a place where you got to go through a whole series of rooms that had been reconstructed and restored - it was really interesting. There was also a reconstructed Great Kiva. We were amazed at how it looked inside and how spacious it was.

The next day, we went to the actual 4 Corners site. I hadn't been there since I was about 5. It has really gotten fixed up! It wasn't at all what we had expected. We were expecting boring, flat terrain and it was nothing of the sort. After we left the actual monument, which is on Navajo tribal land, we drove to find a Kristal and Ron 4 Corners LB nearby. It had a nice view of the San Juan River so we stopped and had a picnic lunch.

The next day was our big adventure. I had read about Aspen's Crow Canyon letterbox about a year ago and had been wanting to go. It was at a petroglyph site about 20 miles down a sketchy dirt road and I had been nervous about going out there with my friends Peggy and Lynda when we all went to Farmington this spring. So this trip was mainly about coming back here to check out the petroglyphs (I'm a big petroglyph fan). Well, it was well worth the trip back. The road wasn't bad at all (except a sandy bit at the end) - the cottonwoods were changing and the drive up along Largo Wash was lovely.

We made it to the site and had no trouble finding the letterbox. We continued on along the trail to the "Main Panel" of petroglyphs. Excellent!

That was so much fun that once we got back in the car, I wanted to go find the other places mentioned on the sign when we came in: the 44 Panel and the Warrior Panel. We drove over to the 44 Panel and hiked over to see it. You can see why they call it the 44 Panel -

Somehow we missed the sign for the Warrior Panel so didn't see that one. We were excited about our day so far - it was a beautiful day and we had had Crow Canyon all to ourselves - so we decided to go on to D-Girl's Turtle of the Lake letterbox. It was at a remote Navajo ruin with the remains of a triangular tower. I really wanted to go. We had to go back the 20 miles on the dirt road, drive another 40 miles or so, then back to another dirt road. By the time we got to the trailhead, I was pretty tired of being in the car. It was only 0.1 miles to walk to the ruins and there was the triangular tower, perched on the edge of the canyon. Beautiful! And again, not a soul in sight. It was definitely worth the drive out to this remote spot, I think it was my favorite place of the whole trip.

We hung out here for awhile and had our picnic lunch of the day. Many many thanks to Aspen and D-Girl for bringing us to these 2 very special places.

We were tired, and we decided to skip another possible box at Navajo Dam and head back the way we came along the main road, where we could stop one more time for a letterbox in Blanco. But our GPS was telling us that the shortest way back to Blanco was not the way we had come, along the main road, but it was along a series of (more!!) dirt roads which led us through Navajo Dam! So we followed the advice of the GPS. It was a beautiful drive, we got to see more new scenery, and we got to drive across the dam!

We found the letterbox there and then headed to Blanco. Never found the box there but we didn't care, we were tired and had had a wonderful day of adventuring and letterboxing. Thanks again to everyone for taking us to such wonderful places on this trip!

Up the California Coast

2010-09-28T16:03:00.006-06:00

We took a vacation in California last week. We'd had several friends go there recently and it made me long for a trip to the coast. We'd never been up the coast very far from San Francisco, so we decided that's what we'd do. We'd go to San Francisco for a few days, then head up Highway 1 to Eureka - see the coast and then see the redwoods. Well, the trip had to be changed at the last minute and the few days in San Francisco got cancelled because our cat Edie got an eye scratch and an eye infection and we needed to deal with that. But the rest of our trip remained unchanged.

I love to research trips and this one seemed overwhelming at first. I'd gotten a book called "Experience the California Coast" and it gave a little blurb on each park and beach the whole way up the coast. I was at a loss at where to go (there were just way too many choices) and what to do until I read the clues for Doublesaj and Old Blue's St. Patrick's letterbox series. They had placed 5 boxes at their 5 favorite places on the northern coast and that was certainly a start! So our trip revolved around places with letterboxes. There was one here at this lovely spot -

and another near here in Ft. Bragg-

There was one here at a state park which was sort of dilapidated and had a stretch of coastal highway?/ now walking path that was falling into the sea-

Once we left the coast, we headed on to the redwoods. I had read that Humboldt State Park was every bit as good as the Redwood National Park but I was not convinced until we went there. Again, we were mostly guided by letterboxes and most of them were by The Olde Oak. Hunting for these boxes took us to many different redwood groves, each having their own personality. I was amazed how quiet they were, there were really not many tourists there at all (were they all in the national park?!). Anyway, I highly recommend a letterboxing tour through the redwoods at Humboldt State Park!

We started our tour at The Drive Thru Tree. I've always wanted to go to one of these - it seems like such old fashioned fun. Unfortunately, I could find no listing for any letterboxes at any drive thru trees. Well, that little issue has now been resolved.

Here's me standing by a fallen redwood-

And here's John sitting on a redwood bench, where there is a letterbox hidden conveniently nearby. VERY nearby. In the bench, actually!

And here's the only wildlife pic I got, John and the Banana Slug. And no, neither of us was even remotely tempted to lick it. (I know there is a contingent of letterboxers out there who do such a crazy thing. You know who you are!!)

And we got little chuckles out of some letterbox journal entries such as -

We made it all the way up to Eureka, where we stayed put for a couple of days. Saw this fun mural-

and these folk art wooden figures-

Then we made our way back to the Bay Area via the 101 and stayed there for a day and visited with our friend Wiley. Wish we'd had more time there, there was a lot more I had planned to do there in the days of the trip that had to be cancelled, but that will have to wait for a future trip!

Camping at Canyon de Chelly

2010-09-06T20:01:00.006-06:00

We headed out on a camping trip this past weekend to Canyon de Chelly, in eastern Arizona, with our friends Mike and Dimid. We hadn't been camping in probably 3 years, which was way too long. Canyon de Chelly is about a 5 hour drive from Santa Fe so we drove out there after work on Thursday. Mike and Dimid were already in our reserved campsite so all we had to do was unload some stuff from our car and then we crashed in the back (a 1990 Toyota Land Cruiser).

The next morning we headed out to some overlooks of the canyon from the drives on the rim-

and then we went and found a letterbox in a nearby town. We headed back to the South Rim of the Canyon and John and Dimid hiked down the only public trail down into the canyon, which goes to White House Ruin. Here's a view from the trail, of a Navajo hogan-

and here's the famous White House Ruin-

And here's Dimid with their new pup Gigi, who we all fell in love with-

That evening, at sunset, we all piled into the car and drove over to the Spider Rock overlook. It was great to be there at sunset.

The next day, we had scheduled a private guided tour into the canyon with a Navajo guide. (The only ways into the canyon are via the one public trail or with a guide.) His name was Leander, and his dad had started the first Navajo owned and operated tour company in the canyon. We went to see several ruins in Canyon de Chelly and in the adjoining Canyon del Muerte.

Most tours last 3 hours but we had hired Leander for longer, so we got to go farther up into the canyon and see things that most people don't see on tours. Our last stop was at a cave with incredible pictographs (paintings) depicting a battle. It was a little ways from the car - and the walk to get there was through fields of wild sunflowers that are at their peak in the southwest right now.

There was a dirt track that we followed, but we still had to brush the sunflowers aside to get through (they were about 6 feet tall). It was a lovely spot.

And here are some paintings in the cave-

That was the end of our day with Leander. It was so interesting to hear him talk, as a young Navajo, about how their traditions are impacted by modern life. For example, he talked about how everyone had 4 clan affiliations - one from your mother's mother's side of the family, one from your mother's father's side of the family, etc. In the past, you would ask someone who you were interested in dating what their clan affiliations were. You were not supposed to marry anyone who had any of your 4 clan affiliations because that would be intermarrying. Nowadays, he says that asking that kind of information is awkward. So, many young people now post it on their facebook profile. It saves others from having to ask about it.

One of the interesting things about Canyon de Chelly is that, although it is a national monument, the US government does not own the land. Leander said they maintain and stabilize the ruins and the access roads, and provide some basic tourist facilities, but the Navajo reservation owns the land. So, you still find people living in the canyon who farm or herd sheep. It is all very quaint and culturally a world away.

It was a great get-away. A few days without cell service and internet access. Ahhhhhh.....

Gourd Art

2010-07-19T08:26:00.007-06:00

A few months ago, I noticed some odd signage around town. The first unusual sign I saw was at one of Santa Fe's busiest intersections - Cerrillos and St. Michael's - in front of a Jiffy Lube.

I drove by it and my brain went, "Was that made of gourds???" I had to go by again for another look.

Sure enough, a fake road sign had been made out of dried gourds. Dried gourds are plentiful around here. Gourd vines grow wild on the side of the road in summer and by fall, the gourds are dried out little hard shells. My nephews used to like to throw them at each other. We, personally, preferred shooting them out of our potato launcher (aka spud gun). They were the perfect size and plentiful. Anyway, someone had carefully wired together a bunch of gourds, made a frame to put them in, and attached it to an existing bus stop sign.

The next gourd sign I noticed was really clever. There is a row of round signs on Old Pecos Trail as you enter town. I think they are all for civic groups like the Lions Club. Well, there was an impostor in their midst.

Again, this is a spot hundreds of people drive past every day. I started talking to people about these signs and it amazed me how many people had never even noticed them.

Soon, another sign was spotted (on Old Santa Fe Trail near Quail Run). Another clever spot. Signs with arrows indicated a curve ahead and the mystery gourd artist had added a last sign to the series-

These last 2 were on their own wooden posts. Very nicely done. The gourds had begun to sag a bit on their wires but otherwise, everything was holding up really well.

A few weeks ago I found one more. Again, one of Santa Fe's busiest intersections. Near the Giant gas station near St. Francis and Cerrillos. On an old faded sign for the Santa Fe Ski Area.

I have no idea who made these, but I love them. Made of found materials and very cleverly done. Subtle yet obvious. Nicely constructed. Street art at its best. Kudos to the unknown gourd artist!

Fun in Farmington

2010-05-07T08:49:00.004-06:00

Farmington, NM. Most people think of Farmington as a really dreary place in the deserty oilfields of northern New Mexico. But still.... it had a bunch of letterboxes and a letterboxer named Aspen. So when a friend came to visit Peggy (rubberpeace) and I, we decided to go on a little letterboxing road trip to Farmington. It's about a 3 1/2 hour trip and none of us had ever made it up there to letterbox before.

We left Wednesday morning and drove through the scenic red rock around Abiquiu, where Georgia O'Keeffe lived and worked. Our first stop was a box placed along the Continental Divide by wronghat. It had gone missing several times but I was glad he had replaced it in time for our trip! We always enjoy his boxes. We followed his instructions and then Peggy and I bumbled around looking for the box until our newbie friend Lynda shouted that she had found it. We told her we were glad we had brought her along. :-)

We continued down the road and the scenery changed from from rolling forested hills into deserty, bleak rock formations. We pressed on into Bloomfield for lunch and skipped possible detours to Chaco Canyon or Angel Peak. We had a great lunch and then stopped at Salman Ruins, which was right beside the road into Farmington. There was a letterbox there and a little museum. I couldn't believe I had never stopped there before. I love old Indian ruins and this was a Chacoan outlier, complete with kivas, etc. We had to tour the ruins to get to the letterbox so it was a great little stop.

Another 8 miles and we were in Farmington. We went to Lions Wilderness Area, on the bluffs above town, and found a couple of boxes, then the library and then downtown. Downtown certainly was more fixed up and vibrant than when I was there years ago. And Aspen had graciously just hidden a terrific little box in a park downtown for us. It was next to a great little fountain that shot jets of water out of little holes in the pavement. A great little spot.

That was it for the afternoon and we decided to check into our bed and breakfast a few blocks away. It was a lovely spot and we had reserved "the cottage" for ourselves. It was in a little oasis - wisteria, lilacs, and tulips were blooming everywhere. After settling in, we went off and enjoyed a delicious Mexican dinner (it was Cinco de Mayo, after all).

The next day, we got up and scouted out a route for letterboxing. We started at Gateway Park, behind the Visitor Center, along the Animas River. There were 2 great boxes there.

In the photo below, note the pointy stump to the right behind Lynda. A groundskeeper told us a beaver had chewed down that cottonwood tree in one night.

After that, we headed over to a few more parks and trail systems along the riverfront. It was a gorgeous day and terrific boxing.

You just don't think of Farmington as being so pretty. This trail system is really the highlight of town. John and I had discovered this trail system years ago when we were there but they have vastly improved it and added pedestrian bridges, etc.

It's sad that Santa Fe can't get it's act together and get our river trail system finished, they have been working on it for years and it's still not going to be finished any time soon.

Anyway, we enjoyed our morning by the river but we were supposed to meet letterboxer Aspen at noon so we had to skip a few boxes and get to lunch. We had a fabulous lunch at a little bakery and tearoom and had a great visit with Aspen. She's a committed letterboxer and it was her first visit with other letterboxers so that was fun. She grew up in Santa Fe and still has relatives here so hopefully she'll come for a visit down here this summer.

We had to head for home after that. But first, rubberpeace placed a couple of boxes for Aspen to find. I definitely want to go back up there. Aspen has placed a box in a remote canyon (down a long long 4WD road) that I really want to go to (Crow Canyon letterbox, which takes you to ruins and a petroglyph site). And there are several others that sound like great adventures as well. Hopefully we can get back there before too long and do some exploring.

Fiesta Goes Hollywood

2010-05-03T11:27:00.004-06:00

A lot of you know about our annual trip to the Fiesta in Truth or Consequences, NM. If you don't - here's a quick summary. Truth or Consequences ( TorC) has a Fiesta every May. They have a parade, a rodeo, music in the park, a boat race, all kinds of family entertainment. We have some friends, Mike and Dimid, who have a house down there and the parade goes right in front of their house. A few years ago, the theme of Fiesta was "Space," because of the Spaceport that is being built nearby. Mike and Dimid and some friends thought it would be funny to wear colanders on their heads for the Space theme and, well, it just stuck. The next year, when the theme was "Heroes," our group wore colanders and our theme was "Space Heroes." You get the idea. Colanders are adaptable and can fit just about any theme. :-) And actually, although most people wear colanders, other metalware gets used for hats as well.

So this year, the theme was "Fiesta Goes Holllywood." My friend Lynda said that feather boas were in order so I ordered a dozen for our group (the Colander Krewe). For me, a hat, a boa, and some crazy sunglasses were just the ticket. Here's some pics from the parade and from our dress-up party the night before, where we all work on our costumes. Here's Eve in a red colander over a red hat-

And Nina in a blue colander covered with her yellow feather boa- note the matching haz mat booties-

Donna is one of the original Colander Cuties and sports a mink stole with her colander-

Howard Hughes made an appearance and is talking to Kathleen, who won First Prize in the Fiesta Bonnet Competition a few years back for her colander entry-

Here's Dimid and John-

And Lynda-

And a group shot-

Here's Lynda at a birthday party the morning of the parade - birthday cake at 9am!

And finally, here's a photo of one of the many blooming cacti in Mike and Dimid's yard. I think it was a banner year for the cacti because of all the moisture we've had this year. And we just happened to be there for the peak of the blooming. I love cacti, wish I could grow them here (it's just too cold to grow them outside though).

Kitten Luvfest

2010-01-14T16:25:00.003-07:00

OK, if you're not a cat person, you might as well just stop reading right here! I don't want to go on and on about our new kitties, but this post is devoted to them. We had cats for 20 years, but then took a break. It's been 6 or 7 years since we had cats and we knew we wanted some once our remodel was done. So a week ago, we got 2 kitties at the animal shelter. They aren't brothers and sisters like we wanted, but they already love each other like they are.

The black and white tuxedo male is Eames (at the moment, we keep changing his name) and the little tabby girl is Little Edie (of Grey Gardens fame). He is 6 months old and she is 5.

It is SO GREAT to have cats around again. Chasing each other, purring, whatever, they are both total sweethearts. She is more playful and he is more of a lap cat. Little Edie just figured out how to remove her safety collar, she is such a little pill.

I like this picture of them, but it looks sort of lewd! Her with her little shaved belly from being spayed.....

And here's Eames, looking handsome as can be.

We love our new kitties!!!!!!!!!!!

A Happy Halloween

2009-11-01T07:17:00.006-07:00

What a fun weekend! Pumpkin carving at Mark and Thomas' house on Friday (and eating yummy smores we made outside on the firepit)-

And dressing up on Saturday! John decided to wear a Shriner's fez I had picked up at an estate sale - then we had to go to Salvation Army to find some dorky pants - only they were too big so we had to stuff John with a mattress pad and this still wasn't enough stuffing so we added some bubble wrap. He sounded a bit squeaky when he walked and was a big hit at the party when people discovered they could pinch his waist and get that satisfying popping noise! He totally cracked me up.

Stick Figures

2009-10-27T09:41:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I had to go to a doctor's appointment in Albuquerque so I decided to make a day of it and have some fun. I found a terrific letterbox by wronghat, did some quick shopping, then headed over to an art installation a friend had told me about. The installation is by artist Patrick Dougherty, and is part of a larger LAND/ART series of events happening around the area. This piece is at the Bosque School, and is made of willow saplings all harvested on-site. Students and teachers were all involved in the process. The available information implied the exhibit was over this weekend, but I figured it would still be up on Monday morning. Luckily, it was - this is what I got to see, resting under the cottonwoods-

These are fabulous pieces - you can walk inside each one. It's something that appeals to the kid in all of us - houses made of twigs and branches.

Just walking around in the cottonwood grove on a lovely sunny day was pretty great too.

Here's one of a couple of little huts that were also made-

It was a wonderful show and I highly recommend it to those of you living in or going to Albuquerque. The folks at the school told me they thought the installation would be up for a couple of months. Not sure if this is correct or not as all the LAND/ART info I can find shows it up through the 23rd. I would be surprised if they took it down any time soon though. I actually think that most of this last month was spent on the construction and they were encouraging people to go watch the process. Rush on over to the West Mesa and check it out! I will definitely be going back.

Bosque School
4000 Learning Rd NW
Albuquerque, NM 87120
t. 505-898-6388

West on Montano to Coors, south on Coors to next stoplight (Learning), left on Learning into school. The people there also said I should be able to get into the area on the weekend as well. If you go on a weekday, check in at the front desk and get an ID badge.

Rambling in Kansas

2009-10-08T18:06:00.009-06:00

John and I wanted an easy vacation, namely a road trip. So we settled on going to Kansas - not too far - and we could check out Leavenworth, KS, where John's mom was from and where his mom and dad met. We could also hit some midcentury modern sites in Kansas City and do some exploring there.

We spent a few days driving up to the Kansas City area. Here we had stopped to find a letterbox (coudn't find it) - I love the old rusty stuff.

One highlight along our way was the underground salt museum tour in Hutchinson, KS. It was a tour of an area that had been mined in the past - 650 feet underground. Kinda creepy being down that far. Looked like pics I have seen of the WIPP site in New Mexico (where underground salt "caves" have been made to store nuclear waste).

The area is still being mined - just in a different section than where we were. Another area that was previously mined is now being used as underground storage for important documents, etc. They had a little museum down there with examples of some of the stuff they save - including some stuff from Hollywood movie sets - everything from a suit Arnold Schwarzenegger wore in a Batman movie to ray guns used in Men in Black.

That afternoon, John went to the Cosmosphere (an air and space museum sort of thing) which he loved. He's in a pit under a rocket here.

A few days later found us in Leavenworth with John's cousin Ann and her husband Peter. They showed us all the sites having to do with John's mom's family history. At the end of all this, I said I wanted to go look for a letterbox. The box was by Silver Eagle and it sounded interesting, plus it was at Ft. Leavenworth, which was where John's dad was stationed in the army. You aren't allowed on all army bases, but this one was open to anyone with a picture ID. Well, I had no idea that Peter, who was driving, would NOT have a picture ID. (He later swore that if you got pulled over by the cops, they would just look you up on their computer in KS.) Well, he did not have his ID and after the MPs made us wait in the car for about 10 minutes, they told us he was not allowed on the base. The rest of us were. Peter did not want us to miss our fun so he went across the street and hung out at the 7/11. We went in search of the box. It was at a cool site (a Lewis and Clark Memorial overlooking the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers) but the box, sadly, was missing. Not only was his box missing but it had been replaced by someone who wanted their boy scouts to find the box so they had taken it upon themselves to replace it. So there was a cutesy teddy bear tin with a storebought stamp in it. Ugh. Oh well, we drove around the base (beautiful! who knew army bases could look so nice) and then went to retrieve poor Peter. A fun adventure despite the missing box.

We also went to a carousel museum in Leavenworth. Here are some really old horses from a carousel-

and here is a figure of a rabbit - supposed to be very rare on a carousel.

Kansas City was fun. There was lots of good food there, including a lot of good ethnic food, which was a surprise. We did some letterboxing and did a lot of scouring of antique shops. We loved all the old architecture there - so different from Santa Fe.

Here's their old Union Station. Fabulous.

