Italia

This year's major adventure will be a month in Italy! Jake has been there on business before, but has only seen a couple cities up north. In preparation for this trip we enrolled in Conversational Italian at Chesapeake Community College. This class has covered more grammar than conversation, but at least the teacher is a chef who has worked in Italy and is rapturous every time he describes foods. We did watch a great Italian movie in class last week, "Johnny Stechinno" (Johnny Toothpick). I'm learning more convesation by listening to Pimsleur's Italian CD's. So far I can say I would like to eat or drink somthing and at what time I would like to go shopping. Also, "where is the museum?".

So far our itinerary will be one day in Rome, train to Venice, 3 days in Venice, train to Florence, rent a car to get to our apartment in Castellina di Chianti for 12 days. After that, who knows! Next post will be after we arrive, September 14.

Final Post

We have been back from Maryland for five days now and this will be the farewell post. Our Santa Fe furniture arrived yesterday. We've been living in Oxford and going up to Denton every day to clean the house, unpack, garden and fix things that have inevitably come apart during our year away. We'll move up there at the end of the week, but may be back in Oxford for a couple weeks if we get some further house renovation done. We are looking forward to seeing all our friends here, getting settled into our home and new routine, and working on postponed projects. We already miss Santa Fe though and will still strive to find a way to live in several places at once! We hope to post future travel adventures here, but it will probably be awhile. Thanks for reading and keep in touch!

XC West to East

The furniture movers arrived promptly Friday morning and by 1 pm we were loaded up and on the road back east. Friday night we camped at Palo Duro Canyon State Park just south of Amarillo. Known as the “Grand Canyon” of Texas, it really was beautiful. We camped at the bottom of the canyon in one of several camp grounds. Colored canyon walls rose on either side and the bottom was intersected by small arroyos with lots of signs warning about flash floods.

Saturday we sped across Oklahoma’s back roads and into western Arkansas. In Oklahoma we stopped for a picnic lunch at Ft. Cobb Wildlife Management area. There is a large lake there surrounded by forests and homes. A friendly bulldog accompanied us on a walk on the red dirt roads that follow the lake shore. In Arkansas, the rivers were in flood stage and the first park we stopped at hoping to camp near Alma, AR, was closed. So we went to a nearby KOA instead. KOAs are always neat and clean with great restrooms. This one had lots of odd looking ducks that came around looking for handouts (see photo of nesting duck). We went out for dinner, and got very average Italian food. Unfortunately the Catfish Hole had a long line. It rained that night, but we were warm and dry in our tent.

It stayed cloudy as we kept mainly to Rt. 40 through AR. We decided to visit Graceland since we were going to pass right by it. The ticket pavilion is across a 4 lane street from the house and they ferry people over on small buses. You get an audio tour with your admission. The house looks like a modest southern mansion from the front, but is fairly small really. On the tour you visit the first floor, the finished basement and the outbuildings. The décor is extreme 70s. Green shag carpeting in the “living room”, called the Jungle room because of the color and heavy carved wood furniture (see photo). A mirrored rec room in the basement and another room covered in pleated boldly patterned fabric on the walls and ceiling. Other buildings contained Elvis’ dad’s office and an enormous trophy collection. From that collection you see the overwhelming influence Elvis must have had on the musical world.

Keeping with our musical theme, we made our way to Nashville, home of country music! We found a hotel near downtown and made our way over to the bars and restaurants in “The District”. After strolling around a few blocks, we had dinner at Ichiban, a very good Japanese restaurant. We were desperate for some good food and this was very satisfying. Afterwards we picked out a bar with a band. At most of the bars, the bands are visible and audible through a glass window facing the street. So you can walk along and choose where you want to go based on what music appeals. We ended up at the “Second Fiddle” and got a beer at the bar. The band was quite good and played a wide range of classic and contemporary covers. One band member’s fiancée was there with her sister, and the sister also sang a few LeAnn Rimes songs quite well.

The next day we drove to Knoxville where my high school friend Mary now lives. She took us to a good local chain restaurant for lunch and then we went for a short walk at a local waterfront park. Knoxville seems to be surrounded by rivers and lakes. Apparently boating is a big thing to do there. Fortified with goodies she’d made, we continued on to Abingdon, VA to visit my friend Quinn. Quinn is an artist, actress, and “cat wrangler” for a cat rescue organization. She and her current two cats greeted us (or at least one cat did, we never did see the other one). We went for a walk around the incredibly cute town of Abingdon. It would be a great place for a long weekend of theatre and hiking. Quinn fixed us a salad made with locally collected branch lettuce and pasta with homemade pesto.

Finally, on Tuesday we drove from Abingdon to Oxford, MD! We did detour off the interstate for a while and stopped for lunch in Sperryville, VA at a café in an old renovated church building. Arriving in Oxford around 4:30, we were warmly welcomed by my mom and dad and by Calla! Calla seemed to forgive me for having left her for a year, although I’m sure it wasn’t hard for her given all the attention she got while I was gone!

