kahunaburger

I’m beginning to get obsessed with ‘Waldo Canyon’. This area is pretty close to Santa Fe and has received some fame last year when a painting that was stolen from the Georgia O’Keeffe was found there. In the article it mentioned that the person who found the painting was looking for “fossils and spear tips”. That little hint got logged in my brain and I always wanted to go there to explore the area.

Well, I’ve been there several times now and just yesterday I went again. Here’s a small satellite map with some annotations:

I came from I-25 and drove about 10 mins into the canyon. There you’ll hit an arroyo that you can enter to your left. Right at the beginning of the arroyo are some shale hills to your left. You can find areas with fine black “sand” (which is actually broken down shale) and some places where you get huge sheets of shale. Those are sometimes paper thin and you can grab layer after layer from the rocks.
Those shale areas “smell” like fossils. I found some shells and something that looks like a petrified tube sponge. I’m certain that there is more and bigger stuff hidden. It’ll require more visits to find good spots.

Deeper in the arroyo there is a huge shale rock:

Shale rock 40ft high

This thing is about 40ft high and hangs over the arroyo in parts. Here’s a closeup of the shale on this rock:

Shale closeup

What’s interesting about this particular rock are some embedded “things” that stick out like sore thumbs from the uniform material. Those things look like big round blobs and I’m certain that this is pretrified organic material, however I have no clue what it is. It’s certainly not a big shell. Here’s one of them:

Petrified blob inside shale

This thing is about 2ft in diameter and you can see some crystalization in the center which seems to indicate organic material. If anybody knows what I’m looking at, please let me know.

Yesterday I also climbed one of the higher hills next to the arroyo. It was pretty windy and I was afraid that the thunderstorm in the distance would move over the area while I was climbing up there. Guess I was lucky. You get a nice view of the Oritz mountain range from up there:

View towards Oritz mountains

I’m not too sure where public land ends and private land starts. It is possible that I’m not allowed to be there, but then there are no signs and/or fences that stop you.
If you’re planning to go there, please be careful, because I believe it’s not always safe to be in the arroyo. There are lots of places littered with bottles and empty gun shells, which seems to indicate that the area is being used as a shooting range at times:

Recreational stuff

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Can’t stop myself … have to post photos of cute baby … sorry.

This was taken this morning just before Candice and Pia left (Pia going to day-care and Candice to work at the gallery). She seems to like it:

hair decoration

And while we are at it, let’s throw in one that was taken while her mommy was gone for few days. I can’t believe we never put this t-shirt on her before:

Oktoberfest girl

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At times you are happy to hear that there people out there who are as crazy as yourself. People who would enjoy digging through dirt for a few pieces of rock, hoping to find something interesting or … god forbid … even valuable.

Gregg of recent NMHU fame is this other crazy guy. You can also see him on the right hand side in this photo from the Santa Train Ride story:

Santa Train Ride

Gregg and I went on short trip on Sunday to explore two places that he knew about from past excursions. I have to add that I was officially released from baby-sitting duty, because my wife had a few days of partying in Philly for her sisters graduation and I had taken care of the wookie during her absence.

Gregg and I met around 10am and drove up to the Tent Rocks area and then way beyond. I can’t provide details about the locations, otherwise I would have to shoot you. However I can provide a satellite map that shows the two locations we went to (good luck matching them against a real map):

Jasper, Agate locations

I had my GPS with me and marked the two spots where we collected material.

Crazy also, because we seemed to have picked the hottest day of last week to go on this excursion. Hot sun, no clouds and the reflection of heat from rocky grounds generates a nice amount of sweat.
Gregg shows me a location where he had found Agate in the past and after a while we actually manage to find some pieces that look interesting. Once we get too hot we continue our trip up the mountain to the next location.

The second location is a place where he had found Jasper in the past. We do find a few Jasper pieces, but far more Agate in this area. At one point a huge vein of Agate seems to stick out the ground. Very nice!

It’s just way too hot to spend a lot of time in the sun. At 3pm we call it a day and head back down to Santa Fe. I grab this shot of the Tent Rocks from the “back side”:

Tent Rocks from the back

Gregg took all the raw rock material home with him and promised to use his special saw to take the pieces apart. I hope to have an update soon that shows the cut and polished results …

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Long overdue Pia photos collected over the last few weeks. Grandparents all over the world have been waiting for those:

Climbing the crib Trying to climb the side of the crib; soon we’ll need a different bed for her	Playing on the floor in the living room Baby relaxing on the floor in the living room while daddy is watching her (Mommy went to the gym)	Playing on the floor in the living room (same as previous photo)	Working on a Mother’s Day Card Pia and Dada are working on a Mother’s Day Card; more color on babies face than on the card
Taking a ride in the hallway Taking a ride with her baby	Extremely Polarized Dad is playing with the polarizer on the lens while Pia is posing	Destroying daddies rock collection There’s a small collection of rocks on the front terrace; Pia decides to throw them away … sigh	Counting the rocks Counting the rocks at the front of the house

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The location: Santa Fe, NM
The view: Sangre de Cristo mountains from our home
The time: 5:42am

Good morning everybody!