On the way home, we stopped in Liberal, Kansas so John could go to another airplane museum. Turned out we were there the day before they had their big annual tribute to the Wizard of Oz. They have a Land of Oz there and an old farmhouse that they say is very similar to Dorothy's house in the movie. Well, the celebrity in town for the event this year was Margaret Pellegrini, the "Flower Pot" munchkin. We thought we would miss out on all the festivities - but - the morning we were leaving, who should we see sit down in our hotel restaurant but Margaret Pellegrini, flower pot and all.

So we went over and had a chat with a munchkin. Surreal.

Decided to drop by the Land of Oz but not much was happening there, they were preparing for their big event the next day. Went on a tour anyway. Here's Dorothy and the Yellow Brick Rd.

The tour guide was really into all this stuff and had obviously seen the movie a zillion times. It was interesting though, and this year marks the 70th anniversary of the movie coming out. Amazing that it came out so long ago. I had forgotten there were so many creepy parts- not only those flying monkeys, but also the talking apple tree.

Anyway, we're back in Santa Fe and yes... there's no place like home.

Windmills

2009-07-18T09:58:00.005-06:00

We're back in San Angelo, TX, visiting my mom. On the drive down here, we stopped in Lubbock and went to the Windmill Museum. What a great place! I've always liked windmills. I've always wanted a big giant fan of windmill blades up on the wall somewhere as art, but I probably don't have a big enough wall. And the new modern windmills just fascinate me, I think they are beautiful too. And John loves the technology aspect so he was happy too. There was a big giant barn-like structure full of windmills and there were more outside.

Here's a picture of the first style of metal windmill that was made, before that they were all wooden. Although I like the unusual blades, this windmill seems strangely menacing to me, like some Klingon ship or something.

They also had a few nests that ravens had made in windmills. This one was made out of barbed wire! Sturdy though.

And I learned all about counterweights on windmills, something I'd never thought about before. Here's one with a ball counterweight

and here's one with an animal.

They had a collection of these weights and I thought they were terrific - squirrels, roosters, crescent moons, letters, balls, and diamonds were all represented.

Outside the museum was a large modern windmill. You can get an idea of how big it is since John is standing there by the center "nosecone" of one.

We had a great time at the windmill museum and then headed on to San Angelo, where we passed literally thousands of windmills on windfarms. Very cool. A final stop was made at the ruins of Fort Chadbourne to find a terrific letterbox. A nice way to end the day.

T or C Fiesta Time

2009-05-08T08:30:00.006-06:00

Well, it's that time of year again. Time to head down to Truth or Consequences, NM for the annual Fiesta. Time to relax, soak in the hot springs, and don colander hats for the parade. This year was the 60th anniversary of Fiesta in T or C so the theme chosen this year was "The 60's." So without further ado, here's some pics from this year's event!

Here's Betsy sporting a minnow bucket and eyeglasses made of forks and spoons- this was her first Fiesta and she really got into the spirit of things-

Here's Mike and Dimid, Dimid being the prim and proper anti-hippie type this year-

And here are a few more shots of our gang.

The parade was fun - complete with the Shriners in their silly cars. (As our friend Jack pointed out - people think WE are weird in our colanders? The Shriners are always in those ridiculous little cars. Who makes those things anyway?! I want one!)

And here is this year's Fiesta queen.

Sadly, there was no motorcycle rodeo this year. I think last year's was just too poorly attended to do it again. Too bad, I missed the Weenie Bite!

We managed to catch the end of the Junk Boat Race, which looked like a lot of fun - people make boats out of junk and race them down the river. Seems like a fun project.

We also got invited over to Betsy's house to see a little slideshow/ film she had put together of a recent trip she had made to Uganda. She had been over there to visit her son and then gone back after she got a grant to go there and teach woodblock printmaking. I love looking at travel pictures so I loved that.

It's great to relax and play with your friends for a weekend. I can't wait until our next trip down there!

From Camel Rock to Camelback

2009-04-19T08:45:00.007-06:00

We just did a quick blast to Phoenix and back to buy new kitchen cabinets at Ikea. The trip was mostly uneventful - Friday was spent in renting a truck and then going to Ikea - and Saturday was spent following John in said yellow truck down the interstate towards home for 10 hours straight. But Thursday was fun - we took our time getting to Phoenix and letterboxed along the way.

We first stopped at a rest stop along I-40 at Acomita, NM for a quick drive-by box. It was neatly sitting on top of the ground in plain sight so it was a wonder it was still there. Another 50 miles down the road was another box at the Continental Divide. It was a new box by some new boxers in Albuquerque and we were the first to find it. It was next to one of those tacky Indian souvenir shops and the background of red rocks was lovely.

Another couple of hours found us in Holbrook, AZ. We stopped and quickly replanted our letterbox at the Wigwam Village which had sadly gone missing a few months ago. We also checked on our other box, Get Your Kicks...., and were happy to see it had had a lot of visitors. Headed south a few miles to find Kristal and Ron's Convoy box (again first finders), and then we were back on our way. The drive from Holbrook to Phoenix is a lovely one. The road drops several thousand feet and the landscape changes from ponderosa forests to saguaros and desert. It's very scenic and on Thursday, the weather was adding to the beauty. The sun would come out, then we would go through a snow flurry. (It was the southern edge of that storm that just hit Colorado.) I loved seeing the contrast of the slightly stormy weather and the sun.

We were going to stop for one more letterbox at a rest area but the rest area was closed and would have involved a bit of a walk. We were in a hurry to get on to Phoenix at that point so we saved that one for a future trip.

All in all, a lovely relaxing day and a nice get-away weekend to Phoenix (home of Camelback Mt.. - and Santa Fe is home to a silly rock formation called Camel Rock).

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T09:49:00.002-06:00

Have a great Easter and let's hope spring is finally here? (It's snowing here right now....)

And Back to Texas Again

2009-04-09T20:06:00.006-06:00

Well, I've been back in Texas for most of the last week. My mom decided to have pacemaker surgery to deal with some heart arrhythmia problems she was having. I've been shuttling between Odessa (airport and some letterboxing), San Angelo (where Mom lives), and Austin (where the surgery was). The surgery went well and although Mom spent longer in the hospital than expected, she's now safely back home. A few non-hospital highlights of the trip were-

Letterboxing in Odessa. I got to spend a few hours letterboxing here, which was fun, although quite a few boxes were missing. I've been looking forward to going to the Meteor Crater outside of Odessa - there is a letterbox there and I'd been wanting to go check it out. Well, it (the crater) was a bit underwhelming - it's about 15 feet deep (it has been filled in over the years by natural processes) and not much to look at.

A trip to the Blanton Museum in Austin to see an exhibit about the California 1950s modernism movement. It was terrific. Too bad they wouldn't let me take pictures. Check it out if you're in the area. Outside the museum was this cool installation of suspended rubber tubing.

I loved the way the tubing caught the light and the breeze. They encouraged you to walk through it - it was like walking through spaghetti!

I looked for a few letterboxes in Austin that were drive-bys near the museum and the hospital but all 3 were missing. I was glad to find out later that it wasn't me - all 3 had been pulled recently for one reason or another. But they all took me to interesting places and I enjoyed discovering a little more of Austin.

And finally, I got to visit with my pals Bell Motel (Vicki) and Whiz Gee (Tom) again in Austin. It's been great to see so much of them this past year. Glad we got to see each other again.

Well, it's back to New Mexico tomorrow. Ciao!

Heading Home from Texas

2009-03-11T15:40:00.010-06:00

Mark/Lionsmane and I have been in Texas for the last week - letterboxing! The first Saturday of March is the Texas Annual Letterboxing Event and we both wanted to go. This year, the event was near Rusk, a little town in east Texas that we had never been to, at Mission Tejas State Park. We planned to meet up with my old college roommate, Vicki (aka Bell Motel), and all get in a few days of letterboxing together.

On the way over there (it took us several days, with all the letterboxing we did), we hit several interesting sites. One of them was Fort Phantom Hill, north of Abilene - a lovely spot to visit in the morning (of course, we would never have known about it, but there was a letterbox there we had to get).

We also stopped in Eastland to see Old RIP, an infamous horned toad that was supposedly trapped in a cornerstone in the county courthouse and who came back to life 30+ years later when the courthouse was torn down. He lived for another year or so and was quite the celebrity in his time, even getting to meet the President. Well, Boots Tex made a fabulous stamp of Old RIP lying in his little velvet-lined coffin (he is preserved and lying in state at the county courthouse for all to see). A fun stop.

We picked our way down through Hico (hi, Amelia's ranch), to Waco and Rusk. We met up with Bell Motel, and visited with our letterboxing buddy Sha who wasn't going to be able to make it to the event. Bell Motel's car overheated on the way, serious engine damage occurred, and we all ended up piled in Mark's car for the rest of the trip.

We finally stopped travelling and letterboxed around Rusk the day before the event. It was lovely - the trees were all budding and spring was in the air. Mark found his 1200th box that day and Bell Motel found her 500th! (And, come to think of it, I found my 600th the day before.)

Saturday was event day. We got up early, letterboxed on the way to the event and ran into a few letterboxers along the way. The event itself was fantastic - about 60 or 70 people were there, including the infamous Wanda and Pete, who have found over 20,000 letterboxes. We started off with exchanges and by around 1:00, we all decided it was time to go hunt for some letterboxes and see the park.

We picked up our clues (many boxes had been planted just that morning and copies of the clues were available since Boots Tex and LSQ had brought a copy machine and the pavilion had electricity!) and hit the trails. We found a bunch of wonderful boxes, a few ticks, and boxed until darkness fell. We got back to the car and found a letterboxing "cootie" on Mark's car - it was a mini stamp and logbook and was velcroed into a pair of boys tighty whities, which were on a little blue hanger, and had inky brown skid marks on thm. Ewww! We couldn't stop laughing. That was the funniest cootie I have ever seen. We wondered if any non-letterboxers had seen them hanging on Mark's car all day and wondered what they thought!

Well, the event was fantastic but we were pretty wiped out by it all I think. We headed back to Austin the next day and did some boxing but we were pretty tired. We hung out at the Bell Motel for a day, Vicki treated us to a tour of lots of great Austin boxes and Tom treated us to lots of great home cookin'! We had missed him at the event, he couldn't make it to that.

Yesterday, we started heading for home. We letterboxed all the way to San Angelo (where my mom is), and today we did a bit of letterboxing here. Tomorrow we drive the rest of the way back to Santa Fe, letterboxing along the way, of course. There is a little project underfoot in Texas to get a letterbox in every county in Texas and we have decided to aid in the effort. So Mark populated 4 previously-unpopulated counties in TX with letterboxes, and I will do my part tomorrow to do a few more.

Thanks to everyone involved for making our trip so much fun! I think I've found something like 135 letterboxes this trip (I found #700 yesterday). I had no idea we would find so many. It's been a whirlwind and a lot of it is a blur but it's been a blast. ;-)

15 Minutes of Fame

2009-02-15T18:08:00.004-07:00

A month or two ago, my friend Mark (lionsmane in the letterboxing world) got an email from a reporter from the Albuquerque Journal newspaper. She had become interested in letterboxing and wanted to do a story on it. She tracked Mark down on the internet and asked him some questions and wanted to know if she and her photographer could go find a letterbox with him. After some initial hesitation about the whole deal, he consented, and invited me along for the trip down to Albuquerque. We had fun and felt like the interview went well. The story finally came out in today's Sunday paper - we got most of the front page of the Living section and another half page later in the section (well, there were some big photos included). We were happy with the article, even though she gave away the location to one of my mystery boxes (that's ok, maybe now someone will go there! even though it's in the middle of nowhere). Anyway, without further ado, here's the article, along with a few of the photos. Enjoy!

You've got mail

Albuquerque Journal

Story By Carolyn Flynn Of the Journal

It's a sunny winter afternoon in the Sandia foothills, drawing out plenty of hikers. But Mark Menard, 47, and Diane Forsdale, 51, both of Santa Fe, aren't just looking for sunshine — they're looking for a cowboy. Specifically, Los Vaqueros. Gazing off the trail, they are looking for landmarks most of us see — and noticing a few we don't. Reading from clues they downloaded from the Internet, they stop at an observation deck and look up to spot an old corral. They head down an arroyo, take 40 steps up a rise and go to a juniper tree. There, they find their prize — the Los Vaqueros letterbox.

It's under a juniper tree — a sealed plastic container with a leather-bound journal filled with notes and stamps from letterboxers who have visited since Menard last checked. That was spring 2008. He says he's curious about what he'll find now. "It's kind of neat to see who's found it," says Menard, who's known as lionsmane in the letterboxing world.

Letterboxing is a hobby that combines hiking, artwork and a bit of sleuthing. Letterboxers hide a small weatherproof box in a public place — places like near the Big I, the duck pond at the University of New Mexico, zoos, parks and trails like those at Elena Gallegos. Enthusiasts use a series of clues to find the boxes, often using compasses, then leave their personally made stamps in the journals. In turn, they use the stamps they find in the letterboxes to imprint their personal journals so they can commemorate the treks.

It is estimated that about 26,000 people in North America are letterboxers, a hobby that took off in this country just before the turn of the millennium, fueled by the social networking power of the Internet. According to the Web site letterboxing.org, 154 letterboxes are planted in New Mexico, up from 30 or so when Forsdale started letterboxing in 2005. For people who like the outdoors and art and want to make friends all over the world, it's the perfect hobby.

Forsdale, who goes by Astro D, says she got started when a friend said to her, " 'You like hiking, you like art, you like books. You should letterbox.' I said, 'You're right. I should do this. It's right up my alley.' " For Menard, it's about being outside, the thrill of the hunt, artwork and personal journaling. When he found out about letterboxing, "it all just clicked." He blogs faithfully and prolifically at lionsgame.com.

It's super for kids, too, says letterboxer and home-schooling mom Lisa Westfall, 42, whose family goes by Twinville Trekkers on the letterboxing site, atlasquest.com. "It's been a wonderful educational experience for my three children," she says. "Oftentimes the clues involve social studies/cultural, history, geology, science, and of course, geography — not to mention deciphering clues, common sense, map reading and compass skills."

Going 'overboard'

Under the juniper tree at Elena Gallegos, Menard explains that he picked leather for the Los Vaqueros journal because it matched the theme of the cowboy. His stamp is a mysterious cowboy carved in long shadows. The stamp and journal are lionsmane's handiwork. He admits, "I go way overboard."

Menard and Forsdale see lots of familiar friends in the neat, trim round-cornered pages of the Los Vaqueros journal: Six Jumping Beans ... "they're a family, they have a blog," Menard says ... Twinville Trekkers ... rbr horno ... rubberpeace. Forsdale sees her own stamp from a previous visit, then recognizes another. "We met them," she says. "They came up to Santa Fe. We had ice cream with them." Also familiar: Wanda and Pete from Rhode Island, who might very well be the quintessential letterboxers. Menard says they had logged in 20,000 boxes as of October 2008 and have been at it for more than five years. But Menard, who started letterboxing in February 2006, is on a hot pace, too. He estimates he has planted 68 boxes in five states and in Canada; he has found 1,145. "It's kind of become an obsession," he says.

When Westfall and her family started getting into letterboxing, the first one they found was Menard's. "It might have been Los Vaqueros," she says. "Or UNM duck pond. Everywhere we went, we saw his stamp in the journal. I said, 'I have to meet this person.' " After e-mailing for months, Westfall and Menard met when Menard hosted a Halloween-themed letterbox gathering in Santa Fe. That event featured boxes with a spooky twist. "You'd lift up a box and find a bloody hand," Westfall says. "Or you'd go to a tree, and a bat would fly out of a tree."

The personal touch

At Los Vaqueros, Forsdale and Menard get to work. From her backpack, Forsdale takes out a zippered pencil box filled with colorful markers and stamp pads. From another packet, she brings out her stamp, Astro D, inspired by the cartoon Astro Boy. She inks up her stamp and leaves it on the next blank page. She whips out a Sharpie from a selection of bright-tone colors and writes a message in the Los Vaqueros journal.

Creating a stamp and a journal are just as much a part of letterboxing as the trekking, say enthusiasts. That's why many letterboxers say they prefer the hobby to geocaching, an outdoor treasure hunt where people use Global Positioning System devices to find trinkets inside hidden boxes.

Learning is a big motivator, too. Westfall says an Albuquerque troop of Girl Scouts has a series of letterboxes on the petroglyphs that describes the flora and fauna and the geology of the area. She planted a letterbox in Tijeras when she learned it meant scissors in Spanish. That letterbox describes the geology and history of the mountain pass that looked like scissors to early explorers. Her favorite plant is the Monkey Cave. Local lore in the East Mountains, where she lives, is that once in the 1970s, UNM and Sandia National Laboratories were doing experiments on monkeys, and the monkeys got loose. She found the cave while hiking and said, "This is the perfect place for a letterbox." "The cave is fun to crawl into," she says. "You don't even see it from the road unless you're looking for it." While traveling in Utah with her children — twins Jackson and Jeremiah, 12, and Jenna, 5 — Westfall followed clues to a library. The letterbox planter carved out the inside of a book and placed it on the shelf, complete with Dewey decimal notations so that it blended in with the library's books.

Some letterboxes are a challenge for true sleuths, such as the one the Twinville Trekkers found at the Very Large Array near Socorro. Those are called mystery boxes. "Lionsmane is good at that," Westfall says. That clue was a limerick, she says. Every clue answer started with V, L or A. One lionsmane box, located in a public place in Albuquerque, is a real brain teaser. The clues pointed to Latin names for animals, Westfall says. The first letters of the common names for the animals spell out the location.

Letterboxing events are sprouting all over the country, such as a musician series in Portland, Ore. Menard's journal records that trek with elegant, artful stamps of George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Ray Charles, Janis Joplin, B.B. King, Frank Sinatra and Lyle Lovett.

Letterboxing is for all kinds of people — sort of a traveling diplomacy, Menard says. "Even if we're on opposite sides of politics or religion, we have this in common."

Westfall hopes her children will letterbox as adults. Through letterboxing, "they keep physically fit, explore new places while learning interesting things about nearly every area they visit," she says. Plus, "it makes you get outside, which is always a good thing."

Follow the clues

Follow lionsmane (Mark Menard) on his blog at lionsgame.blogspot.com.

Follow Twinville Trekker (Lisa Westfall) on her family blog at Twinville2.blogspot.com.

A guide to getting started with letterboxing can be found at letterboxing.org, including how to make a journal and design a stamp. The site includes a directory to find boxes in any area in North America and a guide to getting kids started.

Many New Mexico letterboxers can be found at atlasquest.com, which features an extensive guide to clues at letterbox locations throughout the country and social networking features such as the ability to e-mail other letterboxers or comment on their boxes.

Letterboxing started in 1854 in Dartmoor, England, the setting of the Sherlock Holmes mystery, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," by Arthur Conan Doyle. According to letterboxing.org, thousands of letterboxes are planted in Dartmoor. Find out more at dartmoorletterboxing.org or letterboxingondartmoor.co.uk.

A Couple of Italians in Palm Springs

2009-01-31T17:40:00.004-07:00

John and I had been planning a long weekend in Palm Springs - we had 2 free tickets on Southwest and it seemed like a fun idea for a winter getaway to see some fab midcentury modern houses. And then the Italian consulate called - John had applied for his dual citizenship with Italy (by virtue of his being married to me, a person of Italian descent who has gotten their dual citizenship with Italy) and it had come through! We had been told it would take two or more years but it took exactly uno. We were told to be in LA at the consultate on Jan. 29 for his official swearing-in. So it was perfect timing to combine it with our Palm Springs trip, and here we are!

We flew into LAX on Wednesday night without a hitch. Free tix, free drinks, what more could you want. Up the next morning for our 10 am appointment with the consultate. We got to the building and were told by the security person by the elevator that she THOUGHT the consulate was closed on Thursdays, but we could try. That made us nervous but we went upstairs and there were a few people waiting by the door to the consulate and it opened right as we got there. Phew. Actually, they were not open and were only letting people in who were there for the swearing-in ceremony. There were 7 people getting their citizenship that day. Most were accompanied by happy Italian family members. Lots of Italian being spoken. They handed out a statement to everyone - it was the swearing-in statement, in Italian. So there was some coaching going on by the family members on how to pronounce everything for the 3 or 4 people there who didn't know Italian (us included). We at least were able to figure out what John was swearing to, based on my knowledge of French and Spanish.

After everyone arrived, we were led to the Consulate Generale's office. He called your name and you stood by him, read the statement in Italian, then he shook your hand and congratulated you.

It was a very sweet ceremony and again, there were lots of smiling faces. At the end, the Consulate took pics with the new citizens and then we were on our way! John had been practicing being Italian before, and by the end of the day, he really seemed to have the hang of it!

We headed on to Palm Springs (a couple of hours away) and stopped at the Visitor Center on the way into town. The Visitor Center is housed in a great midcentury gas station that was saved from being torn down. Remember gas stations with this kind of roof? Terrific. Our house in Santa Fe has a little carport area with this same kind of roof.

We picked up a map to all the midcentury sights in town (put out by a group dedicated to the preservation of these buildings) and headed on to our hotel, which is another midcentury relic. It's a 1965 Polynesian themed hotel, complete with tiki gods by the pool.