Battle of Glorieta Pass

Texans march through New Mexico Territory attempting to claim the southwest for the Confederacy. Union troops from Colorado engage them in battle between Santa Fe and Albuquerque enlisting a few poorly trained New Mexican soldiers. The Battle at Glorieta Pass proves a turning point in the war in the southwest as Union troops defeat the Confederate soldiers by burning their supply wagons forcing them to return to Texas.

Or something like that. This weekend there was a re-enactment of the battle held at Rancho Las Golondrinas, a living history museum near Santa Fe. The New Mexicans were represented by about 5 guys dressed in Mexican peasant garb (see photo of one captured by Confederate soldiers). They spoke Spanish and broken English during the skirmishes. The Union soldiers outnumbered the Confederate soldiers and were much more organized, but then the Confederate soldiers were the ones with the horses. Apparently neither army was particularly popular among the native New Mexicans during the Civil War. As an easterner, I never knew there were Civil War battles this far west. One person said it was because the Confederacy wanted the gold recently discovered in Colorado.

Las Golondrinas was quite impressive. There are historic buildings of several eras including 2 working water mills for grain and a simple molasses mill. People were on hand to demonstrate various crafts such as weaving, iron work, and bread baking in adobe ovens. They were quite entertaining with good analogies or contrasts with present day technology. The woman in the kitchen described grinding corn on a stone as "the aerobic upper body workout" for the women of the era. An acequia runs through the property watering small fields and an orchard. Sheep and goats are kept at the farm and probably other animals during the summer. The landscape is quite varied with small ponds, dry hills and enormous cottonwood trees.

On the way home we stopped to check out the "World Series of Trailer Roping". It turned out to be a team calf roping contest. We think the winner gets a horse trailer. It was a very local event with no stands for spectators, you just hang out by the rail or sit on the back of your pickup truck. It is not easy to rope a calf over the horns and back legs. Most teams failed but a few managed the impressive feat of coordination. There were some women in the competition so it wasn't completely a male dominated activity. The small food booth's menu was in Spanish mostly, but the announcer spoke in English.

Wild Rivers

After a week of intensive house projects (house painting, weeding, building a new deck) we decided go camping on Friday afternoon. We drove up to the Wild Rivers recreation area in the Taos Gorge. On the way up we stopped for lunch at the Taoseno Diner for carne adovada, tacos and sopapillas.

Jake had done trail construction at Wild Rivers for a couple weeks many years ago, but the grounds are more developed now than they were then. There are several camping areas and each site has a sheltered picnic table on a cement slab and a fire ring. We selected a site among three at the Big Arsenic campground. All the sites overlook the gorge and are surrounded by wind-twisted cedars and pinyons. After setting our tent up and throwing heavy items into it to keep it from blowing away, we went to the La Junta trail where Jake had worked before. This trail leads down the side of a steep hill (see photo taken from bottom) to a peninsula between the Red River and the Rio Grande. There weren't many wildflowers in bloom yet, but I did see clumps of Townsendia exscapa, the Townsend aster, and pasqueflower (see photos). Leaves were just coming out on roses and willows.

The trip reminded us that New Mexico is every bit as stunning as Argentina!

And on the way home Saturday morning we stopped at Michael's for a breakfast burrito and breakfast enchiladas!

Chiles

Ahh, back in the land of spicy food! We've gone out to lunch the last two days while running errands around town. Yesterday we went to Bumble Bee's Baja Grill which came highly recommended for its burritos. I had a burrito filled with grilled fish, green peppers, and guacamole. Jake got a steak burrito with green chile sauce. They also have a great salsa bar where you can help yourself to homemade chips and red and green salsas of several types. They also have jazz groups play on Friday nights apparently.

Today we went to Castro's, a place that looks like a dive from the outside but is quite pleasant inside. Jake first discovered it while waiting for a car repair one day. I had the mixed enchilada plate with green chili and Jake had a burrito filled with roast beef covered in red and green chili. Main courses come with rice, beans and sopapillas. We usually save our sopapilla to have with honey for dessert, but they are meant to be eaten with your meal to cool off the spice. For $7 a plate it rivaled lunch prices in Argentina!

It has been snowing all day today although it only started sticking to the roads in the late afternoon. This is a far cry from Tuesday's weather when I went out to a garden near Espanola to help divide perennials for the Santa Fe Botanic Garden's fall plant sale (see photo of house and garage garden). Over the years this couple has developed a wonderful garden and orchard irrigated by waters from the Rio Grande.

At home, we decided to get rid of the old hot tub in the back yard and replace it with a small flagstone patio. Jake advertised it for $1 on Craig's list and got 12 responses in the first half hour. The first guy who came to look at it agreed to take it as well as to disassemble and remove all the wood holding it up. It turned out to be harder than he anticipated, but the hot tub is now gone and the decking is half torn off. Under the decking we discovered 6" square cement footings that are who knows how deep. We will see if it's possible to dig them out, but if not we may have to incorporate them into the patio somehow.

Welcome Home?

It is great to be home in Santa Fe, but we woke up to fine this! Not exactly what we expected on April 12th, but still . . . !