Sunrise 5/18

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Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there. I hope you had as much fun as we had today.

Candice (the mother in this househould) wanted to go on a road-trip to Taos today and we left at about 9am this morning after walking the dogs quickly and straightening up the house (we had an open house this afternoon - I did mention that our house was for sale?).

We took the High Road to Taos because we had enough time and it is a really nice and scenic drive.

Everybody enjoyed the views and the extremely nice weather. At about 10:15am one of the passengers in the car reached the point where she normally would have a nap. For whatever reason this somebody (I don’t want to mention names) decided to turn into a siren instead. We listened to that somebody scream her lungs out, hoping that it would tire her enough to make her fall asleep.
After about 30 minutes my ears had fallen off and we saw some cracks in the car’s windows from the constant exposure to high-pitched, high-volume noises. I think I heard the car making a sigh of relief when we stopped and Candice moved from the front-seat to the back to calm that previously mentioned somebody down.
It worked! The siren stopped and returned to it’s normal babbling state. It was about 11am when we reached Taos and we decided to go to Taos Pueblo before grabbing a bite in town.

Taos Pueblo

Candice was there before and she remembered that the visitor registration accepted cash only. We had exactly 25 US$ cash in our pockets and according to the price list we would have to pay 25 US$ (2 adults at 10 US$ and 1 camera at 5 US$). Turned out that the registration office started to accept credit cards after they had to turn away soo many people who wanted to pay by credit card.

Taos Pueblo

I’m not going to write about the pueblo, because there are tons of web-sites which have done this already, instead I’m going to sprinkle a few photos throughout this entry to give you a glimpse.

After the visit at the pueblo (which should be added to your list of must-see places if you happen to plan a visit to New Mexico) we wanted to go to town, get some lunch and stroll around a bit. But, as expected, the exercise, fresh air and sun turn the former siren into a blob of jello. 5 minutes after hitting the car the siren snores instead of … uhhh … sirening?!?
Great, here we are hungry in the heart of Julia-Roberts-city with a parking place right in the middle of this god-knows-plaza and this baby wants to sleep. For a moment we think about opening the windows a crack, turning up the car stereo and leaving the kid in the car while we go and have lunch. We realize that the public parking lot is not our garage and scratch that idea.

Taos Pueblo

Instead Candice goes for a looksie and returns with two iced coffees a while later (baby still sleeping). After some careful considerations we decide to steer the Jeep back home towards Santa Fe. This time we don’t want to take the High Road. Driving via Las Vegas would take too long, so we just take the fast track via Embudo and Espaniola.

Taos Pueblo

Exactly 45 mins after the eye-lids closed, they fly open again. Every conversation in the car ceases in hope that it would make the owner of the eye-lids fall asleep again. Hope turns to desperation when the passenger on the back seat finds the switch for the siren again.
We have to keep windows closed as we drive past people in rafts on the Rio Grande: Pia’s screams would make them rafts pop like a needle hitting a balloon.

Taos Pueblo

So we are back to where we were a few hours ago. The kid is screaming, the music is blasting and mommy/daddy are quiet. It takes us another 30 minutes before we arrive at Gabriel’s, a restaurant close to Santa Fe. Everybody is happy when we finally leave the car.
It’s early afternoon, but there’s still a 30 minute wait for a table on the patio. This place is packed with Mother’s Day people and there are tons of kids around. A fountain in the middle of the patio area magically attracts all of the babies and toddlers.

Taos Pueblo-

After some great New Mexican food (you’ve got to try their made-by-the-table guacamole!) we head back home to Santa Fe and arrive there at about 4pm.

The kid is exhausted from all the fresh air and the action during the day. No wonder that those eye-lids are shut for the day at 6pm already …

Taos Pueblo

A regular reader of kahunaburger.com may also notice the different naming scheme for the photos in this post. Since last Friday I’m proud owner of a shiny new Canon EOS 1D Mark II. It’s the big brother of my original Canon EOS 1D and I’m very happy with the upgrade. My dad got my older Canon EOS D30 and I needed to have a second body, just in case …

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Every evening it’s the same story: Pia wants to see at least five different books. She scans her favorite pages of each book and moves on to the next one after about a minute. We always end it with an “alphabet” book where there’s a picture of a group of sleeping bugs. Pia loves this drawing and it always seems to make her sleepy as well.

Time for the books

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Well, well - guess who got married today?

My brother Marcus and Elke!!! Congratulations to the two of you!

Today was the official part of the ceremony where they went to the “Standesamt” (civil registry office) and signed all the necessary forms. After a day of rest they will have a party on Friday evening at Mueller’s Lust (if you look on the Events-page, you’ll actually see them listed there for 05/06).

Looking forward to the first time I can post about the arrival of new babies in the Hoellrich-family …

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