Our time in Palm Springs has been fun and relaxing. We've hit a bunch of vintage furniture stores, been swimming in the hotel pool, drove by a bunch of midcentury houses (we're trying to get ideas for everything from landscaping to color schemes to fencing) - here's a typical house-

Here's John taking a break from it all!

Back to winter (and Santa Fe) tomorrow.

To Roswell

2008-11-29T20:30:00.003-07:00

We’ve been bumming around San Angelo for the past few days. We went to some antique stores, did some errands for my mom, and ate a lot of turkey. John got into looking at old family photos. Here’s a few pics of my mom

And one of me and my dad at the beach. Dig those shades.

Yesterday we went out to visit my cousin and went to look up some long lost relatives in a cemetery out in the middle of nowhere.

Legend has it that my uncle buried some gold out in this cemetery. Too bad we didn’t have a metal detector with us! Actually, the story goes that he went back years later to dig it up and couldn’t find it. But apparently everyone in town knew his story of burying the gold so if it was ever at the cemetery, someone else probably had dug it up.

Today we left San Angelo and headed for Midland. We usually zip through town on our way home but we stopped today and letterboxed. A few boxes were outside the Petroleum Museum and we decided to go for a visit there after John heard that there were some racecars there by Jim Hall. It turned out that Jim Hall had designed and built his racecars in Midland (in the 1960s and 1970s) and why they were at the Petroleum Museum is still a mystery. John had grown up hearing about Jim Hall’s racecars as a kid but today he got to see them up close and personal.

ABout 3:00, we decided we better hit the road. We had decided to take our time driving home, so we stopped in Roswell, NM for the night. We’ll get up and find some letterboxes here tomorrow and finish the last few hours of the drive then. This is the first time we’ve come home from San Angelo that we haven’t had a snow storm to contend with – yeah!

Austin to San Angelo

2008-11-25T20:18:00.007-07:00

We started off our Sunday in Austin with a yummy brunch at the "Bell Motel" (our friends’ house). Then we headed out to do a bit of letterboxing. Began with bellmotel’s great Texas State Capital box and then went to a few more urban boxes. We realized all too soon that the day was slipping by and if we were going to go to any of the Austin studios that were on tour that weekend, we better get going. We went to a few warehouse type spaces that had a bunch of artists at each venue – these were fun and crowded, but not really … inspiring. But then we went to 2 great places. The first place was the studio of a guy who made statues and toys out of old rusty metal bits.

This was a toy duck on a spring that the kids went wild over. The neck bobbled, the duck bounced around on a spring, and the pedals inside turned the little orange legs in back.
I thought the inside of his studio, with all the rusty metal bits he had collected, was just as fascinating.

Then we went down the street to the best spot of the day. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the metalworker who lived in this house. In his front yard, mixed in with the agaves, was rusty metal groundcover that he had fabricated.

These grasslike pieces are steel. I love this stuff!

The inside of the house was filled with cool stuff – porcelain clamshell-like things climbing the walls of the living room, giant tissue flowers in the bedroom, a great swing in the backyard.

It just looked like such a fun house to live in. We were all inspired.

We decided nothing could beat that so we ended our studio tours. Then we realized we were going to a play in a couple of hours so we better get home and eat and change. We ended up just making it to the lovely Paramount Theater in downtown Austin in time for Tuna Does Vegas - a great performance by 2 guys who play 10 different characters each in a show about the characters in a fictional town called Tuna, Texas. It was a really funny show.

Yesterday, we left Austin and headed to my mom’s in San Angelo. We went to several letterboxes along the way, including one in the town of Oatmeal,

one at the ruins of the Presidio in Menard,

and one about the west Texas sport of cow patty bingo!!

Today we decided to go exploring with my mom. We went on a drive and went to the nearby town of Mertzon, where they had a one-room combo museum and library. The museum reminded me of the one we went to last Thanksgiving in Eola – you got the idea that most of the stuff was donated by local families. There was this great exhibit about the nearby town of Barnhart, which says Barnhart was once the livestock shipping capitol of the world. I loved this exhibit, it is mostly made of popsicle sticks and black and white pics of cows cut from magazines. Looks like someone’s school project but it’s very charming.

I also liked this display of a photo of an elderly couple, along with what must have commemorated their 50th wedding anniversary.

Then we went on to a few old deserted courthouses, the farthest one being in Stiles. It has been abandoned for years and is in disrepair. Interesting old stone building in the middle of nowhere.

Tomorrow we hang around San Angelo and get ready for Turkey Day!!

In Austin

2008-11-23T09:37:00.004-07:00

We’re in Austin this weekend for a quick stay with our friends Tom and Vicki before heading to my mom’s in San Angelo for Thanksgiving. We left on Thursday after work and stopped to get some coffee before we left Santa Fe. And there in the parking lot of the grocery store and coffee shop was the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile! We went over to see it and were told we could get glow in the dark weiner whistles if we sang the Oscar Meyer weiner song so we did and got our 2 free weiner whistles. We thought that was a great way to start our trip.

We only made it as far as Lubbock on Thursday and were pretty tired by the time we got there. I had booked a room downtown that was right next to Buddy Holly Plaza, since I knew there was a letterbox there. The next morning we got up and found out that our room was about as close as you could get to the statue of Buddy Holly. We got the letterbox and headed to the room to stamp in – only 56 paces from the box! Then it was time to hit the road. We stopped for a few more quick boxes. But our main goal was to get to Boots Tex’s Swinging Bridge box near Goldthwaite. It’s hidden by the only operative suspension bridge in Texas, a place I had never heard of until I read about this letterbox. I knew John would enjoy seeing this so we planned our route to include this. It was on a great little dirt road and the bridge crossed the Colorado River. It was a great spot – with a great letterbox. The bridge was a lot sturdier than I’d expected but you could still jump up and down on it and get it bouncing!

We headed on into Austin after that. Had a relaxing evening and then a busy day yesterday. We started off letterboxing in the Bull Creek Greenbelt – along a lovely creek, where the leaves are changing color. There had been a new series of 8 letterboxes planted the day before and we were hot to find them. Vicki was hoping to get her 300th find while we were here and she wasn’t sure how she was going to do it but with a new series of 8 to find, it wouldn’t be a problem. Here are Vicki and John in a silly picture with a fire hydrant in the middle of the stream.

So we did that series, had some lunch, then hit some mid-century modern stores. After that, we realized we had about an hour of daylight left and were close to some more letterboxes Tom and Vicki hadn’t done yet. So we raced over and found several more boxes, including one at the Elizabet Ney Museum (actually we only found the lid to that box, it was missing). But we toured the museum – she was a sculptor and there were many marble busts of people she had sculpted in the early 1800s. The museum was in a great old stone building which she had used as her studio and called “Formosa.” Anyway, a few boxes later, Vicki had her 300th find (at the Secret Garden box) – woo hoo!

Today it’s drizzly. We plan to go find a few boxes and go to an Austin art studio tour. Off we go!

Rancho Tostado Redux

2008-11-12T08:38:00.002-07:00

We're still settling in to our new house. There's a lot we want to do with it in terms of remodeling, but any major remodeling won't be happening for awhile. Still, in the meantime, John has been working away on little things to improve the house. This past weekend he installed a new sink, vanity, faucet, and wall cabinet in the guest bath, which helps a lot. I realized as I was taking pictures to document the changes that I should just start a remodeling blog. Not that interesting to most of the readers of this blog, but it might be of interest to others who are remodeling midcentury houses. I know that we researched remodeling these types of houses before we even made an offer on this one. We are so accustomed to dealing with stucco and a flat roof (the Santa Fe style) that we didn't know anything about old houses with wood siding and a pitched metal roof. How well were they insulated? etc. Anyway, I've seen a few sites dealing with renovating midcentury modern houses and they have been a big help to me so I'm starting our own site, Rancho Tostado Redux. You can always click on the link over on the right if you want to check in on our remodel progress.

Happy Halloween

2008-11-01T08:15:00.002-06:00

Hope you had a happy Halloween with lots of treats!

The Black Hole - and Beyond!

2008-10-23T20:26:00.005-06:00

John took off work today and we headed up to Los Alamos with our friend Mark. Once a month, the Lab up there has a salvage sale of office equipment and we had always been curious about it and wanted to go. It turned out to be interesting – lots of great deals on stuff – old office chairs for 50 cents! – and lots of old desks and computer tables. They had weird lab stuff like boxes this-

and a whole bunch of cool old wood boxes in various sizes for 3 bucks each so, of course, we had to get some.

We headed off to lunch after that and then we headed to The Black Hole. The Black Hole is a salvage store of “nuclear waste” run by Ed Grothus.

Ed buys old rocket parts, bomb ignitors, laboratory glassware, electronic equipment, etc. at salvage sales and resells it to artists and curious types at his store. He tests everything first to make sure it’s not radioactive as you’re never quite sure where this stuff has been. Anyway, it’s a great place to wander around. That flower pictured above is made of rocket parts and the atom sculpture on the roof is made of bowling balls! Well, we got there today and it was closed but said it would reopen at 2:30 so we hung out for awhile and wandered through the yard. Here's a cabinet full of trays for slides. Each tray would hold an amazing number of slides!

Ed bought an old church on the property next door and has filled it with his stuff too. He is an advocate of peace and I love his church sign out front for “critical mass” every Sunday (kind of a Los Alamos joke there as Los Alamos is where the nuclear bomb was developed).

Sadly, no one ever came back to open the shop so we left at 2:45 and headed home. Another trip to the Black Hole lies in our future. After all, no one can ever REALLY escape a black hole. :-)

Fall in Santa Fe

2008-09-05T07:53:00.006-06:00

Well, it's not technically fall yet, but it sure is starting to feel like it. The mornings are cool, cold even, and the mad tourist rush of summer is over. Santa Feans welcome this season with a Fiesta on the weekend after Labor Day every year. There's a pet parade, a Fiesta melodrama which spoofs all the local controversies of the year, food and arts and crafts on the Plaza. And to kick it all off is the burning of Zozobra, a giant puppet figure that is sort of like Burning Man. People gather on Thursday afternoon in the park at Ft. Marcy to hang out and picnic. It's a great place for people watching. Then, at dark, they light Zozobra (Old Man Gloom) and he moans and people yell, "BURN HIM!!!" It's kind of creepy but kind of fun as his burning is supposed to represent getting rid and letting go of all your sorrows for the year. I actually haven't been in years. After they light him, he really gets upset and groans louder and his arms flail and people yell louder and when the fire reaches his head, it explodes in fireworks. Sadistic? Yes. But the fireworks are cool. Well, this spectacle happens 2 blocks away from our new house so we had hoped to at least see some fireworks from our house this year, but instead we're making a quick run to Phoenix this weekend. So before we left on Thursday, I walked over to see Zozobra and they were just lifting him up into place with a crane.

The little crowd that had gathered cheered when he was up.

Every year he looks a bit different. This year he has bags under his eyes and is wearing blue wrist bands and belt to mark the loss of his longtime friend who did the "voice of Zozobra" ever since this tradition was started (by an artist about 50 years ago). And he often has orange hair but I see it's green this year.

And actually, Fiesta started a little earlier than this. I went over to the County Courthouse the other day to change my voter registration and to talk to the county assessor about my address change. The courthouse is in an old adobe building downtown - I got there at 4 in the afternoon and was able to park right in front. I walked in and heard mariachi music coming from upstairs and the clerk explained that mariachis were roaming the building and serenading everyone in their offices. There was a rumor that the treasurer's office had closed for the day. Everyone was in a party mood. But I got my registration changed and my questions answered in 8 minutes flat and was out of there with a smile on my face. This small town charm is why I love Santa Fe and is what Fiesta is all about.

Destination Denver

2008-08-03T20:17:00.006-06:00

We just spent a long weekend in Denver with our friend Mark (that’s the non-letterboxer Mark). There was a national micro car meet in Golden and we had been planning on this trip for awhile. We’ll be closing on our new house in a week and have plenty to do, but it was good to get away from it all for a few days. John had also been wanting to go to an amusement park and ride all the nauseating rides and Mark is always game for that so going to Elitch’s was another major draw. And finally, Mark’s mom and grandparents were all from Denver and he wanted to go see some of the places they used to live, so that was also a little mission of ours.

We arrived in Denver on Thursday afternoon and went to the Downtown Aquarium. We wandered around and saw all the exhibits and had dinner there as well.

The next morning, John and Mark were heading to Elitch’s and I planned to get in some letterboxing. We got up and had breakfast at the hotel and had some time to kill before Elitch’s opened, so I persuaded John and Mark to go letterboxing with me to the place where the original Elitch Gardens amusement park was. Mark was excited about that because he remembered going there as a kid. Well, all that remains of the original park is an old theater and the building that housed the carousel, and now the area is full of new condos and a Whole Foods! John and I had fun finding the two letterboxes there and Mark videotaped the area for his Mom.

Then we headed over to the new Elitch’s and I dropped the guys off and went in search of letterboxes. I got a great little tour of parts of the city this way: I went to a cool old cemetery,

then headed back to the downtown area along the river, which has been developed from old railyard areas into parks, trails, lofts, and stores.

It was a fun day and after I picked up the guys from Elitch’s, we hit some vintage furniture stores and went in search of places Mark’s mom had llived. We ended up at an Indian restaurant in LoDo for dinner and then went over to the Tattered Cover bookstore – a famous place that is the embodiment of an old timey, creaky wood floor bookstore – and over to Union Station, where I found my 500th letterbox! I love Union Stations and try to see old ones wherever I go. This one had great old seats inside so I went in there to stamp in.

Saturday morning we headed out to Golden to go to the micro car meet. There were all sorts of cool cars but not as many as expected. I think the price of gas probably affected people’s willingness to travel and trailer their micro cars across country to this show. Still, we saw a few of my ever favorite Isettas (this one with a teeny little trailer)-

a cool Citroen Ami8-

an old Honda 600 (John used to own one just like this)-

a Zundapp Janus (a very appropriate name) – that has a door in the front and one in the back, with seats facing in opposite directions! The seats can also be laid out flat so you can sleep inside when you’re camping. Very cool.

The rest of the day was spent hanging out in Golden – did a little letterboxing and went to a Mountaineering Museum. Then we headed back to Denver and went to REI, which is in one of the big renovated buildings along the riverfront. It is in the old brick electrical generating station which made power for the streetcars. REI spent more money on renovating this building than they have on any other project like this. It’s a grand building and we had fun exploring it (and buying stuff)…..

We had a delicious dinner that night at a place called Encore. It, and the Tattered Cover branch store that was next door, occupied a space that was formerly a theater. We loved seeing all these old renovated urban buildings.

This morning we headed for home with a quick detour (and letterbox) at the Garden of the Gods, outside of Colorado Springs.

The last time John and I spent much time in Denver was about 20 years ago! It’s changed a lot and we really enjoyed it. John’s family is from Greeley and we didn’t have time to go there so that’ll have to be an excuse for a future trip. Plus, Denver hosts an annual Modern show and sale and we just missed it this year by 2 weeks! Would definitely love to go to that some time, maybe next summer....

A Cruise to the New Rancho

2008-07-18T09:13:00.006-06:00

A few days ago, we were planning on going with some friends to a weekly free outdoor concert at St. John's College. But it rained that afternoon and the concert was cancelled. Our friends Mike and Dimid graciously invited us and and our friend Toni over to their house, where we could enjoy the picnic we had all prepared for the concert. We had a nice dinner under their giant sycamore tree and then Dimid suggested that we all go for a cruise to our new house. (Yes, after living in the foothills outside of town for 25 years, we are moving to town.) So, Mike pulled out his 1969 Cadillac convertible (which must be one of the longest passenger cars ever made!) and we all piled in.

We did a slow drive-by of the house but didn't get out, as it looked like the current owner, June, was there. But here's a few pics anyway of the house.

It's a midcentury modern house (which is pretty rare in Santa Fe) and is currently full of June's midcentury furniture! We love it.

And the backyard even has a bocce ball court.

Anyway, we should be closing on this house in about a month. We decided the Toast Ranch label didn't quite fit our new, "modern" house, so we have dubbed our new house "Rancho Tostado"!

We then did a quick cruise of downtown, and stopped at a place along the Santa Fe River where there is a little waterfall.

Now, you must understand that the Santa Fe River is normally nothing more than a dry streambed or an occasional trickle. Sometimes, when the reservoirs are full, they let some water out and the river runs briefly. But over the past week, we have had a huge amount of rain, and the Santa Fe River has been running pretty steadily. So we got out and enjoyed the sound of it all.

It was a great thrill to finally get a ride in the Caddy, Mike only takes it out once or twice a year. He's also got a giant Oldsmobile convertible and I'm hoping he'll pull it out for a ride after the house is ours and we can all cruise over and then go inside!

A Quick Trip to Lake Sarah

2008-07-06T17:04:00.011-06:00

We just got back from a long weekend near Minneapolis, at my cousin's house on Lake Sarah. It was a little family reunion of my dad's side of the family - 2 cousins and their families, as well as their parents, my aunt and uncle. A visit to my cousin's is always fun, as his family lives on a lake and they have all sorts of "toys" - an ATV, a couple of boats, water skis, an inflatable ring to pull behind the boat. We spent most of the weekend relaxing on the lakeshore or playing in the lake.

But the highlight of the weekend's festivities were the fireworks on the 4th. After a big dinner on the lakeshore, neighbors Sandy and Greg graciously took our whole clan out on their pontoon boat for a view of the fireworks.

One guy down the shore of the lake was known for his fireworks so we cruised down there for an up-close view. The fireworks were amazing, this guy had to have spent thousands and thousands of dollars putting on the show. But quite a few other neighbors had gotten into the act as well and there were really great fireworks all around the lake.

Anyway, it was an evening that we'll always remember and a whole lot of fun.

I've posted some family reunion pictures for those of you who are interested in such things here.

But the one family pic I had to put here is a picture of Alex, the newest addition to our family. Scott and Lara just adopted him in the Ukraine. He is a total cutie and this was everyone's first chance to meet him. We all enjoyed him tremendously. Welcome to our family, Alex!!

Thanks to Scott and Lara for hosting such a great event!!

Jammin' on Toast

2008-06-13T09:09:00.003-06:00

Our friend Vicki just sent me this link to a terrific song about - toast! Enjoy!

Heywood Banks sings about toast

The Return of the Colander Heads

2008-05-05T11:49:00.009-06:00

We just got back from a weekend at the annual Fiesta in Truth or Consequences, NM (T or C, as it’s known around here). We stayed with our friends Mike and Dimid, who have a house down there as well as living here in Santa Fe. Our friend Lynda from NYC joined us down there – she came with us last year and had so much fun she came again this year. And our friends from Santa Fe, Peggy and Rita, decided to check it out and came down as well. We all had a great time!

Friday was spent running errands and relaxing (getting a massage and soaking in the hot springs T or C is known for), then going out to a pre-Fiesta dinner at the terrific new Italian restaurant, Bella Luca, which is about a block from Mike and Dimid’s house. There were 17 of us at dinner – a lot of people we had met in T or C before but there were some new faces as well. We had a great meal and enjoyed talking to everyone. Then the party moved to Mike and Dimid’s to work on our costumes for the parade on Saturday as well as decorate the house.

Mike and Dimid started wearing colanders on their heads a few years ago as costumes to wear to the parade (there was a space theme to the parade that year, since there was a lot of hoopla then about construction of the Spaceport nearby). In years since, their friends started wearing colanders, bundt pans, wire fruit baskets, you name it, as headgear, although colanders are usually the starting point. Anyway, the theme this year for Fiesta was GO GREEN, as in recycling, so we all needed to decorate our outfits with greenery. Everyone had a great time working on outfits and John helped engineer and hot glue a lot of the headgear. Here's Dimid and Eve-

and Mike and Lynda-

Saturday morning we got up and got right to work. Mike and Dimid host an open house after the parade every year and everyone is invited to lunch. So we all pitched in and helped with the final food preparation and decorations. Before we knew it, it was time to get our costumes on and walk out the front door to the parade. Here’s a group shot of all of us in our outfits –

This was Misha’s first Fiesta but she got right into the spirit of things with her multi mini colander creation-

One of the original colander heads with her fetching hat-

Peggy and Rita promise to wear colanders next year but they had fabulous green glasses-

John went for the Roman emperor look with a wreath on his bundt pan and a silver mylar toga-

James is a painter and sports a drop cloth covered in paint and a colander with paint brushes sticking out-

Peggy and me-

These fabulous babes are some of the event organizers. They are wearing dresses made of magazines this year-

After the parade, we headed back inside, put all the food out, and watched as hordes of people arrived. It was the biggest crowd they’d ever had – I’m sure at least 75 people came by. It was all pretty overwhelming and we did what we could to keep the food and drinks flowing. After things quieted down a bit, we decided to leave and check out some Fiesta activities – other people were chipping in helping with clean up etc. and we decided to head over to the bank parking lot for the Motorcycle Rodeo. We went last year and were fascinated by it all – people on Harleys, playing games in the bank parking lot. What kind of games? Stuff like the Weenie Bite, where you ride your Harley under a suspended hot dog slathered in mustard or catsup (your choice), and the person on the back of the Harley has to try and bite off the end of the hot dog (that's the hot dog in front of the stop sign)-

Of course, this is very difficult and you end up with mustard or catsup all over your face. Well, we are easily amused and find this whole thing fascinating. As Lynda says, these people are about as different from us and our lifestyles as you can get. But she had brought a picture she took of some of them last year and was hoping to use this as her entrée into their company, maybe even get offered a chance to ride on the back of a Harley. Well, that didn’t happen and the people in the pic weren’t there this year. But we sat there and took pictures and wondered at it all.

