kahunaburger

It was damned hot when we went on a short road trip yesterday. We took the two poopers for a short walk in the morning and made sure that they were tired out when we left at about 10:00am to drive towards Villanueva. Our first stop was just off highway 25 in Ribera at the “Sad Cafe” (see also http://www.elvalle.com/sadcafe.html).
We got a quick lunch fix before we continued on to Villanueva further south. Mesas left and right of the road and lots of abandoned Adobe houses. We were constantly wondering what people who live there in the middle of nowhere were doing and why everybody seems to own a trailer home. Questions which will remain unanswered.
The dogs went for a pee at the Villanueva State Park (which also happens to be a camp ground) and daddy took a picture of the swallow nests hugging the rocks on the side of the road:

Swallow nests

Short after Villanueva we decided to turn around, because the area looked bland and uneventful for the longest time. Back on highway 25 we turned in North-Eastern direction towards Las Vegas. Candice got her well-deserved afternoon nick-session in the car (“The sun is making me sooo sleepy …”). Once in Las Vegas we circled the “historic old town”, which looked like a morgue early this afternoon at about 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
It became obvious that we were not too thrilled to leave the car and explore the town further. So, back on 25 we turned towards Santa Fe again.

I was on this stretch of highway before and saw several buildings on the side of the road which looked interesting. This was the reason why we decided to take the old Route 66 running parallel to the highway.
Soon we saw a group of abandoned houses right next to a church only a few miles from Las Vegas. We stopped and looked a bit around:

Lonely House with a view

Typical New Mexico

Continuing alongside highway 25 we soon ended up in the Pecos National Historic Park and stopped at the Pecos Pueblo and Mission ruins to take the dogs for another walk. 6 dollars later we were on the trail around the ruins with our two puppies trying to get used to the leashes again. Gawd - those dogs really need to learn to walk properly on a leash without strangling themselves …

View from the hole

Candice and the dogs viewed from the bottom of the pit

Pecos Mission Church Ruins

Pecos Mission Church ruins

After spending about an hour and a half at the ruins we were back at the visitor center where Max decided to throw up whatever he had eaten earlier. Luckily it was not inside the building and not in the car - good dog!

On the way home we treated ourselves to Frappucino and Vanilla Cream at Starbucks.

Dogs were dead on arrival back home - mission accomplished …

Comments(0)

It’s Bill’s 40th birthday today … Amber, his wife, decided to throw a little surprise party at the Manitou Galleries. It was a lot of fun and a hell of a lot of food. Thanks again Amber (and Bill), if you ever read this …

Bills surprise birthday party

Mara, Candice, Bill, Kathrine and Eilan

Comments(0)

Saturday 2/23/2003 - 7:30am:

First Response

Comments(1)

I’m sitting here in my office and look outside the window. Yes, I’m supposed to work, but it can wait for a while.

It’s 7pm and the sun is setting in the distance - it almost looks like another one of those truly amazing sunsets is happening: It takes over an hour for the sun to set and we can see all shades of yellow-orange-blue in the sky during the sunset.

While we were driving today, Candice reminded me that we are pretty close to our move anniversary. On March 7th last year we packed the car:

Ready to go

On March 8th early in the morning we left Cupertino with the new car. We had to stop quite often for reasons only Candice knows about …

Potty break

… and saw places in California that we had not seen before …

Somewhere in CA

… we spent close to 24 hrs to get our sorry cadavers from the West Coast to our new home and arrived early in the morning on March 9th (three days from now). The house and the area looked quite different then:

Finally ‘home’

The biggest difference was probably in the climate. While it’s still nice and cold right now with some chance of rains/snow in the next few days, it was terribly hot last year without a single cloud in the sky and the first reports of wild fires.

And before you ask: Did we regret the move? Not a single moment! If we had the chance, we would do it all over again!

Comments(0)

On Saturday we took the two poopers up on the mountain to go for a short hike. It was the first time for Max to spend more time in the snow and it looked like he really enjoyed it (except for the last twenty mins where his short feet dragging his belly in the snow made him a bit too cold) .

Max enjoying his first real snow

We drove up towards the ski basin and took one of the many hikes about half way up the mountain. Initially we did not see anybody (although there were other cars in the parking lot), but then about 45 mins into the walk we met a few other people, who already came down from the mountain (and we thought we were early).

At the turning point

 

On the way down

It was a very nice way to spend the Saturday morning and the dogs enjoyed it the most obviously. So they did not mind that we left them in the car afterwards to run some errands in the city.

Frisco ruining the family picture

Comments(0)