The office chair race, which was supposed to follow the Motorcycle Rodeo in the parking lot, was cancelled due to lack of contestants. We thought about running back to Mike and Dimid’s and grabbing some office chairs so we could clean up in prizes but we opted to go to the park instead, since that’s where most of the post-parade activities were. We wandered around a bit and then headed back to the house where we rested awhile, then headed out for a soak to perk up. The soak felt great and then we went back to the house for a relaxing dinner. I had made a lasagna and brought it down from Santa Fe so all we had to do was throw together a salad (with lettuce from their garden) and heat up some bread and we were set. After dinner, we headed back to the park to listen to some music, and then after that, we decided we needed to go get ice cream. Well, we had lost Mike and Dimid in the park but we managed to hook up with them on the walk home so we persuaded them to join us on our ice cream run. We all piled into the Land Cruiser and ended up at the Sonic Drive-in, having a great time eating ice cream in the car. We were all totally exhausted and giddy over the day’s events and went home and promptly crashed.

Sunday, we hung out at their house until noon, and then headed home. Stopped by Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge on the way – saw some turtles, some ducks, some egrets, found a letterbox, and hid a letterbox. We heard that Peggy and Rita had stopped by there earlier in the day and seen wild pigs and wild turkeys! All in all, it was wonderful to be back in the company of our friends in T or C, and it was great to meet more and more of their friends. And we already had a planning meeting for next year’s Fiesta – which involve us colander-heads actually being IN the parade and having a “kitchen band.” Can’t wait!

Along Coronado's Trail

2008-04-11T21:42:00.005-06:00

Yesterday we spent the morning in Bisbee. John went on an underground mine tour of the huge Queen Anne copper mine, which is no longer operational.

I decided to spend the morning above ground, exploring Bisbee a bit and hitting some antique shops. We met up again around noon, went in search of a couple of letterboxes, and then had some lunch. Then we headed over to Chiricahua National Monument, about an hour away. There are really interesting rock formations there.

We went on a short walk but mostly just did the scenic drive through the park. We’ll have to go back another time for more exploring.

Then on to Willcox (and a letterbox there at a wildlife viewing area with no wildlife in sight). Stayed at the historic, circa 1990s Best Western there. OK, so that wasn’t anything thrilling but it was kind of nice to have all the modern amenities. And we DID eat dinner in a caboose (one of the only dining establishments in town).

Today we hit the road after breakfast and headed up the eastern side of Arizona, on a road we’d never been on before. First we went through Safford and stopped to find a letterbox – it was nice to go for a little walk and get out of the car and find a nice box. Next we drove up the road another 30 miles or so to a really cool old mining town called Clifton. We stopped at the Visitor Center but it was closed, so we crossed the street to see an old train car and the old dark jail, hollowed out of the cliff face. Then on to another great letterbox along the creek that runs through town. We headed up the road another few miles to Morenici, the current site of mining operations in the area. The open pit copper mine here made Bisbee’s look teeny. This is one of the largest open pit mines in the world – you drive along it for miles. It was really mind-boggling. This is just one part.

After that, the road continued winding up the hills and through the mountains for 130 miles. We found out later it is supposedly the windiest road in Arizona. Think of the Santa Fe Ski Basin road going on for 130 miles… it took most of the afternoon to get to Springerville, where we are spending the night. The road was lovely – we went through everything from snow covered slopes to controlled burns of the forest.

But the best part of it all was spotting a wolf crossing the road! I have never seen a wolf in the wild before – he looked very healthy and happy – it was a thrill to see him.

Tomorrow we head for home after a stop in Pie Town for some pie and a quick stop at the VLA to see the giant radio telescopes. It's been a terrific trip but it'll be good to be home.

Rey in the El Rey

2008-04-09T22:11:00.003-06:00

Yesterday we took it fairly easy and didn’t stray too far from our b&b. We had a leisurely breakfast (yogurt and fruit, then traditional Balinese black rice pudding with coconut milk, made by Mike’s Balinese wife, Wayan). Then we headed off to the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, which showcases the flora and fauna of the Sonoran Desert. It was really terrific – as we walked in, we were greeted by a man holding a little screech owl.

There was a raptor flight demonstration right after we got there, so we headed on over to see it. It was really terrific, with several types of trained birds appearing out of nowhere to fly back and forth and very low over our heads. When that was over, we wandered along the pathways among the outdoor exhibits – mountain lions, beavers, various snakes. But the best part was the hummingbird house. Many of us have been inside big buildings housing butterflies – this was like that, except it housed hummers. There were all kinds of hummers in there, buzzing back and forth. But the best part was that we saw two hummers sitting on their teensy hummingbird nests! Too cute. We learned that hummers make their nests out of various materials, but use spider webs in their nests. When their babies get bigger, and the nests are too small, the spider web silk actually allows the nests to stretch to accommodate the bigger birds. Well, one nest that we saw with a mom and 2 unseen chicks was about the size of an egg cup. And the other, which seemed to be under construction, was about the size of a half dollar. We left there and a few minutes later saw a very hairy and thorny cholla cactus. One part seemed especially hairy and we were wondering if the hairy part was actually a bird’s nest. We stuck our faces closer to look at it, and a bird appeared in the hole in the nest and flew out right in our faces! Quite the surprise.

We left the Desert Museum after lunch and headed for some letterboxes in the area. Then we needed to find a spot to hide one I had brought with me. I had seen a likely spot and we went to check it out. Success! Sometimes letterboxes are really difficult to hide in towns you don’t know – so we felt lucky.

We hit the grocery store and got some food from the deli for our dinner, then got back to the Crickethead Inn at 4:30. Our neighbors were already having cocktail hour on the patio, so we joined them. We stayed there and enjoyed the sunset and their company until bedtime, they were really nice folks.

Today we had another leisurely morning and then checked out of our b&b. We headed back into the downtown area of Tucson and found a few letterboxes before lunch. It was a very chilly morning and it started raining on us a few times. After being out in the wind and rain and lightning on the Diamondback Bridge, we decided to go warm up and have lunch. We then headed out of town, found a few more letterboxes on the south side of town, and then drove to Bisbee.

Bisbee is a great little old mining town, with narrow streets and little shops. Our destination here (to continue the theme of unusual places to stay) is the Shady Dell, a vintage RV trailer park. Most of the trailers are old aluminum refurbished Airstream-style trailers.

Our reserved model is the El Rey – perfect for John Reyburn Forsdale, El Rey himself.

We love our little trailer and even considered staying another night and getting another trailer – we want to try them all! But we’ll probably stick to our schedule and hit the road tomorrow afternoon.

Fun in the Desert Sun

2008-04-07T18:24:00.005-06:00

Greetings from Tucson! We left Prescott yesterday morning and drove to Phoenix, where we had a few stops planned. One was to go to an indoor go-kart racing track. John had seen one of these on our last trip to Phoenix and had regretted not going. So we found one on the internet and made it a destination. As we drove up in the parking lot, right after they opened on Sunday morning, we noticed that most of the parking lot was empty – except for a bunch of Corvettes. Apparently, the Corvette club was spending the morning at the track. John might have some stiff competition on the track! He checked in, watched a safety video, donned a helmet, and waited for his allotted time slot. They let a certain number of racers onto the track at a time. You do a practice lap and then it’s like a real car race – you race the other drivers around the track for 15 to 20 minutes. John was hoping he’d win – most of his fellow drivers seemed to be retired men – but they were the Corvette drivers and obviously had done this before and John came in 5th out of the 11 drivers. He had a blast and was exhausted by the end of the race. We headed on to do some shopping at Ikea, had lunch there, and then headed on to Tucson.

Our first stop in Tucson was at our hotel, a little bed and breakfast recommended by our friend Mark S, called the Crickethead Inn. It’s a little place out in the desert, on the NW side of town, and the property adjoins Saguaro National Park. In fact, you have to drive through the monument to get there. Well, we immediately fell in love with it. Each of the rooms there is decorated in Indonesian textiles and furnishings and is lovely. We’ve never had such a fancy bed!

And our back porch, which we share with our neighbors in the other half of the casita, looks out over Saguaro National Park.

Well, we had to stay for a bit and chill out, it was just so peaceful. We sat on our back porch, had a glass of wine and chatted with our neighbors, John and Pat. Very relaxing. We finally decided we should get up and go into town – there wasn’t much in the way of food and restaurants out our way, although our neighbors heartily recommended picking up food at the grocery and bringing it there for dinner on the porch. So we headed in to downtown Tucson. Did a little letterboxing in the downtown area (but for various reasons, our attempts failed), then headed for dinner at a place I’d read about online – an authentic tiki hut restaurant and bar. We were thrilled to find it open and went in to enjoy exotic drinks (complete with umbrellas) and island food. A fun way to end the day.

Today began with a quick letterbox stop at a wetlands area (created by a sewage treatment plant). There were lots of birds, cattails, and we even saw a turtle. Then it was on to the Pima Air and Space Museum, our goal for the day. The museum has something like 200 aircraft housed in 6 hangars and on the grounds outside. John would be in heaven. Well, it turned out I really enjoyed it too. I liked a lot of the planes just because they looked so clunky. Here’s one called the Conestoga.

And here’s a nice looking helicopter from the 1940s.

Anyway, we did this for awhile, then grabbed some lunch before our scheduled tour of the AMARG facility next door. AMARG, commonly known as “the boneyard,” is a huge operation housing around 4400 airplanes – all stored outside in the desert. Some airplanes will be reused and are merely stored there by the Air Force; others will never fly again and are being dismantled for parts or are being systematically destroyed (as in the case of the B52 bombers). The first part of the tour, of the planes that will fly again, was pretty boring – it was more like driving through a museum of military aircraft and hearing a spiel about each plane. All of these planes had their doors and windows sealed with a protective spray to protect the insides of the plane from the desert heat and sun – and this made them look very strange. I realized that I had envisioned this place to be full of dilapidated old planes – maybe with cats living in them, birds nesting in the cockpit, that sort of thing. The planes that were used for parts were more along this line but everything was still very organized (by plane type) and meticulously maintained by the military. It was only after the official tour, when we were looking for a letterbox in the neighborhood, that we saw some really good junky stuff.

Now we’re at a Starbucks. Only one of our hotels so far has had wifi so finding internet has been a challenge. Tomorrow we continue on our transportation theme (so far, we’ve had micro cars, go-karts, and airplanes) by going to the Transportation Museum - and we're also going to the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum.

Lovin' Those Microcars

2008-04-05T22:32:00.004-06:00

Today was the day of the micro car meet! We headed out of the town of Strawberry after breakfast this morning, and went to find a letterbox just outside of town on our way out. We found it pretty easily despite some vague instructions. Then we hit the road. Got into Prescott around lunchtime but decided we wanted to find the micro cars first. We really had no idea if there would be 5 cars here or 50, and we were anxious to see what we would find. We weren't even sure where the event was, and the local newspaper was no help. Finally we tracked down the event - it was tucked into a little alley and parking area near Prescott College - and there were about 30 cars there, yeah! Most were vintage old cars although there was one new Smart car and a few new Minis.

One of my all time fave micro cars has to be the BMW Isetta. However, it's very collectible and pricey. The only time I've ever seen one was at the BMW museum in Munich, where it was suspended from the ceiling. I either didn't get a proper sense of scale then or I forgot how small it was, because, these cars are really really small!

It almost looks like there are 2 wheels in the front there and only one in back, but there are actually 2 wheels in back too, they're just closer together. This car was produced in Germany in the mid-1950's and I think it's just too adorable. We actually saw it driving down the main street in Prescott after the meet was over; it turned a lot of heads. Here's another Isetta in red and white, a back view.

The front of the car is actually the door where you get in! Which means that, yes, the steering wheel is attached to the front door.

Another fun car was the Goggomobile Dart - a really low cute convertible-

And here's an Austin Mini delivery truck, from the 1960s.

And finally, here are some of John's favorite cars - the Fiat 500s and 600s-

He has always wanted a Fiat 500 station wagon - we saw those in Europe years ago. They didn't have one there today, unfortunately, but he got to look at all the others and found that he loves them still. So we are going to try and find one! We heard that one recently sold on ebay....

Well, there were a lot of other cool cars there too - Crosleys, two tone Nash Metropolitans, Morris Minors, etc. We walked around for awhile and then decided we needed some lunch so we went to a nearby deli. John went back for more micro cars after lunch, but the meet was already breaking up, so he got to see some of the cars driving away. So we decided to go find the 2 letterboxes in downtown Prescott and get a little tour of the town that way. Both were in the area around the courthouse, where there had been a big rally occuring earlier in the day when we drove by. Turned out it had been John McCain speaking there. We found the boxes, then went to an antique store and looked around. The rest of the day was spent being lazy - checked in our hotel, John had a nap, then we went for drinks at an historic old hotel, and then we had Indian food for dinner. It was a fun day with the micro cars but we're happy to move on tomorrow. Everyone had said what a wonderful little town Prescott is and it's ok but I fail to see the charm really. Tomorrow we head to Phoenix and on to Tucson and warm weather!

Wuga Wuga in a Wigwam

2008-04-04T22:58:00.001-06:00

We’re on the road again, headed to Prescott, AZ for a micro car meet. John has had an interest in micro cars for a long time, in fact, we used to own a few (and currently own a new Mini Cooper). Only recently have we discovered this network of other enthusiasts, and it has renewed our own interest. When we found out there would be a meet of Southwest Unique Little Cars, we had to go! We decided it would be a good time to also head on down to Tucson, which we’ve always wanted to go to, before it got too hot. But first – we headed for wigwams.

We’ve always been captivated by the Wigwam Village in Holbrook and wanted to stay there our first night on the road. It’s not far from Santa Fe so John worked a half day yesterday and then we took off. We made a brief stop at the Mini dealer in Albuquerque to check out the new larger Mini, the Clubman. We grabbed some coffee at Starbucks and then hit the road. Holbrook is about four and a half hours from Santa Fe and we got there at 6:30 local time. We checked in to our own wigwam and then went back to the office to talk to the owner about placing a letterbox at the wigwams. I had emailed him beforehand but had not received an answer. Well, he started hemming and hawing a bit but then I showed him my wigwam stamp and he really liked it and I knew we were in! He hemmed and hawed a bit more but it turned out he was only trying to decide where we should put the box! We wanted to put it on one of the 1950s vehicles that are always parked in the lot and he suggested that we put it on Mater (he said the red tow truck there was the basis for Mater in the movie “Cars”). So we were thrilled we got permission to hide the box. We went off to find dinner but first, before sunset, we drove around town exploring the old train depot area. It was getting dark but we saw the train depot area (all being restored, neat old spot), some cool dinosaurs,

and then we chanced on an old motor court. It was just the kind of place we had had in mind for another letterbox we wanted to plant – Get Your Kicks… This box had been in Santa Fe but we had wanted to move it to a new spot for a long long time. Finally we had found the spot! We decided to go back this morning for the final hide.

Then off to dinner at a place recommended by the motel owner – it was a great little old diner called Joe and Aggie’s Café. We had a great dinner. We went back there for breakfast this morning, then headed to the Chamber of Commerce to learn more about the motor court. Turns out the Chamber was housed in the old courthouse, which also housed the Navajo County Museum. It was a really fascinating place. First of all, there was an old jail there and it was really dingy and really depressing. However, the prisoners had done some fascinating drawings on the walls-

Upstairs, there were all kinds of things – old radios; old ledger books and registers that you could actually take off the shelf and look at; sets of old rubber stamps used by teachers to teach math and other subjects.

We had a great time looking at everything and could have stayed for much longer but decided we needed to get going. We asked about the old motor court and it turns out the original part of the hotel was from the 1880s and is one of the oldest buildings in town. The motor court part would have been added later. Anyway, it apparently has plans to become a bed and breakfast, but that’ll take awhile, it needs a lot of work. Anyway, we went back and hid our Route 66 letterbox there, then hit the road.

Our destination for today was Strawberry, AZ, which was only a few hours down the road, so we had plenty of time to explore and letterbox. We found a letterbox at Willow Springs Lake (elevation around 7000 feet, still some snow around);

one a few miles later at a trailhead at the bottom of the Mogollon Rim (a 2000 foot drop in elevation, which makes for a lovely drive); 2 more near Tonto Creek fish hatchery (up a lovely canyon with a mountain stream); looked for a missing one that was indeed missing at Tonto Natural Bridge State Park and saw the natural travertine bridge there. After that, we drove into Strawberry, checked into our rustic hotel, and sat outside to drink some fine wine in plastic cups and write this blog on a stump!!

What a fun day. Tomorrow we head on to Prescott, a few hours away, to see the micro cars!

The Morning After

2008-03-24T19:47:00.005-06:00

How I think the Easter bunny looks after a long hard day of hiding eggs.

(Our Smorkin' Labbit toy from KidRobot in LA!)

Happy Easter Egg!

2008-03-23T10:11:00.003-06:00

Last night, our friends Mark and Chris came over for some Easter egg decorating. Our friend Melinda had sent me an article on decorating Easter eggs with hand carved rubber stamps - right up my alley! So we wanted to try it. Chris, who has done a bit of letterboxing with us but never carved any stamps, decided it would be a good opportunity to finally try carving and he ended up carving about 20 little stamps of chicks, flowers, vines, butterflies, bunnies, flower pots, etc. They were terrific!

However, we quickly learned that stamping on the curved surface of an egg is not as simple as it sounds. Chicks lost beaks, bunnies lost butts. The smaller stamps worked better. In addition, the pigment based inks stayed too wet and tended to smear unless you were careful; the dye based ones worked better.

We also tried dyeing eggs using the pysansky technique of applying wax and dyeing the egg in various stages. This worked ok but my tjanting batik tool for applying the wax may not have been as good as a real pysansky tool.

Anyway, we had a great time playing and talking and eating strawberries and chocolate ice cream bonbons!! Happy Easter to you all!!

Schulenburg to San Angelo

2008-03-05T19:00:00.004-07:00

We’re nearing the end of our trip. We’re in San Angelo now, visiting my mom. We had a great day driving out here yesterday. We left Houston and drove to Schulenburg, where we found 3 letterboxes. One letterbox’s theme was the painted churches of Fayette County, and we decided to check a few of them out. These churches were built in the 1800s and early 1900s by German and Czech immigrants. Their interiors are beautifully yet simply decorated. Here’s the church at High Hill-

And the church at Praha-

After we visited the churches, we headed on towards Luling. We found a letterbox in town and grabbed a quick lunch. We were having a great time exploring, and the weather was sunny and lovely, nothing like yesterday. However, we decided it was time to hit the road to San Angelo. But first, we had to stop at a rest stop just outside of Luling so that we could find a few final boxes.

The rest of the drive out to San Angelo went smoothly. We took turns driving, wrote in our logbooks, listened to music, and talked. At one point I was driving and looked over on the side of the highway and saw what looked like a bighorn sheep grazing on the side of the road! That was a shock. Maybe it wasn’t a bighorn sheep, maybe it was a just a ram, but I wasn’t expecting to see a wild sheep on the side of the road And I never mentioned before that the day we drove into Texas at the beginning of the trip, we saw camels!

Today we got up and hung out at the house for awhile, looking at my mom’s postcard collection. Then Mark and I took off and went to the International Lily Garden here in town to check on my letterbox there and to see the lilies. Unfortunately, the lilies were all gone this time of year. But my box was alive and well so I was happy about that. Then we went on to another box in town. We came back to the house for a quick lunch and then headed out again with my mom. We went to see some murals in alleyways in town -

Another alley featured paintings on doors and was called Art Opens Doors.

Next we went to the historic Cactus Hotel, one of Conrad Hilton’s first hotels. It had a great interior with some beautiful tile work.

And there was a wonderful ballroom upstairs.

Finally, we visited some art studios and then went out for barbeque. We head for home tomorrow. Another fun adventure comes to an end. Thanks to Mark for today's photos (I forgot to recharge the batteries for my camera) and for a great trip!

A day in Houston

2008-03-03T20:59:00.006-07:00

Well, I'm going to try and keep this relatively short today as I am exhausted. Lionsmane Mark and I have been having too much fun and I guess it's caught up with me. But here's a quick recap. (Mark's blog probably sounds much more coherent than mine, and with greater detail. Check it out at The Lion's Game.)

Yesterday was a fun day of exploring. We left Bastrop and went to La Grange, then turned north towards Round Top. We stopped along the way to find a fun dewberry box at The World's Smallest (active) Catholic Church-

Then we went on to Round Top to find a letterbox at a school that has music workshops and concerts. The grounds of the place were beautiful - stone bridges, a pharmacy garden with medicinal plants from around the world, etc. Letterbox was missing but it was a beautiful place to wander around.

Then we went back to LaGrange and found two letterboxes at Monument Hill Historic Site. There were more beautiful grounds, a great view from the top of the bluff, and we even ran into a couple of letterboxers on the trail.

After that, it was time to head to Houston. We got to town, found a hotel, and worked our way down to my friends Melinda and Clark's house, making a few letterbox stops. One of these was at Rice University, where I went to school. It was fun to be back on campus, but the letterbox I planted there last year has already gone missing. Oh well, there was another to find in the library there. After we got to Melinda's, we all hurried over to the Museum of Fine Arts to get there before they closed. We wandered around the museum for a while before going to the highlight, a light installation by James Turrell. It's in a tunnel underground connecting two buildings of the museum and you walk through his installation in the tunnel. Very cool piece.

We had to have dinner (and margaritas) at the original Ninfa's, my favorite Mexican restaurant in Houston. It was as yummy as always.

Today started off cloudy and drizzly but we managed to get some letterboxing in this morning in the Heights. Then we met letterboxers dewberry and lore at Treebeard's in downtown Houston for lunch. It was another yummy meal. Mark and I indulged our Louisisana roots and filled up on red beans and rice and gumbo. It was great catching up with dewberry and lore and we're very sorry Mother of Five couldn't make it! It rained all during lunch and was turning into quite the dreary, cold, rainy day. So we decided to stop boxing for the day and do some other errands I had hoped we'd have time for: go to Texas Art Supply, Ikea, and a few other places. But I realized that we were near the David Adickes studio (and there was a drive-by letterbox there we could grab in the rain) so we stopped there first to see the giant presidential busts that he is making-

Well, we managed to fill our afternoon with errands and we were both feeling kind of wiped out. So we had an early dinner with Melinda and Clark, said our good-byes and headed to the hotel. It's about a 7 hour drive to San Angelo tomorrow but should be fun, there will be some interesting stops along the way, which you will hear about later!

Texas Travels

2008-03-01T21:49:00.008-07:00

My letterboxing bud Lionsmane and I are on a letterboxing trip through Texas. The goal was the 5th Texas Annual Letterboxing Event, but we turned it into a Texas letterboxing adventure with lots of stops along the way. We left on Wednesday, and drove from Santa Fe to Dallas, a long haul punctuated by a few quick letterbox stops. I stayed that night at Amelia’s house, an old college friend I hadn’t seen in something like 10 years. It was great to catch up with her and her family. The next morning, we were up and off to another early start, heading to Austin, with a stop in Waco to visit with our letterboxing friend Sha of the Travelin’ T’s, and to find a bunch of his boxes. We had a wonderful afternoon visiting with Sha and letterboxing around Waco.

We letterboxed as long as we could and then headed on to Austin for dinnertime with my old college roomie Vicki and her husband Tom. Friday was spent letterboxing with Vicki around Austin. We all had a blast – Vicki had never been letterboxing before and she thoroughly enjoyed it. We went to the Arboretum (a shopping area, complete with some terrific cow sculptures),

Red Bud Isle,

Zilker Park, and the University of Texas. We found around 15 letterboxes and stopped only after it got dark. We found some great stamps and clever hides – too much fun.

Today was the letterboxing event, held at South Shore Park on Lake Bastrop. It was organized by Baby Bear and Silver Eagle, two letterboxers whose stamps I have enjoyed immensely over the years, it was great to finally meet them.

Vicki (now known as Bell Motel in the letterboxing world!) came too and I think she’s hooked. We all did stamp exchanges with other boxers for several hours. Finally, around mid-afternoon, we hit the trails. We did some ‘boxing with our friend Sha and boxers Smooth Sailing and RayRay.

Then we regrouped and boxed along another trail and met up with dewberry and Mother of Five, from Houston. We got to visit with them a little but are really looking forward to spending more time with them on Monday, when we’re all going out to lunch with another boxer, Lore.

We boxed until dark again, then said our good-byes to Bell Motel, who was headed back to Austin. We’re spending tonight in Bastrop and will head to Houston tomorrow after stopping at some boxes along the way. Thanks to everyone for all the terrific boxes we’ve found so far, for a great event, and to Bell Motel and Amelia for being such excellent hosts!

Pitch White

2008-02-03T19:39:00.001-07:00

Did I say I was going to have a relaxing day yesterday? Well, it didn't work out as planned. To keep it brief, I'll just say that the 4WD Land Cruiser had to be dug out of a snow bank in town and after that, I had to drive through really bad conditions to pick up the boys at Wolf Creek. It snowed 26 inches up there yesterday and the visibility had only worsened by the afternoon. I was wondering what the heck I was doing driving up there. At one point, I had to stop the car completely because the snow was blowing across the road so hard that I couldn't see a thing. I only made it through sheer determination. Anyway, I got there at the scheduled pick-up time and they were thrilled to see me, they had heard that the pass had been closed and that they would have to hitchhike home. Anyway, I was pretty fried by it all. Here's how it looked when John drove back down from the pass at 3:30 in the afternoon - at least he had tail lights to follow, which helped him out.

We went back to the cabin and then things mellowed out. The boys hit the hot tub at the hotel, and I stayed at the cabin and got to play some Vortex on my ipod while dinner was in the oven. We had a relaxing dinner at the cabin, and then we played a fun card game our nephews taught us called BS.

This morning we woke up to more snow. Predictions called for 5-10 inches of snow in Pagosa today so we didn't linger, it was going to be a long ride home. The boys all hit the sledding hill one more time, and Cooper worked on his tunnel - he dug a tunnel through a big pile of snow by our cabin.

And who doesn't enjoy a good icicle?!?

So we left Pagosa around 11 am and headed to Chama. The road there doesn't get a lot of traffic and visibility was again bad. Frank said, "Everything is pitch white!" and he sure was right. Anyway, it snowed most of the way home and we are now back safe and sound. We had a great time and it was fun to have a snow adventure, but it's good to be home now!

Welcome to Colorful Colorado

2008-02-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

At least that’s what the sign says. So far, all we’ve seen is white! We’re back on the road again. We promised our nephews a weekend in Pagosa Springs, CO for their Christmas present and this was the only weekend that worked for everyone - so here we are!

We left Santa Fe yesterday – it was actually one of those warm, sunny winter days there. But by the time we got up to Chama, NM, it was snowing, and the kids got all excited.

We arrived at the cabin in Pagosa to exclamations of, “Aw, sick!!” which meant the kids totally approved.

There is a big hill behind the cabin and they were dying to go sledding so off they went. I walked around and took some pictures of the snow and the twilight.

Once they had exhausted themselves sledding, we went to town for a soak in the naturally occurring hot springs the town is famous for. Instead of going to the main hot springs resort in town, a friend had recommended the place across the street that is a little older and funkier, because they have a swimming pool filled with warm water that is fun for kids to play in. So we went there and it was great, we had the whole place to ourselves for a while, then one other person showed up. It was great to soak and watch the snow fall and the steam rise from the pool.

After that we went out to dinner, came home, made a fire in the woodstove, and then went to bed early, we were all exhausted. Today, we got up early, had breakfast, then drove up to Wolf Creek Pass. The visibility was pretty bad up top, it was really snowing a lot.

I dropped all the boys off to go skiing and then I turned around and headed back to the cabin. I’m going to relax today while they play in the snow – take some pictures, go to town and pick up some food for dinner in the cabin tonight, and maybe play a little Vortex on my ipod – Frank and I are both into that game and I am a bit peeved he has gotten through one or two more levels than me! But in reality, I consider myself lucky I can come anywhere close to doing as well as him. No letterboxing for me today – there is too much snow everywhere – the ski area here has around 16 feet of snow, although that is how much there is now, after it has compacted – they have received about 28 feet of snow total up there this year!!

Exploring the Queen

2008-01-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we headed to Long Beach and despite the dreary weather predictions, we enjoyed a lovely day of sunshine and 70 degrees. First, we went in search of a couple of letterboxes on Signal Hill, since the clues indicated that there was a nice view from there. Sure enough, the views were terrific. You could see the ocean and the Queen Mary as well as the snow-covered mountains to the east - while we were getting all of that rain on the coast, the mountains were getting pounded with snow. Signal Hill is a hill in the middle of town and it was covered in upper middle class type houses and...pump jacks! It turns out Signal Hill is one of the country's richest oil fields. Bizarre to see pump jacks and drilling rigs in the middle of neighborhoods.

So that was a great stop but we only found one of the letterboxes there.

Then we went on to the comic store (not kitschy enough for me, I was hoping for some Astro Boy stuff), several Long Beach marinas to find 2 letterboxes, had some lunch, and then went to check in at the Queen Mary. It's been operating as a hotel in the harbor at Long Beach since 1967.

The Queen Mary was really interesting. It was a fabulous ship in its time but is starting to show some wear. The interiors are all covered in wood veneer and have a wonderful Art Deco style. Here's a picture of the interior of the Grand Salon-

On one end of this room is this wonderful Art Deco mural and clock. It shows the transAtlantic route the ship took. In addition, there are 2 little Lucite boats on tracks, going across the ocean. I'm sure at one point, they lit up to show the passengers where they were on their voyage.

And here are a few pictures from the engine area of the ship. Old dials and gauges-

And then this picture from the bridge shows 4 funnels that would relay the pilot's messgage to other parts of the ship. A slight bit more advanced than a cup and string, but for a giant boat, it seemed rather crude....!

We went for drinks in the wonderful Art Deco bar

and then on to dinner. After dinner I went back to the room and waited for some maintenance people to come work on heat for our room (it wasn't working but they got it fixed) and John wandered the ship some more. Here's one of the great smokestacks on top, all lit up.

This morning we wandered around some more and walked the vast expanse of the wet wooden deck (it rained during the night). Then it was time to ht the road and head to the airport. But first, we stopped in the Queen Mary Dome, an exhibit space next door, where there was a Star Trek show of sets used in filming the TV show, etc. I wanted to see some dressed-up Trekkies and hopefully find a gift shop for some Trekkie memorabilia, but unfortunately, neither was to be had. We stopped in the front door, saw a Klingon throne and a Captain's chair but didn't pay to go in. Oh well, that was as close to kitsch as I got.

My Future Italian Husband

2008-01-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

We're in Los Angeles for the weekend. We got here yesterday afternoon and it was grey and drizzly. We picked up our rental car at the airport (we were able to rent a Prius) and headed off to find a bite to eat (with the aid of our new portable GPS for the car). Well, the GPS was handy and found us a nice little deli for lunch, but the car was frustrating for a while. There was no owners manual and some things about the car (a hybrid) were not intuitive. We finally got it figured out and headed on to a letterbox which had been reported as missing and which, indeed, was missing! On to Santa Monica to get to the Camera Obscura, where I intended to hide my own letterbox. The building was closed, earlier than my information had said, so we bombed out again. We headed for a coffee shop on the Santa Monica Promenade and did a little shopping, doing what we could to avoid the rain. Finally we checked in to the hotel and chilled out a bit, the afternoon had been tiring. But then we scored at dinner, we found a great little Indian restaurant and had a wonderful meal.

This morning was the real purpose of our visit: John's appointment at the Italian consulate! Several years ago I leaned I was eligible for dual citizenship with Italy - my granddad was Italian - and I decided to apply for it in case I ever wanted to make use of it. The whole process takes several years. My citizenship came through a year ago and I immediately started gathering the paperwork for John, as he is eligible just by being married to me. We finally got all of his documents together and scheduled an appointment to meet with the consular officials today. Everything went smoothly and even though John's citizenship is not guaranteed like mine was, they assured him that his chances of being accepted are high. Woo hoo! He will have to wait 2 to 2 1/2 years to hear back from them though. Anyway, it was very exciting to meet with them - now we will have to start planning our trip to Italy in a few years to celebrate!!

After we met with the Italians, we headed back to the Camera Obscura, a place I always enjoy on the beach near the pier in Santa Monica. I had made a small letterbox to hide there, not knowing if I would find a good spot to hide it in or not. Well, I found a spot and am not expecting the box to evade the maintenance staff for very long but hopefully some letterboxers will find it first! Camera obscuras are pretty neat and we always make a point to check them out if they are in a city we are visiting. This one is cool because it is in an unlikely spot (off in a corner of a city-run senior citizen center) and because you can operate it yourself and look at whatever view you want, projected onto the table in front of you, in the dark.

After this, we headed out for a letterbox and again had no luck. Plus the rain started up again but only briefly. So we decided to go to a favorite shopping neighborhood and went to the Giant Robot store (run by the magazine of the same name). It's in a very Asian neighborhood and sells Japanese toys, zines, books, and t-shirts. We looked around and bought some stickers and then realized we were hungry. So we headed across the street to a Japanese noodle shop - YUM - big bowls of steaming ramen, it was the perfect antidote to a cold, drizzly day.

After we warmed up there, we headed over to the Melrose Ave. neighborhood and did some more shopping. Found a great comic book store that had incredible books on all kinds of illustration, I could have just stayed there all day. But after awhile, we got back in the Prius and headed back to the hotel. We have come to love the Prius - we are addicted to looking at the readout which tells you your current gas mileage. We are constantly trying to improve it. The readout also shows you when the car is running on battery power and when it is powered from the engine. Pretty cool stuff.

We had a great dinner tonight at Violet's - a restaurant serving small tapas-size plates of contemporary American food. When they bring your check, they even bring a shot-glass of milk and a chocolate chip cookie for each person. Another yummy meal.

Tomorrow we head for Long Beach where there is another comic book and toy store that sounds interesting, several letterboxes that I hope we can actually find!, and - the Queen Mary, where we will spend the night.

Back in the Days of Black and White

2008-01-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

For the past few months, John has been working on restoring a 1949 Tele Tone television set. He picked it up back in New York City around 1970 when a local TV repair shop was closing its doors. He's had it working in the past, but for the last 25 years, it has sat in our basement gathering dust. So he hauled it out and made it a winter project.

It's got a 7-inch black and white picture tube, and cost about $275 when new. That was a lot of money for back then, the equivalent of buying a really big flat screen TV today. It has 22 tubes, which John replaced years ago when tubes were easier to come by.

He researched the TV online, ordered parts from Canada online, and then methodically began replacing parts - resistors, capacitors, things I have no idea what they are. He got it all back together over the holidays and plugged it in and it worked! He had to do a little more adjusting and replacing of parts (the picture was too short vertically and we had to go to Albuquerque to get another part, and the focus was off), but a few weeks ago he got those problems fixed and it really works well! Now he is going to work a bit on cleaning up the scratches on the veneer cabinet and then he's done. He says now it can go back in the basement for another 25 years! But I'd like to find a more prominent spot for it, I think it's pretty cool and I'm really impressed that he knows how to fix these things. Now we're going to get a videotape or DVD of old TV shows that were popular back in its day to watch on it!

Christmas Fun

2007-12-26T20:54:00.000-07:00

We're having a wonderful holiday - relaxing at home and sharing good times with our friends. Reconnecting with old friends and getting to know new ones better. Playing with our nephews and giving Oliver some driving lessons. Baking and decorating Christmas cookies -

Doing the annual luminaria walk on Christmas Eve -

And taking the obligatory traditional spoons-on-noses Christmas photo ----!

And we're planning some adventures for the new year - a quick trip to Los Angeles in January, a ski weekend with our nephews in Colorado in February, a letterboxing trip to Texas in March, a microcar meet in Arizona in April, and then there's always the annual T or C fiesta in May! So we're excited about the new year. Thanks to everyone for such a special holiday. Hope you're having a great one as well! Happy new year!!!

Adventures in Felting

2007-12-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I decided I'd knit some booties. I haven't knitted anything in about 10 years but decided it'd be a good thing to do on a road trip. I had seen a cute pattern in the latest issue of Craft magazine for booties that were knitted and then felted and I was interested in trying felting so decided to give it a whirl. Felting can be accomplished several ways - one of them is by knitting something a few sizes too big, then shrinking it up by washing it in the washing machine in hot water. Well, the knitting part was easy and quick and I ended up with a couple of ridiculous looking large booties!

They shrunk up and felted some after one wash but I decided to wash them again - this time, they shrunk some more and were even a bit too small for me, so I had to stretch them.

Then, last weekend, my friend Peggy and I took a little class in making felted ball Christmas ornaments. This taught another technique - needle felting. We had a great time using our barbed needles to attach the dyed wool roving to the styrofoam base. We bought all the stuff to make more. When I got home, I realized I needed to felt a design onto my slippers so I added a simple flower design.

Now I'm cranking out small Christmas ornaments. I love the cozy feeling of the felt and love playing with all the beautiful colors of the wool. I have been trying to get inspired to make Christmas cards this year, but so far, the inspiration hasn't happened, I'm too busy felting!

Museum in the Cotton Fields

2007-11-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

We had a terrific day exploring yesterday. We got up and hit the road and headed for a letterbox near Imperial, Texas, called Horsehead Crossing of the Rio Pecos. It's really in the middle of nowhere - a vast expanse of mesquite trees, pump jacks, and windmills! Anyway, the Horsehead Crossing was an important historic site because this was the only place for many many miles that provided a safe crossing of the Pecos River. It had been used since prehistoric times and was used for many travelers headed west during the westward expansion and the California Gold Rush. Nowadays, the crossing looks pretty tame - the river has been dammed up so much upstream that the river is down to a trickle. But a few hundred years ago, the river ran deeper and was more of an obstacle than today. Not much is left to mark this historic site except for a battered sign at the side of the road marking the turn-off and a vandalized historic marker at the end of the dirt road. It was a peaceful spot and we enjoyed finding El Lobo's box to commemorate it!

After this, we headed on toward San Angelo and got to town in time for lunch. Then my Aunt La Ruth came over and we all headed out to a little town about 30 miles east of San Angelo called Eola. There's a museum out there, in the middle of the cotton fields, that is run by the Barrow Foundation. It's only open on Fridays-Sundays so we needed to get out there yesterday if we wanted to see it on this trip. Well, it was a fascinating spot. It started out as a ranch home to Mr. and Mrs. Barrow and they were avid collectors of all sorts of things. Other people donated collections of more things and their collections grew and grew to fill 3 or 4 outbuildings. There are all sorts of interesting old things to look at there - here's a small part of the arrowhead collection-

There was also this display of objects found in a burial mound in Oklahoma. I have never seen Indian artifacts such as these-

And here's a funky folk art cabin that has been turned into a lamp. The "logs" of the cabin are fossilized crinoid stems!

They had a small collection of stuff from old doctors' and dentists' offices - the old X-ray equipment was pretty frightening! Here's some old wheelchairs on display-

They also had some pendulums that were very cool. The sharp tip of one scratched amazingly intricate patterns in the sand-

And the other had a kitchen funnel filled with sand that was suspended from the ceiling - it dribbled sand and made fantastic patterns too-

I am now dying to go home and make one of these either inside our house or out in the arroyo!

The next building was much smaller and was filled mostly with old organs

including one 3oo+ piece pipe organ.

Another building was full of old cars, farm equipment, and windmills.

It was a really unusual spot and I'm hoping to be able to plant a letterbox there on my next visit!

And if you should find yourself in Eola, check out the Schoolhouse Restaurant there - it's a restaurant and brewery housed in the old schoolhouse. We didn't eat there but it looked interesting. And it's currently on sale on ebay!

To Texas for Turkey Day

2007-11-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

We left Santa Fe yesterday, headed to west Texas for Thanksgiving. But we're doing a bit of exploring along the way and taking a few days to get there. Yesterday, our first stop after lunch was in Alamogordo. We had planned on doing a bit of letterboxing there and going to the space museum. Well, we got to the trailhead for the 2 letterboxes and the rain that we had been driving through off and on picked up. Decided to skip the boxes as we were unprepared for rain and my knees were bothering me. Headed on over to the space museum, where John always enjoys looking at the rockets, satellites, etc.

I had brought a letterbox to plant there, and we managed to quickly hide it right outside the museum in between rain storms.

Headed on to El Paso for the night. We had hoped to go find a letterbox there which had eluded me before but by the time we got there, it was dark and too late to go looking. We wanted to stay on the east side of town so we could get through town this morning without too much traffic to contend with (like there was last night) - the letterbox is at the far west side of town - so we'll just have to go back there for it another time.

This morning we hit the road and headed to Marfa, with a quick stop to hide a letterbox near the Prada art installation near Valentine. Here's John with a giant tumbleweed there!

Got to Marfa in time for lunch. Went to a great spot I'd been to before - the Austin Street Cafe. It's in a renovated, old, high-ceilinged home. It was packed with people and noisy, but we found a side porch that was screened in and we sat there in the sun and had a wonderful lunch. The weather was absolutely perfect. Then we did a quick tour of town - we looked at the army barracks that artist Donald Judd remodelled for an art space from afar (you have to be on a Chinati Foundation tour to actually visit the site). Dropped in the amazing Marfa Bookstore, which is an incredible art bookstore. Then headed on to Alpine, to visit our letterboxing friends Dave and Valerie. We met them at the Holland Hotel, a historic old hotel in the center of town which houses a restaurant and brewery.

It was a really great atmosphere and we had a great time catching up with them. We talked about coming back some time and going on to Big Bend, the McDonald Observatory, spending more time in Marfa and Alpine.... This really is a neat little part of Texas that deserves further exploring! There was an art walk going on outside but we didn't stay for it, it was getting dark and we wanted to get on to Ft. Stockton for the night. Ft. Stockton so far seems dreary - no life on historic Main St. after dark, nothing but chain restaurants, a 45 minute wait for our dinner.... it seems to just be a pit stop on I-10. So different from Alpine and Marfa. Tomorrow we head for San Angelo!

Gusty Winds May Exist

2007-10-28T16:42:00.000-06:00

That’s a sign we saw frequently on our drive down to Truth or Consequences this weekend. I always like this sign because, as our friend Joe pointed out once, it seems more like a line of philosophical inquiry than a road sign. Gusty winds may exist. Then again, they may not.

It was a quick trip but a great, relaxing get-away. Last time we visited Mike and Dimid in T or C, it was Fiesta weekend there and there was a whole variety of Fiesta activities to keep us busy. This time we opted for a weekend where nothing was going on, just so we could wind down and hang out with our friends. The weather was lovely – cool in the morning but shorts weather by afternoon – yeah! (It got down to 11 degrees in Santa Fe a week or so ago and shorts weather here is definitely over for me.) Anyway, it was a mellow weekend with good sleeping, good eating, great company, some good bird watching (saw a blue heron and a kingfisher), and a few good soaks (Mike and Dimid own an old hot springs motel and have access to 104-degree hot springs water by just turning on the tap – so we all jump into their outdoor stock tank and turn on the faucet and soak as long as we want). And we finally made it to their friends’ farm. The farm is located about 45 minutes from T or C and seems to be in the middle of the desert – but it’s in a lovely little unexpected valley. There is a warm springs up the valley that has been used for hundreds of years and is considered to be the birthplace of the Apache tribes. This warm springs has created a bit of an oasis in the middle of the desert. There is an old town near there called Monticello – a traditional adobe town with a small Mexican plaza in the center of town. It’s quite lovely – houses have been restored and it looks like a beautiful place to live, except for the fact that it’s in the middle of nowhere!

A few miles past Monticello is the farm. They had a pile of squashes outside

And another lovely pile inside the farmhouse.

They grow a special type of traditional corn (here it is hanging from the ceiling, drying)-

And they were drying tomatoes outside on screens.

Mike and Dimid are also restoring this old building at the farm. The farm was part of a commune back in the 1970s and this building was known as The Birthing Room. The roof has fallen in and the building needs some work, but when it's done, Mike and Dimid will have a nice little cozy retreat at the farm, with the sound of cottonwoods rustling in the breeze and water flowing by in the acequia - lovely!

On the way home today, we stopped by the new El Camino Real Heritage Center, one of New Mexico's newest state monuments. It was interesting - a huge museum out in the middle of nowhere basically (close to I-25 but that's about it). It was all about the history of the Royal Road from Mexico to New Mexico. The road served as a major trade route and an aid to the settlement of New Mexico by Spaniards from Mexico. The exhibits were interesting but they were mainly text and photos - not many artifacts - the whole place seemed a bit weird. Everyone who worked there told us to tell our friends about it (since the place is usually deserted) so I'm telling you now!

Happy trails!

A Bit of Northern New Mexico Color

2007-10-13T20:35:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was John's day off but he ended up working most of the day - his air compressor at work needed repair and he started working on it, only to find out, as he had half expected, that he needed some fittings that were not to be found in Santa Fe. So we made a run to Albuquerque to get parts in the afternoon and then headed directly back to Santa Fe. John is going to have to work on the compressor again tomorrow so it can be up and running for the work week, but we decided to take a day off and get out of town today. We wanted to see some of the leaves changing color and go for a drive.

First, we headed up to Espanola. Espanola can be so pretty - a traditional rural community with lots of giant cottonwoods. We explored a few neighborhoods and hit a few garage sales - I found a cigar box from Havana for 50¢ and the nice woman who sold it to me educated us about elderberry trees and showed hers to us.

Then we proceeded up to Embudo where Johnny Meier has a yardful of gas station and automotive memorabilia. We hadn't stopped there in about 10 years but we always enjoy driving by and seeing his latest additions.

Well, we decided to stop today and boy has he added a lot since our last visit. He has built a little "museum" that houses some of his collection. It's an amazing collection - signs, old oil cans, gasoline pumps, toys - and we could have stayed there all day.

I got into taking pictures of the patina and layers of paint on a lot of the objects outside-

We left there and were wondering where we were going to eat on our route to Mora, we were getting really hungry. Then I remembered a place I'd always heard about - Sugar Nymphs in Penasco. So we decided to drive another half hour or so and eat there. It was in an interesting old adobe building. Connecting to the side of the restaurant was the old El Puente Theater - an old theater from the 1940s, complete with a traditional New Mexican ceiling with vigas. It is now in use again, and was set up today for an acrobatic performance by Wise Fool (based here in Santa Fe). In the corner sits the old film movie projector.

We were having a great time exploring so far. Lunch at Sugar Nymphs turned out to be delicious comfort food (I had a terrific Shepherd's pie and John had a Moroccan tagine-inspired Zuni Stew made from local vegetables) but the service was just lousy. Everyone who came in after us got served their meals first and when we finally asked if our food was coming soon, the waitress didn't seem to have realized that there was a problem. Another 5 minutes revealed that our order slip had fallen on the floor and had been lost and another 5 minutes brought us our meal. So a mixed review on the Sugar Nymphs!!

Back on the road, we saw some lovely fall color near the pass in to the Mora Valley.

We stopped in Mora and saw the Cleveland Roller Mill - an old flour mill, now a museum, but it was closed for the season.

Then on to Salman Ranch Raspberry Farm - the picking fields were closed since they already had a hard frost (too bad, I really love picking - and eating!! raspberries) but we stopped in the store and checked out the La Cueva Mill next door.

Our last stop was Las Vegas. We needed snacks and John needed coffee so we went to Charlie's Spic and Span Bakery and got our fill of pastries - yum! That cherry twist I've got is the size of a small baguette!!

And then we went to a thrift store next door to see if they had anything of interest. Didn't buy anything but if you ever need the bottom half of a mannequin, the Las Vegas Salvation Army is the place to go - they've got a whole bin full of them - !?!?!!

Ghoulish Fun

2007-10-06T21:09:00.000-06:00

Today was our big SPOOKtacular letterboxing event and we had a great time. The weather cooperated - it was cold in the morning but we had a big fire in the fireplace - and then it was nice in the afternoon. About 20 people showed up, which seemed to be a great size, everyone got to talk to everyone else and get to know each other. Mark gives a great description of the day in his blog, so I'm going to mainly post some pictures from the day.

Azobox and artistamp came from Kalamazoo, Michigan

Elros, La Paloma, and y nought came down from Durango - drove in yesterday and had to get back home tonight so it was a quick trip for them - for a while, they were our closest letterboxing "neighbors" so it was great to finally meet them!

Front Range Hiker from Golden, CO, and Lisa from the Twinville Trekkers in Albuquerque (who we also had been wanting to meet forever)

Preboxed (Denver) who wriggled her way out of work on Friday just to come - and Rubberpeace

Rbrhorno and AZJokester (Tucson)

Warm Front and Cold Front (aka Mr. and Mrs. Front!!!) drove all the way from Alpine, TX

And our friend Chris (with lionsmane on L) made his formal letterboxing debut today!

And here we are, the happy event hosts!

Thanks again to everyone involved for a most excellent day!!

A Fall SPOOKtacular

2007-10-03T08:03:00.000-06:00

Well, our letterboxing event is just about here. The letterboxes that were planted especially for the event are in place, and Mark and Peggy and I went out yesterday to double check on all the hiding places and clues and to stamp the images in our logbooks. It was a lovely, sunny fall day in the mountains - what could be more fun than spending the afternoon letterboxing with friends?! We even mostly knew before-hand what each other's stamps looked like and I still had a blast. Saturday is going to be great, I can't wait to see everyone. And I'm saving Mark's 2 new boxes in town for a treat for myself for after the event!

And just wanted to note that the following 2 boxes are also alive and well-

Vincent's Postcard Box (by dobroguy)

Santa Fe Trail Microbox (by Silver Eagle)

As Mark said in his blog, everyone needs to dress in layers, it may be really cold up there in the morning (it's a shady spot then). We're going to have a big fire going in the fireplace of the shelter so that should help. And... the aspens are changing so I really encourage everyone to at least plan on driving up the road to the Ski Area the day of the event because it'll be a lovely drive. (And, yes, there are boxes on the way!). Hyde State Park, where the event will be, is half way up the road to the Ski Basin.

Anyway, we are all excited and looking forward to the Big Day. Even though the event is Halloween themed, I don't think any of us are planning on being in costume, but feel free to come as you like (Y, I know you like to get dressed up, I'm hoping you'll take that giddy schoolgirl feeling and run with it)!

See you 'boxers soon!

A Spooky Do

2007-09-15T14:48:00.000-06:00

Hi, everybody. Some of you know that next month, on October 6 to be exact, we Santa Fe letterboxers are hosting our second letterboxing event! We are ironing out the final details, but so far everything is going well. We're all excited - there are some people coming who we have met before, as well as a few people we have always wanted to meet. Letterboxers are coming from Colorado, Texas, Arizona, and even Michigan - about 30 people have signed up so far. It's got a Halloween theme and we're having a great deal of fun with it. The event will be held in Hyde State Park, on the road up to the Santa Fe Ski Basin, so it may be a bit chilly in the morning. And I'm betting the aspens will still have some color then, so those of you who are coming will get a treat of some beautiful fall color. We'll have 10 or so letterboxes made especially for the event, and then we're hoping to lure some people into going to some of our other boxes nearby along Hyde Park Rd. Some are drive-bys and some are on a bit longer of a hike - there should be something for everyone.

Mark gave an update on some of the local boxes on his blog - here's info on a few more:

The Beav - alive and well

Box #4 of artTrekker's Clay Menagerie series - MISSING

Get Your Kicks - this box is not available at this time, it is being moved from Santa Fe to Albuquerque (sorry it's taking so long)

La Paloma - alive and well

Santa Fe Southern - alive and well

Aspen Vista - alive and well

What else have we been doing besides letterboxing?! Well, we have been having a lot of fun with our nephews with some home-made spud guns (we use the locally growing, readily available gourds as ammo)-

And this weekend we went to the State Fair one day with Mark - had to see the bunnies and the pygmy goats, ride a few rides, see a high wire show, and eat some pie.... And we went on a picnic to our fave annual picnic spot (had to get that in before summer was over)!

Have a great Indian summer and see you letterboxers soon!

Golden Event

2007-08-27T09:21:00.000-06:00

We got home from Colorado around 8:00 last night and I was totally exhausted. We unpacked and headed for bed. It had been a really fun day though. After we checked out of the hotel, we headed over to the remaining two boxes in Genesee Park with Mark. One was on a Braille trail through the woods, near an underground spring, and the other was the Esmerelda box I wrote about the other day – and it did not disappoint. After finding these two, we already felt like we had had a terrific day of boxing and it was only 10:00 - time for the event to start - so we drove on over. Saw some buffalo on the way, there are protected corridors in this park just for the buffalo herds.

The gathering was a blast. We were only able to stay for 2 hours before we needed to hit the road but that was just enough time to meet everyone there and exchange stamps. When I first started letterboxing, I certainly did not forsee that it would be a social thing. I saw it as an extension of my interest in hiking, exploring, travel, and bookbinding and saw it as a very solitary activity. Little did I know that fellow letterboxers would become dear friends and that I would really get into meeting other letterboxers – either traveling through Santa Fe or at an event. I’ve gotten to meet some really interesting, terrific people from around the country through this hobby. So it was great to meet some more yesterday – people whose stamps I had seen before in logbooks in southern Colorado and people in the Rocky Mountain Letterboxing online yahoo group. There were some newbies there too, hopefully they will be encouraged to continue with the sport!

Anyway, thanks SO MUCH to preboxed, allemeyn, and Front Range Hiker for putting together this event, they did a tremendous amount of work and we had so much fun. I just wish we had had time to go find some of the boxes hidden for the event. And thanks to all the Colorado boxers for a terrific weekend – fun clues, beautiful locations, great stamps (and not a store bought stamp to be found! Woo hoo!). We will definitely be back!!

Boxing Before the Big Event

2007-08-25T21:08:00.000-06:00

Today was a fun day of boxing and exploring in the Golden area. Got up and had a quick breakfast at the hotel and just as we were about to leave, Mark walked up and sat down next to us. I didn't even know they were staying at our hotel so that was a fun surprise. We planned our day - Mark and Thomas were here a few months ago and did some letterboxing so we had some boxes on our agenda that they had already done. So we each went our separate ways this morning. John and I decided to go up Lookout Mountain which overlooks town - a great view and a few great boxes. One was the first box in the Lariat Loop series - a series of 14 boxes planted along a scenic and historic driving route. And the second was a box by Esmerelda of Buffalo Bill Cody - it was an amazing stamp with a beautiful logbook - a great find. It was hidden near the gravesite of Buffalo Bill on the top of the mountain.

Made a quick stop on the way down the mountain for a third letterbox, where we found a little drainage ditch in the shade which was full of hail! It had to be at least a few days old. Ooooh, fall must be in the air!

Had a quick lunch in town and then met Mark and Thomas at Genesee Park. We wanted to find a few boxes that were already planted there as well as scope out where the event would be tomorrow. Found 4 boxes there, one of which had a view of the house that was used years ago in the Woody Allen movie "Sleeper." Pretty cool!

We actually drove around and tried to get a closer view of the house but no luck, oh well.

Back to Golden for a stop at Heritage Square, a combination of little shops and some amusement park rides. There were two boxes there and after some snacks, we found the first one, which was near the Alpine Slide. The Slide was a luge-style chute that went downhill. You rode down the chute on a little sled on wheels. To get to the top of the hill, you rode a small ski lift. So we decided to all go do it and it was fun! We all wished we'd gone down the hill a little faster though... Here's Mark before he blasted down the hill!

We all headed to town for dinner and made plans for our short final day tomorrow. We'll hit a few more boxes in the morning before the event (including one by Esmerelda which she says is a favorite stamp so I can't wait to see that one!) and then we'll be at the event for a couple of hours before we have to head for home. It's been a great weekend and it's not over yet!! ;-)

A Golden Road Trip

2007-08-24T08:08:00.000-06:00

The Great Wuga Wuga and I left Santa Fe yesterday afternoon, headed to Golden, CO for a letterboxing event. Road trip time...woo hoo! John managed to take off early from work so we hit the road at 3:30. Headed over to Las Vegas, NM to find Warm Front's Alien Landing Pad? letterbox, which is based on a supposed compound in the desert near Las Vegas where Scientologists have stashed all the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. So that the site can be easily visible in the future to UFO travellers (who will be reincarnated Scientologists supposedly), they have carved out giant circles in the desert floor, only visible from above. Wild story and a great idea for a letterbox! I had never heard the Scientology story before. Anyway, it's near a great spot, the Armand Hammer United World College, also known as "The Castle." This building was originally a Harvey House Hotel (sound familiar? I went to one in Winslow.)

Back on I-25, we stopped an hour or so later at a rest stop to find Storm Crow's Eagle Tail Mountain box. Lovely mountain and a nice stop. Then we continued driving all the way to Colorado Springs with just a quick stop for dinner.

Got up this morning and headed over to Morrison, a little town southwest of Denver, to find It's a Small, Small World and Onion II letterboxes. To get there, we took a scenic winding mountain road that was lovely and a fun drive in the Mini!

Found both boxes and then headed on to Golden. Preboxed has a box called The Colorado Railway Adventure and it mentioned going to a railroad museum so we drove by there and John had to go check it out. So I dropped him off and proceeded a few blocks away to the trailhead for the letterbox. It wasn't too far away but was a teeny bit of an uphill hike and was more uphill than I've done all summer with my sore knees. But it felt so good to be outside in the fresh air and my knees are slowly getting better so I decided to go for it, hoping I don't regret it tomorrow. John had a great time looking at trains. Here are some little railroad maintenance kind of cars, wish we had these in Lamy to ride the tracks to the Lamy waterfall with the nephews!

So I picked up John after that and we went into town for coffee and tea and peach crisp and coffee cake and ibuprofen! When we were done, John went over to the Visitor Center down the street for maps and local info and I went next door to the coffee shop and did some shopping. When he got back, we studied the map and realized we were only a block away from another letterbox so we headed over and found it along the river.

Then we checked into our hotel and went for a swim and just laid in the sun for a bit and relaxed. Then off to dinner at Chad's Grill, where John had the BEST macs and cheese we have ever eaten (with sun-dried tomatoes, asparagus, cream, and smoked gouda....oh my... it was too excellent). Tomorrow we're going to hit some letterboxes on the top of nearby Lookout Mountain (where Buffalo Bill is buried), Genessee Park (where the letterboxing event will be on Sunday), and Heritage Square (a local shopping and entertainment area where we are hoping to find 2 letterboxes and go for a round of mini golf). And we're hoping to persuade Mark and Thomas, who are also in town for the event, to join us for some of this!

Hasta manana!

Letterboxing Mission and Beyond

2007-08-19T22:24:00.000-06:00

Well our short trip to San Francisco is over already – but it was great fun while it lasted!

Yesterday we started off by going to find a few letterboxes in the Mission district of San Francisco. There were two I wanted to find: Dia de los Muertos and Cabinet of Curiosities: Ammonitida. But yesterday I happened to do a quick scan of San Francisco letterboxes online before leaving the hotel and found that another Cabinet of Curiosities box (Nudibranch) had just been listed the day before! I had a teeny bit of research to do (all of these boxes are in stores and you have to ask for them but you have to do a bit of research to find out the name of the stores). The new box said it was in a pirate store and I immediately knew where it was – there is a pirate store in the Mission district that is run by a contemporary author. All proceeds go to funding writing programs for youth. It has been seen as a model program and has received a lot of community support. Anyway, I’m telling you more than the clues do but you’ll still have to figure it out if you go!

So we headed to the Mission area by bus to find the three boxes. The first was at a nature-type store (insect identification guides, gardening supplies, etc.) which also featured taxidermied animals, some in bizarre outfits! The stamp was wonderful – of an ammonite – a fossil we have found a few of in New Mexico (think chambered nautilus in appearance). Great fun.

Then on to the pirate store. We were there when the doors opened and were the first people to find the box – woo hoo! It was another great stamp, of another sea creature, the nudibranch. Then on to the Dia de los Muertos box, which was at a Mexican folk art store. The clues had given me enough info that I knew what the stamp image would be – it’s of a famous folk art image of a skeleton woman with a hat on. I wanted to see the stamp since I had just carved this same image on a stamp! Well, it was a fantastic stamp and probably the largest stamp I’ve ever found. So – a great morning of letterboxing, all courtesy of Paul in SF. Thanks, Paul!

Then we hopped onto BART and went across the Bay to Lafayette, where Wiley picked us up and we went to his house. His wife Janice was driving back from a conference in Tahoe and got home a little after we did. We heard about her conference a bit – she works for the US Forest Service and some of the conference focused on the recent fire in the Tahoe area. Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker so we were hoping for a photo of her noshing with Bill for the blog but she didn’t get one this time around….! We also talked about their upcoming trip to France, where they will be boating down a canal – and then the pirate store was mentioned – and then we decided they needed a pirate flag for their boat in France. Turned out Wiley already had one so he pulled it out to take on the trip!

We hung out at the house and had apps outside on their deck and then headed out to dinner. Janice had been on a business trip to Sri Lanka when we were in Thailand so we got to swap stories about Asia. Anyway, it was a fun dinner and great to catch up with Janice. Then it was time to head back across the Bay on BART and get some sleep.

This morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then we packed up to go. We were debating whether to kill a few hours in the city before heading to the airport or go back across the Bay to see Wiley. Wiley volunteered to take me to some letterboxes in the area so back across the Bay we went. He picked us up in Orinda and we went to lisascenic’s Fish Ranch box – another terrific stamp and the view from the hills above Berkeley was fantastic, this picture does not do it justice (it is part of a larger panorama that I am too tired to stitch together just now). It was clear and sunny and you could see all the way out to the Golden Gate – at times – the fog was rolling in and it would appear and then disappear out there in the distant fog. We took a few self timed photos and found out that Wiley has his camera programmed to make samurai sounds when the self timer is about to go off – too funny!

That didn’t take too long so we took the scenic route back down the hills and in to Morada – a beautiful drive, with redwoods along parts of the road. Got to Morada and looked for another lisascenic box at a local park. It took us a while to find where we were supposed to be in the park but we eventually figured it out. Another nice stamp by Lisa. Then on to a quick lunch and then Wiley took us to the airport. All in all a terrific weekend. We’ve got a few days at home now and then we head up to Colorado next weekend for a letterboxing event in Golden – yeah!

Summer in San Francisco

2007-08-17T23:52:00.000-06:00

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” That’s what Mark Twain said and I know it can be true, but the weather here couldn’t be better. Sunny and cool, today was a lovely day!

Started the day at the Asian Art Museum. Went to see an exhibit of the work of Osamu Tezuka, the man who created Astro Boy and who is considered the father of manga (Japanese comics). Astro Boy was my inspiration for my letterboxing trail name, Astro D, so I was really excited that we were in town for this. Hadn’t really thought about it before but learned today that Japanese comics were really innovative in their graphic design – their use of irregular sizes of frames, the fact that their characters often stick out of their frames, and their use of things like extreme close-ups, just like in the movies. American comic strips do not usually employ these techniques. Anyway, we saw a bunch of great pen and ink drawings by a real master. I love pen and ink and his technique was amazing. And then we got to hit the gift shop and buy some Astro Boy goodies. Fun!!

Then we headed over to Japantown for a bit more shopping and to eat some Japanese food for lunch. Then back on the bus to the Columbarium – a fabulous domed building full of niches that are filled with cremation urns for the ashes of many of the city’s more prominent citizens – the Folgers (of coffee fame) and Harvey Milk, to name a few.

There were a couple of letterboxes there. Here’s me stamping in on a bench that is inscribed “Rosebud.” The place was really beautiful and we caught part of a tour so that was interesting. My friend Wiley met us there and got a quick intro to letterboxing!

We hopped back on a bus and headed over to Golden Gate Park to the De Young Museum. It’s in a fantastic new building, completely covered in copper, which will patina over the years.

We wandered around outside a bit through the sculpture area –

Then we went into the Oculus – a kiva sort of room with an opening to the sky cut out at the top – here’s the oculus, a shaft of light, and the door –

The entrance to the museum has an Andy Goldsworthy installation. I love Andy Goldsworthy but this piece seemed a bit over the top. We walked through the entry and Wiley pointed out to us the crack in the rocks in the entryway – the crack continued through the rock benches and on through the rest of the floor. It looked natural enough and then you realized that he had had all those rocks perfectly cracked to make one big long crack. Hmmmm..

And then we went up to the Observation Tower for a wonderful 360 view of the city.

Next we went to see a terrific exhibit of large scale (3 x 4 feet or so in size) black and white photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto. I could go on and on about this show but I won’t – but I really loved it! Stayed at the museum until close to 7 pm - it's open late on Fridays with all sorts of special events going on. We left and had a nice relaxing Thai dinner with Wiley, then back to the hotel, and now it’s off to bed for me. Another day of adventure tomorrow!

Beisbol is Berry Berry Good

2007-07-23T08:14:00.000-06:00

A bunch of us (Charlie, Melissa, Mark, Michael, and Toni) went to an Albuquerque Isotopes game on Saturday night to celebrate our friend Charlie's birthday.

Albuquerque was playing the New Orleans Zephyrs - I wasn't sure who I was going to root for, but in the end, I wanted the 'topes to win! It was a pretty slow game, nothing thrilling, until the 8th inning, when the Isotopes came from behind and scored 8 runs! and beat the Zephyrs 8-5. Woo hoo!

We drank beer and ate hot dogs and tried to figure out what theme songs we would have them play if we were up to bat (they do that for the players now). We had a variety of songs picked out, everything from the Flight of the Valkyries to David Byrne to Aretha Franklin. We were sad that our favorite baseball player seems to no longer be with the Isotopes. His name was Mike Colangelo and every time he would get up to bat, we loved hearing the announcer shout out, "Mike Colangelo!!" which sounded just like, "Michaelangelo!!" (I am not making this up!) We saw on the giant TV screen that the mascot for the Zephyrs was something that looked like - could it be?? - a giant rat, which in Louisiana, happen to be nutria. Didn't seem like a likely candidate for a mascot so I looked it up online and sure enough, their mascot is a nutria named Boudreaux!! Laissez les bon temps roulez!

Arizona Slide Show

2007-07-18T09:12:00.000-06:00

Mark has put together a slide show of our weekend from all of our pictures. Enjoy!

Phoenix to Santa Fe

2007-07-17T09:37:00.000-06:00

Well, we made it back home 2 days ago and I'm just getting around to writing about our trip back. Yesterday was spent going to the knee doc (I've got an official diagnosis of tendonitis) and catching up at work and trying in vain to get my laptop to communicate with the Internet, it is acting weird since I got home. Time to go visit our trusty computer guy today I guess.

We left Phoenix on Sunday morning and headed north to Flagstaff. We had mapped out easy-to-get-to letterboxes all along our route home. Most were by AZroadie and artTrekker and they always have lovely carvings so we were excited about finding their boxes. The AZroadie ones were all out in deserty areas along I-17 but the hikes were short, thank goodness, since it was already getting hot, and we saw some lovely scenery. Here's a shot near the box at Red Tank Draw, where there was a lot of redrock and many cacti.

Then on to Flagstaff for the artTrekker boxes. The first was fun (on a train car that is on display) but the second seemed to be missing. We looked and looked and looked. It was all the more aggravating because someone else had found it a few weeks ago. So we looked again but still no box. Finally we had to give up but we were really disappointed. So we hit the road and went on to our next major stop at Winslow. There's a box in a little train park there so we got that and then went over to a statue that has been placed in honor of the Eagles song, "Take it Easy," where they sing about standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. They have really capitalized on that song. Anyway, there was a neat mural on the corner so we took some pics and got some postcards and then headed over to a hotel next to the train park.

The hotel is a Harvey House hotel designed by Mary Colter. She designed many of the Harvey Houses back in the railroad heyday and was largely responsible for developing a "Southwestern style." She also furnished the hotels she designed with beautiful Native American rugs, etc. which really spurred the growth of Indian arts and crafts. Mary Colter designed the El Ortiz Hotel in Lamy, where my sis-in-law lives, although it has long since burned down. The La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe is another Harvey House Hotel (not sure who designed it though) and has the same wonderful old feel as the La Posada in Winslow. Anyway... I had been there before once and it's a wonderful old spot so we went over to check it out briefly before hitting the road again.

We made a few more quick letterbox stops but were ready to be getting home before it got too late. Got back into New Mexico and were greeted by typical New Mexico weather - sunny one minute and rain the next. It was a nice break from the unrelenting Arizona heat. Saw a bit of a rainbow, got to Albuquerque for a quick bite to eat, and then drove the final bit to Santa Fe. It was a fun adventure and really great to get out and do some boxing, it had been way too long. But I feel like I made up for that just a bit! ;-) Now hopefully I can get my knee in better shape with some anti-inflammatories and get back on track for more adventures!

Oh - Mark will be putting a slide show of our trip on his blog soon so I'll give you that link later. But for now, you can always read his version of our trip on his blog at http://aztocranmere.blogspot.com/.

The Big Day

2007-07-14T23:15:00.000-06:00

Well, today was the day of the big letterboxing event in Phoenix, called A Century from Cranmere. Apparently letterboxing itself started in 1854 when someone placed his calling card in a bottle in a remote area in Dartmoor, England, on the banks of Cranmere Pool. He hoped that future visitors would contact him and leave their own calling cards as well. Years later, the sport evolved so that visitors left self-addressed postcards in boxes. The next visitors would then retrieve the postcards and mail them back from their hometown. And 100 years ago, the letterbox as we know it today came into being, with a box containing a logbook and a rubber stamp for visitors to enjoy.

We got to the event at 7:30 am, early enough to escape the worst heat of the day, although it was already over 90 degrees. We picked up our clue book and headed out to Freestone Park, where about one-third of the boxes were hidden. The clues were all listed in random order, not by location, and it all seemed overwhelming at first. But we had been told that the boxes were at 4 locations so I started coding the clues for which boxes were at which location while Mark drove over. By the time he got there, I pretty much had figured out which boxes were at each end of the park. So we headed out and started solving the clues. After awhile, it became apparent that reading clues sometimes just slowed us down, sometimes it was easier to just look around (like at an Easter egg hunt) and look for boxes (that's actually how you have to do it in Dartmoor for your first 100 boxes, you don't get any clues until after you find 100). We got a rhythm going, looking for boxes, getting several, opening them up, stamping in the boxes' logbooks and ours. We were super efficient and fast and soon realized that we were finding boxes way faster than anyone else we saw wandering around the park. At 1:00, after going to 3 of the 4 locations, it was time to stop and head back to meet everyone at the host's house. We got there and figured out that we had found something like 81 boxes, while the next highest count was only something like 37. We were pretty psyched that we had found so many. We hung around and met everyone, exchanged stamps, drank a bunch of cold water and ate some food, then the party broke up around 3:00. Mark and I had talked about going to find the last boxes at the remaining location after the meet was over so we did that. Turns out there were a few boxes that had gone missing (they had had to plant them all awhile before the event so some had been found by non-letterboxers in the meantime) so we didn't find all 100 but at last count, I think we found 90!! Too much fun.

We still hadn't had enough, despite the 107 or so degree heat, so we went off in search of 2 other boxes in the downtown Phoenix area. One was in a nice little outdoor shopping area in downtown Phoenix - lovely landscaping, flowing water, statues - it was a relaxing spot out of the heat and we easily found the box and then decided we needed some ice cream. We ate our ice cream and rested a bit, then headed out to find a box at the library nearby. I thought the box would be outside but it turned out it was inside and the library was closing so we just missed that one, oh well. I can't complain, we found 91 letterboxes today! Sorry I don't have any pics today, I didn't take many and I realized after settling down in bed tonight to do this blog that I left my camera cable in the car so can't download them tonight. Anyway, today was really fun, Mark and I were like 2 kids in a candy store with all those letterboxes everywhere. Tomorrow we head home, stopping for boxes along the way, of course. Another day of adventure!!

Letterboxing Holiday

2007-07-13T23:18:00.000-06:00

My letterboxing friend Mark and I are off on a letterboxing adventure in Arizona right now. There is a letterboxing event to be held in Phoenix tomorrow called A Century from Cranmere, to celebrate 100 years of letterboxing, from its beginnings at Cranmere Pool in England. Tomorrow's event will be an opportunity for letterboxers to meet other letterboxers, as well as an opportunity to find 100 letterboxes made especially for this event! Woo Hoo!! How could we pass that up?!!

We headed out yesterday and made a few stops in New Mexico, including a stop in Pie Town to have some pie and hide a letterbox! Then on into Arizona to Show Low and Pinetop-Lakeside, areas we had never been to. There are quite a few boxes in the area and it was fun to explore. Quite a few were at wetlands or lakes, which were nice to see after driving through a lot of desert.

We had a fun afternoon of letterboxing, had dinner, then drove on down to Globe, AZ. Got in fairly late only to find most of the hotels were booked. Finally found a place, not exactly our first choice, but glad to find it nevertheless. Up this morning for coffee and breakfast then on to more letterboxing. Ended up going for a box in the mountains that was a longer drive than we had planned, but that's ok, letterboxing is about exploring and it was a lovely drive. Too bad I was too busy talking to think about taking any pictures! Anyway, we got the box - it was near a spot that Edward Abbey had once worked in a fire lookout tower. Edward Abbey has always been a personal favorite so it was a fun find and a great stamp, I'm glad we went. Then on to a few other boxes before driving through some more desert and hitting Phoenix, where it was a balmy 106 degrees. We donned our wet neck-ties to keep us cool and set out. Had fun finding a few boxes, and Mark reached his F600, which for you non-boxers, means he found his 600th letterbox! Woo Hoo, congrats Mark! (I haven't found half that many...yet! Maybe by this time tomorrow though....)

Checked into a Hampton Inn which seemed like total luxiourous living after last night. I decided to go for a refreshing dip in the pool before dinner but it turned out the pool temp was about 100 degrees?? I don't know, it felt like swimming in a warm bath so I didn't linger. Had a great little Mexican dinner and then stopped at the Trader Joe's down the street to pick up supplies for the event tomorrow. Now it's off to bed for me, with dreams of letterboxing gluttony tomorrow!

Wandering Close to Home

2007-07-01T12:45:00.000-06:00

Well, we haven't had any big adventures lately. We've been doing some summer projects around the house mostly. And my knee has been giving me problems and hiking only aggravates it so I haven't been hiking or letterboxing. But my mom came for a visit last week and we took some time to do some tourist stuff with her. We took the Santa Fe Southern railway out to Lamy, where John's sister lives. We got to check out the dome car of the old, vintage train - no one was sitting in there because it was as hot as blazes since the A/C didn't hardly work. But the view was lovely!

The train goes from the depot in downtown Santa Fe to the little town of Lamy, 18 miles away, where the Amtrak station is. Our house is near the train route, just off of Nine Mile Road. We learned that Nine Mile Road is half-way along the 18-mile route to Lamy - DOH! So that's why it's called Nine Mile Road! ;-)

We passed by the Flintstone House before pulling into Lamy Station (someone built this so it would blend in with the landscape)-

Had a yummy lunch at the Lamy Station Cafe, which is in a renovated old railroad dining car. Met John's sister out there since she lives in Lamy, then took the train back to town. Fun!

Then this weekend, we finally got to go for a quick camping trip. We headed up the Ski Basin Rd. to the Black Canyon Campground to meet our friends Mike and Dimid, who had already been up there for a few days. The Black Canyon Campground is only a few miles from town but is in the mountains and is a lovely spot, especially since they just renovated the campground. We met up with them, cooked a mostly pre-made meal from Whole Foods, then had berry cobbler and played some cards.

Had a nice sunset.

Went to bed early. Got up and had a very leisurely breakfast, mainly sat around in our camp chairs with our hot drinks and talked. Then we taught Mike and Dimid a card game they didn't know so we played a few hands, then packed up our stuff and were gone by 10 am.

It was a quick trip but really relaxing and good to get away from the house for a bit. Hope you all are having a great summer!

Socorro Surprises

2007-05-19T23:04:00.000-06:00

Well, I have to say that I was wondering if we’d have enough to do in Socorro this weekend. We had been through here many times on the way to Bosque del Apache but it never seemed like Socorro itself was a worthy destination. (In fact, it seemed rather dreary.) But we have been down here with Mark to the climbing area and knew it was lovely, and knew of a few other places that we’d heard about so had decided to come here. Well, it turned out Socorro was full of surprises. We saw all kinds of cool stuff today.

After breakfast at the Manzanares St. Coffeehouse, we decided to take a drive up to the Langmuir Lightning Research Center. It’s up on top of a nearby mountain and was in the clouds all day yesterday so we decided we’d get up there before it clouded up and possibly rained today. Well, it turned out to be a lovely drive into the mountains, with overlooks down into the Rio Grande Valley below. We stopped a lot to take pictures.

Finally got up to where the road ended – at a gate a mile from the research center. Although all the books I had looked at said that you could walk on up the road to the research center, there were all sorts of Keep Out signs – they said some kind of construction was going on up there. So we had to content ourselves with looking through Mark’s image stabilizing binocs. There was an astronomical observatory up there

and then about a mile farther down the ridge was the lightning research center – a strange conglomeration of buildings and a copper-topped glass dome and something that looked like a big ray gun pointing up into space! Thoughts of mad scientists up there, creating Frankensteins…. We had a lot of fun speculating. Finally we turned around and headed back down the mountain, only to discover that a mile or two from where we were, there had just been a hail storm and the ground was white. We couldn’t believe all the hail everywhere. Those mountains really do catch a lot of weather. Too bad we couldn’t get pics of the lightning research place, it was too far away. We want to go back some day. It's only open part of the summer for research, I don't think they allow visitors in the facility. Still, we want to get a better look.

Back to town for lunch at Socorro Springs, the local brew pub, then on to a place I had read about called San Lorenzo Canyon. It turned out to be a lovely spot out in the middle of nowhere and you didn’t have to hike at all, you could drive right through it!

Another fun discovery of a place that we had no idea was there.

Then back to the hotel. We’d been in the car a lot and were kind of tired so we decided to go for a swim at the hotel pool. It was a little on the cool side but felt refreshing. We ended up in the hot tub, which was only barely warm, but which felt pretty good. Then we showered, got dressed, and went to dinner (back to Socorro Springs, as there aren’t many decent places to eat here). We felt like we needed to go for a stroll after dinner so we went over to the New Mexico Tech campus. School must be out, it was deserted, but a lovely place to walk around. Now we are pooped and headed to bed. The skies have been pretty cloudy this whole trip, so we never got to look through the new telescope. Tomorrow we’ll try to go on that scenic drive before we leave town. And then it’s back to Santa Fe! We’ve had a wonderful time just relaxing and exploring with Mark. It always amazes me how much new stuff there is still to discover here in New Mexico.

Watusis and Snakes

2007-05-18T22:49:00.000-06:00

Greetings from Socorro, NM! I started my weekend on Thursday – my friend Peggy and I went to Albuquerque to go letterboxing. We went to a few boxes by lionsmane63 and the 6jumpingbeans. Thanks to everyone for a fun day! We saw some new places and had a great time. And we found some cryptic letterbox logbook entries, our favorite being, “Your watusi has a brick in it.” ?!?!? Not sure what that meant, it actually seemed to be someone’s trail name. Here are our two Minis, enjoying each other’s company for a brief moment before we headed to Albuquerque in Pixel.

Today we headed to Socorro with our friend Mark. We had originally planned to go camping at Heron Lake this weekend but it’s been a bit rainy and cool and so we decided to head south. Mark has a new telescope and he wanted to take it to some dark skies. So we headed down here and decided to stay in a motel. Easy! We got to Socorro, had lunch at our favorite coffee shop, then headed out to the Box Canyon, a climbing area that Mark has frequented. I’m not hiking because of a knee problem, so we explored a bit in the car, and then went to a few of the climbing spots in the canyon. Mark bouldered a bit (climbed a bit without ropes, not too far off the ground), and we wandered a bit, photographed the amazing cactus flowers, and balanced rocks!

At one point, Mark jumped down from a giant boulder, and I immediately heard a bad sound – the sound of a rattlesnake. Turned out to just be a baby – but they are supposed to be just as dangerous as the big ones, if not more so. It was right on the side of the boulder. Mark saw a bunch of rattlesnakes in the Bisti Badlands a few weeks ago, also. I realize that we always hike in the mountains in the summer, never in the desert. Probably a good idea. Hope we don’t see any more tomorrow.

Then we came back to the hotel and changed clothes and headed off to dinner in San Antonio at the famous Owl Café. Indulged in their yummy green chile cheeseburgers and beer. Then we continued over to Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge for sunset, hoping to catch some bird action. The whole area was really wet and flooded – there was evidence all day of a lot of recent rain – and there were tons of mosquitoes out. So we ended up staying in the car mostly but we got out at a few stops to look at redwing blackbirds, a few remaining sandhill cranes, some Canadian geese, and some baby ducklings. Mark also has some new image-stabilizing binoculars, which were terrific for looking at birds. Lovely sunset.

It’s too cloudy tonight for looking through Mark’s telescope so we’re watching Jon Stewart and looking at our “dailies” – the pictures we took today. Tomorrow we’re hoping to scope out another canyon nearby and go on a drive on a scenic byway. Hasta manana!

Space Cadets

2007-05-06T21:25:00.000-06:00

We just spent the weekend in Truth or Consequences, NM – we went there for their annual Fiesta. Our friends Mike and Dimid from Santa Fe have a house down there and we stayed with them; and our friend Lynda from New York City joined us, since she was planning a visit to Santa Fe via T or C. We all had a great time. We picked Lynda up at the airport on Thursday evening and went to eat Texas barbeque at Rudy’s in Albuquerque. Then we drove on to T or C.

On Friday morning we went south of town to buy fresh eggs and goat’s milk from a blind woman who lives south of town. It was amazing to see how she got around and was able to do everything including milking the goats. It was also fun just to ride around and see the countryside - lots of agriculture and chile processing plants.

Back in town, we went to one of our favorite places in T or C – a nursery specializing in exotic cacti. We love to go look at all the cacti and we can’t ever leave without buying a couple of new ones. I just wish we could plant them outside, like they can there. Got back to the house, had a late lunch, met up with another friend who was in town for Fiesta, and we all headed over for a soak in the mineral springs at Mike and Dimid’s apartments (which are at an old hot springs motel). That felt terrific. Then we headed back to the house for a dinner outside on the deck- Mike grilled steaks and vegetables, and we had a salad with lettuce straight from the garden. Delicious. Then we all wandered out back and looked at Mike and Dimid’s garden – it was so lovely – and their cactus, Big Bertha (that’s actually the name of the variety), had started blooming. We had been monitoring the progress of the buds all day. The flowers (7 of them!) were incredible. They only keep their blossoms for a day so we were all lucky to be there when it happened. Here we all are out in the garden: John, Lynda, Mike, me, Cathy, and Dimid.

And here’s Big Bertha!

After dinner we wandered down the street and ran into a bunch of people Mike and Dimid knew. Started talking about our costumes for the parade the next day and we all decided to go back to Mike and Dimid’s and get our outfits ready. So about 5 people brought over their costumes and things other people might want to use for their costumes. We had a great impromptu party and helped each other with our outfits (we had a space theme going). It was really fun to be in a small town where you could walk down the street and run into a lot of your friends. It was a very fun group.

Saturday was the big day of the parade. The parade went right past Mike and Dimid’s place (on Main St.). It was a small town kind of parade – lots of sheriff’s posses, a few floats, a marching band, some stilt walkers, some men on tractors, Shriners in teeny little cars, some guys on Harleys, and Fiesta queens.

However, everything was pretty tame, and we felt like we were those most fabulously dressed bunch of them all, in our space outfits, but we were only bystanders. Next year, we might have to have our own float….!

Note that John's face plate is made from a part of our old Breakfaster toaster!

We had a lunch buffet open house at Mike and Dimid’s after the parade, then wandered down to the park for more Fiesta activities. Saw a bit of the Motorcycle Rodeo on the way over to the park – a bunch of guys on Harleys doing crazy games like having someone on the back of your bike stand and try and bite off a mustard-slathered wiener that is dangling under a stick as you drive under it. No one was successful that we saw, most people just got their faces covered in mustard. Bizarre.

Not much was going on in the park, so we headed off with Lynda for a drive over to the dam at Elephant Butte.

Spent the rest of the day being lazy – and having another hot mineral soak. Just before 10pm, we walked down the street to see an African drumming performance. It was fabulous – 30 or 40 drummers of all skill levels participating, everyone dancing, great fun. When we left there, we walked Lynda back to her hotel and passed by a country western dance that was also a Fiesta event. Poked our heads in there – it was pretty quiet (well, it was getting late by then) but there was a live band and about 7 couples in western gear out on the dance floor. Quite the contrast to the wild drumming and dancing down the street though.

Today we planted a couple of Spaceport-themed letterboxes in town (as T or C is near the proposed site of Spaceport America), and we went back to the park hoping to catch the Fiesta bonnet contest, but we missed it. All in all it was a terrific weekend – Mike and Dimid have got a great group of friends down there and they have all created an artistic, alternative sort of community. Great fun and we’ve already set a date for a return visit in the fall!!

Crawfish Pie

2007-04-09T21:35:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was pretty low key. We drove to Baton Rouge and had a great Easter lunch at my friends Harry and Eugenie’s house. It turned into a lovely day in Baton Rouge and we were anxious to get out and enjoy it so we left their house around 3:30 and did some touring and letterboxing. We drove over to the LSU campus and found a letterbox, then walked around the lake there for a bit. Then we drove over to the State Capitol and walked around the grounds there. Lovely spot but we didn’t find the letterbox there, the clues were vague. Drove back to New Orleans and decided to do a quick drive by my old house. The neighborhood has changed so much since I lived there – much more commercial development nearby. And on my street, one of the houses next door has been demolished and so has the house across the street. But our house is still there!

We headed on down to the Quarter – took the scenic route Uptown along River Road and St. Charles Ave. Headed to dinner at Pere Antoine’s – a casual little spot in the Quarter with great old windows, high ceilings, lots of neat beveled glass mirrors. Ate our last Cajun dinner ;-( of gumbo and crawfish pie. (Had to get in some crawfish before I left!)

Got up today and headed off for a quick breakfast a few blocks away at the Clover Leaf – a little diner-type restaurant that looks like it’s been there forever. Pretty basic breakfast but we loved the ambience. Then we checked out of the hotel and went to find a certain renowned geocache-letterbox combo. The GPS coordinates take you to a building where you are directed to enter the building and ask the folks at the security desk inside to be taken to the box. Someone then escorts you up the elevator, to the top floor of the building, where the box awaits. You go through a door marked “480 Volts” and enter the control area for the building’s heating and ventilation sytems. The letterbox is in this area. And then – you are taken to the roof of this building, where you get a 360 degree view of the river, the city, and the lake. It was fascinating to get the whole city in perspective like that. Excellent letterbox!!

Then we went over to Langenstein’s, a sort of New Orleans version of Kaune’s grocery store. Picked up some frozen boudin to bring home. We had a little bit of extra time so we went over to Audubon Park for a few letterboxes. Then we headed down Magazine St. to see Linda and Peter one last time and have a final plate of wedding leftovers – red beans and rice and shrimp fettucine. And then on to the airport. I’m sitting in the Houston airport now typing this up, and our Continental flight to Albuquerque has been – delayed! At least we’re in the airport and not sitting endlessly on the airplane. Hopefully this will be the last airplane trip for a while – I’m looking forward to some little road trips in the next few months and that’s about it! But then, maybe a trip to California.....

Busy Days!

2007-04-07T22:23:00.000-06:00

Yesterday started out pleasant enough – coffee and beignets at Café du Monde with my friend Janice. We took pictures of ourselves eating donuts and ended up blowing powdered sugar all over the place and making a huge mess. Anyway, we had a great time and I hadn’t eaten beignets in over 10 years I bet.

Then my plan was to head back over to Lafayette Cemetery to check out my friend Mark’s letterbox that was there. Well, I went to get the car and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I had parked on a corner and I kept walking back and forth wondering if I had lost my car. Well, I finally gave up and decided it must have been towed and that the faint yellow line on my corner probably meant No Parking even though it did not say so and there was no sign. So I went back in my hotel and they told me not to worry, getting towed from the French Quarter was something that happens to everyone, everyone knows where the impound lot is. He called me a taxi (the impound lot people weren’t answering the phone, and I was worried they were closed for Good Friday). Anyway, I got over there, they were open, I forked over the fee, and got the car back. Geez.

So then I went over to Lafayette Cemetery only to find it closed. But I found another letterbox there in the vicinity so that was fun. Headed off to the lakefront to meet my friend Liza for lunch. Saw some pretty bad Katrina damage there, this was where the 17th Street canal’s levee broke. Very sad. Here’s a house that had actually floated off its supporting blocks (now exposed in the front) – it looked like a tree in the back yard had stopped the house from being pushed back more from the rush of water.

The sign in front here says “Do not cut tree or demolish house.” The house is still full of possessions and the doors are all wide open. Dirt covers the front porch and you could see the water line on the house – at about 6 feet.

After lunch with my friend, I went and got John from the airport, stopped at my favorite snoball stand again, and went driving through some more damaged areas. Got to the Quarter, got him settled into the hotel, walked around the Quarter, and found a few letterboxes. Then over to Linda and Peter’s house for a pre-wedding dinner of red beans and rice, turkey and sausage gumbo, and jambalaya. We had a great time visiting with Linda’s family (who I grew up with as neighbors) and getting to know Peter’s family.

Today we headed back to the cemetery again but the letterbox we were looking for was unfortunately gone. We looked and looked until we were frozen (it’s freezing here and we didn’t bring really warm clothes). Then we gave up and went back to the hotel to pick up Janice and Wendy. They had not seen the neighborhoods affected by Katrina so we went on a driving tour. Went back to the lakefront, then went through Gentilly, where whole neighborhoods are abandoned.

Then we crossed the Industrial Canal, where the other levee was breached, and ended up at the 9th Ward. Most of the houses here have just been demolished at this point. Whole neighborhoods are mostly gone. Houses here also floated around. Here's one house we found – it was on top of an upside down Cadillac.

And here's another- with HELP written on the roof-

Visiting this neighborhood was all pretty emotional for me.

We stopped at a shack that housed an organization called Common Ground Relief. It’s a very low-key grassroots kind of organization. They collect food, clothes, tools to lend to people; they have a few computers for locals to use; and they help people in gutting or rebuilding their homes. We talked to the folks there for a while. Basically they are providing direct aid to people of the 9th Ward since they aren’t getting it from the government. In fact, strangely enough, the New Orleans Port Authority has purchased land in the area for construction of a port capable of handling three giant cruise ships at a time. Does this somehow seem incongruous with the basic idea of spending some money to help this residential neighborhood get back on its feet first?

Anyway, what we saw today was tremendously powerful. The people there feel like a lot of the country has forgotten about what has happened here. If you want to help out or learn more, check out the website for this relief organization at http://www.commongroundrelief.org/.

Well, after all that, we had a wedding to go to. It was at Linda and Peter’s house, which they have spent the last few years restoring. The wedding was out in the back yard under a tent (BRRRRRR) so after that, we hung out mostly inside! But we had a great time. At one point it was actually sleeting. We were amongst the last to go home but we were ready to get back in the hotel and get cozy – it’s supposed to be in the 30s here tonight.

Happy Easter – I’ll be Easter egg hunting for letterboxes in Baton Rouge tomorrow - after lunch with our friend Harry and his family!

Home Sweet Home

2007-04-05T22:17:00.000-06:00

Well, it's really good to be back in New Orleans. Getting here yesterday was a pain in the neck though. It involved: leaving the Albuquerque airport late, a mad dash through the Houston airport, getting on my connecting flight 3 minutes before they closed the airplane door, then sitting on the runway for two hours. But my luggage and I finally arrived, picked up the rental car and headed to the French Quarter along the scenic route. This meant stopping for a snoball at my favorite snoball stand at Metairie Rd. and Bonabel - Sal's Snoballs. Yum yum. Since I had missed my scheduled hour and a half lunch layover at the Houston airport, it tasted especially good. Like that big old oak tree growing out of my head?!

Drove to town down Metairie Rd., then over to City Park, and then into town - an area that had been flooded in Katrina. At this point, most of the debris has been cleared, but there are still vacant buildings everywhere. Very sad.

On to the Quarter, to the Hotel Villa Convento. My friend Janice and her friend Wendy from Santa Fe happen to be in New Orleans the same weekend as me so we're all staying at the same place in the Quarter. Met up with them and we all headed out in my rental car to Mandina's for dinner: a cup of seafood gumbo, and then trout almondine for dinner. YUM. Then on to a New Orleans classic, Angelo Brocato's, for a cannoli for dessert. Heaven.

This morning - I got up early, saw that Janice and Wendy were sleeping in, so I headed out to do some letterboxing. Didn't have much luck (one box behind a locked gate and another seemed to be missing) but had luck with one over at Congo Square. Nice morning walk around the Quarter. Got back to the hotel, got Janice and Wendy, and headed out to get that previously locked up letterbox, then went to breakfast at Petunia's. Ordered the first thing I saw on the menu - I knew that's what I wanted - eggs, grits, andouille sausage, and boudin - the Cajun Sausage Breakfast. And had to have a taste of Janice's crab dish.

Then on to Lafayette Cemetery for a bit more 'boxing, then on to the West Bank of the Mississippi to see some plantations. I never do tourist stuff when I'm in New Orleans but I guess it's fun showing people who've never been there because I thoroughly enjoyed it. Went to Oak Alley - a classic picture-perfect plantation with 2 rows of live oaks-

Loved the trees and all the GREEN. On to Laura Plantation, then on to Evergreen. Passed a dirt road before we got to Evergreen and Janice and Wendy wanted me to turn around and drive down it. Turned out it was an even longer row of oaks than at Oak Alley - no existing building at the end though.

Then, the dirt road made a sharp left and went over to a parallel row of live oaks. There we found a whole row of unrestored slave quarters. (Turns out there were 22 of them.) No one around, we took lots of pictures from outside the fence. A bird was singing, we had the place to ourselves, it was lovely.

That turned out to be the highlight of our tour - an "undiscovered" spot, although later we saw it mentioned in a plantation tour brochure. Pretty cool though.

Back to the Quarter. Dinner at Irene's - shrimp and linguine, some of Janice's crabmeat au gratin. Then over to Linda's (my friend who is getting married) for a drink. Now I'm back at my little haven in the Quarter. I see that all my pics for this post include oak trees - well, the trees here are pretty fabulous.

And did I mention how much I'm enjoying the food?!

Springtime in New Mexico

2007-04-02T19:53:00.000-06:00

Yep, it's a typical spring here in New Mexico. Snow one day (we got an inch on Friday night) and then lovely weather after that (close to 70 degrees on Sunday). We went on one of our favorite hikes on Sunday with our friends Mark and Chris - to Otowi Peak. We don't go there very often but I had hidden a letterbox there last year and wanted to check on it. Plus, it's a really hot place to hike in the summer so now was the time to go. It was a great day - here we are enjoying the view of the Rio Grande valley (you can't see the river though) and the Jemez Mts.

You get a 360 degree view from the top of the peak so there were also views of the mountains in Taos, Truchas Peaks, the Santa Fe Ski Area, and Black Mesa. The 5.5 miles round trip plus 1100 foot elevation gain wasn't a problem so I guess I'm in better shape than I thought!

Wednesday I leave for New Orleans and John follows me out a few days later. I'm really looking forward to eating lots and lots of yummy seafood, gumbo, and snoballs!! And finding letterboxes!! Next report from the French Quarter-

Red Rocks Country

2007-03-25T23:28:00.000-06:00

Today we spent the day with Mark around Abiquiu, the heart of red rocks country in New Mexico. Started off in Plaza Blanca (aka The White Place), near the Dar Al Islam mosque, just outside of Abiquiu. We had been there before but this time I think we explored it a little more thoroughly. The place is full of interesting greyish-white rock formations. Hiked down an arroyo, then as it narrowed down, we climbed up and out of it for a great view.

Had fun leisurely walking around, taking pictures, picnicing, and rock climbing. Didn't make it back to the car until 2:30 and it seemed a bit late to go do a hike at Ghost Ranch as originally planned. Then I remembered that Mark had told us about a hike off of the road that went into some interesting looking red rocks. So we hurried off to this new spot for more exploring. Parked at a picnic spot, crossed the road, went through a gate and up the arroyo into the red rocks. Seemed very much like Sedona or Canyonlands. Mark knew of a spot where some rocks had sheared off of the face of the cliff and made a cool little "house" so we went there.

Then we detoured down a side canyon that Mark had never been down - it had a terrific view of the lake and Pedernal (the peak in the distance).

Then we continued down the main canyon and up the side of a canyon wall-

to a place where another huge slab of rock had come loose. You could climb up behind it for a great view. That's Mark and John up there although you can barely see John, he sort of blends in!

Then we headed back to the car and back home after a stop at Bode's for snacks.

The rest of the weekend was fun too - several lunches and dinners with friends, trying to catch up with everyone after our trip (which is starting to seem like it was ages ago). And Friday was spent letterboxing and exploring with Mark (lionsmane63) in Albuquerque. There were some new letterboxes down there by some new Albuquerque letterboxers and we were excited to go down there and check them out. We got to go to some new places (Sandia Man Cave and a veterans' memorial) and we had a great time. And the most exciting thing was that I found my 200th letterbox! For a full account of that day, check out Mark's blog!

Thanks to everyone for a great welcome home!

Happy Spring and Happy Anniversary!

2007-03-20T21:09:00.000-06:00

Happy Springtime, everybody, and happy anniversary - to us! We got married on the first day of spring way back in 1982 so that makes this our 25th anniversary! Boy we were young then and boy we are old now! But we're just getting started. We just went out to dinner and were plotting our next adventures - with all of you! ;-)

Island Hopping

2007-03-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we left our spot on the beach and went on a snorkelling tour with a bunch of other tourists. Got picked up at our hotel by a shuttle and dropped off at the pier, where we boarded a ferry boat to Ko Phagnan, another nearby island, home of infamous Full Moon parties. There were a lot of locals and tourists getting off here. Then we headed on to Ko Tao and made another stop. It was fun getting a quick look at other, less inhabited islands. They looked lovely - and quite easy to get to - we wondered if we should have stayed on one of these islands for part of this week? Anyway, we stayed on board and watched a bit of the movie they were playing on DVD inside the boat - a Thai-dubbed version of the latest Ben Stiller movie, Night at the Museum. After the 2 ferry stops, the remaining passengers began the snorkelling part of the tour - we boated up the shore of Ko Tao and then donned our life preservers and got to go for a swim. Lovely water, not as many fish as expected, some nice coral.

Then we got back on the boat and had lunch served. Went to a second spot, a private "diving resort" island. The ferry boat was too big to drop us at the pier here and it was a bit too far for everyone to swim so they shuttled us to shore in a smaller, Thai-style long tail boat. Here's a picture of the boat pilot, operating and steering the motor on the boat (it's an automotive motor there, on a pivot) - with the ferry boat in the background.

Once ashore, we did some more snorkelling and walked around the island a bit on elevated boardwalks. The snorkelling was similar: lots of sea cucumber type things, and some clams or mollusks living in the coral. We never expected to see clams "set" into what looked like slits in the coral but it was pretty cool. One had a scalloped edge with a dark purple hue. When John got near it to point it out to me, it snapped shut. Was it detecting water movement around it or do things like clams have eyes? Anyway, not the tons of fish we had expected but seeing all the fishing boats on the way there might help explain why.

Anway, this was a lovely spot but they had told us to take our snorkels and cameras and towels onto the smaller boat to shore but to leave everything else - plastic of any type was expressly forbidden on the island - so we had left our bags on the ferry. Of course, it was hot and we wanted something to drink and there were lots of cold drinks for sale at the outdoor bar but we had no money since we hadn't been told we might need it. Oh, the trials of island life! ;-)

Anyway, we then proceeded back to the 2 islands we'd stopped at before and our boat resumed its duty as a ferry. Got back to Ko Samui around 5:30. A fun day of exploring.

Today we're back to being slugs on "our" beach. Had some bad music to contend with for a while and some noisy obnoxious people but thankfully neither lasted too long. Right now, John is enjoying his last Thai massage - at our hotel - on the beach, with a view of the ocean - ahhhhh!!!

Tomorrow we leave for Bangkok in the afternoon. A night in Bangkok and then we begin the long journey home! We'll be in LA on Saturday night, exhausted after around 17 hours of travel time. Then Sunday morning we reset our clocks yet again and fly to Albuquerque, which will then be 11 time zones different from Thailand. Ugh!

Also - a lot of you know that my mom has been undergoing various medical tests for the past three months, with various doctors trying to figure out what is going on with her. Well, I got an email from my aunt today who reports good news! She went to the doctor with my mom and the hematologist reports that Mom has:

"Benign Monoclonal Gammapathies most likely from rheumatoid
arthritis. Also known as MUGUS.  Nothing to worry about."

YEAH for Mom!!

Anyway, that's about it for our travel tale. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it and learned a bit about Thailand in the process. As with a lot of things in life, it wasn't at all what we expected! Favorite parts: going to see the Hill Tribes with Dou and going to Luang Prabang. Place I'd most like to go back to: Japan, actually (or Luang Prabang, but that's less likely). Anyway, can't wait to see all our friends and families again - we love you and miss you!!

This Blog is on Holiday

2007-03-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

OK, everyone, not much new to report. Sorry for the lack of excitement, but the big event today was buying some of that fresh roasted corn from the beach vendor. Yummy.

Tomorrow we are actually getting up early and going on a boat tour to some nearby islands for a day of snorkelling and sight seeing. Hopefully next post will be more interesting!

Silly translation of the day, on a sign for services offered at a beach-side massage place: Remove deadskin for feed, 300 baht. I think they meant they'd remove the dead skin from your feet for about $8.

Oh- and that French fry sandwich? John has been giving me grief, I spelled it wrong! It was a Chip BUTTY!!!!

Lazy Days

2007-03-04T02:49:00.000-07:00

We've had a couple of lazy days here in Ko Samui now. Mostly we've sat on the beach on lounge chairs, under a beach umbrealla, with the occasional dip in the cool ocean waters. Gotten a lot of reading done. Yesterday I finished John Berendt's "City of Falling Angels" about Venice - it wasn't exactly the page-turner that his "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" was. Still, it made living in Venice sound like fun. :-) Then today I finished David Sedaris' "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim." And then I started in on last week's "The Economist" (magazine). Not as dreary as it sounds, it's always interesting.

We're on Chaweng Beach here. It's the longest stretch of beach on the island and is the most developed. There's a main strip, which is ugly but has everything you need on it - travel agencies, massage places, tailors that make you silk suits for an amazingly low price, motorcycle rentals, Starbucks, a 7-11, restaurants, laundry service - all geared for pedestrians. There are lots of places, like the Internet place I'm at now, that also advertise travel arrangements, tours, and laundry service as well! One-stop shopping! There are also lots of vendors selling stuff on card tables - the fake Rolex watches, etc. To get to our bungalows, you walk down a little alley headed to the sea. There's a row of bungalows and ours is the closest to the sea!

There are more people here than we'd expected. We had thought that by avoiding Phuket, Thailand's main tourist beach, we'd be getting away from the crowds. Well, we didn't but that's ok. There are a lot of hotels here but they're all low-key, no high rises. And every place is really casual, which I like. Last night we walked barefoot down the beach to find a restaurant for dinner. All the restaurants have a menu etc. posted on the beach as well as out on the road. During the day, most of these places have lounge chairs out. But at night, they pull them in and set out tables, drag electric lights out and hide the cords in the sand, even bring potted plants out for ambience! And it's really pleasant to sit out at the beach and eat - much cooler and breezier than dining along the road where it's hotter. Here's full moon picture from last night.

And people sell everything on the beach. There is a constant parade of vendors but they aren't aggressive at all and leave you alone. Our favorite vendor is a guy who walks with a 5 foot pole balanced on his shoulder. One on end, hanging in front like one side of a set of scales, is a styrofoam cooler filled with cold drinks. On the other end, hanging behind him, is a portable grill and ears of corn. He will stop and roast you an ear of corn right then and there. I think he does a pretty good business. But that whole contraption has to weigh a ton!

Enough about beach life. Off to go have a massage, it's been days!