NEW MEXICO FRIENDS AND FAMILY

April 28-29, 2006

After a good night’s sleep we had breakfast in our room and went to Wal-Mart to buy a cooler with a drain and wheels, then off to the famous Winslow corner.  We stopped for a few photos and then moved on down the road.  I called my brother, Dave, and sister-in-law, Cathy, to tell her we thought we would be arriving in Los Alamos around 3pm.

It was a long drive through barren, rocky landscape and Don and I switched off driving every hour or so.  We stopped at the Petrified Forest National Park and became so enthralled by the logs turned to stone that we lost three hours roaming around the park.  Oops, called Cathy to let her know we would be late—7pm now. 

We stopped for gas in Gallup ($2.85) and realized we had moved into a different time zone.  Oh!  Cathy, we are so sorry, we are going to be even later now.  On we drove, through Gallup, Grants, Albuquerque and finally made it to Dave’s house at 8 pm.

Since the big fire a few years ago, when many houses in Dave’s neighborhood were destroyed, the Los Alamos housing area has changed dramatically.  Now there are many new, large, deluxe homes and I would estimate that half or more of the homes have been rebuilt. 

Dave and Cathy welcomed us and whipped up a delicious dinner of Salmon, rice and salad.  Brownies and ice cream for dessert.  Yum.  It was fun to chat and catch up on all of the happenings with Dave’s family, Mia and her husband, Pete, Carrie and Matt, retirement plans, reorgs at work, etc.

I got on the computer to check the bank balance and emails and follow up with a few business things, and then we turned in for the night.

In the morning Cathy and Dave made us wonderful light Swedish pancakes for breakfast.  We had a great visit with Matt, who had been to see United 93 with some buddies the previous night.  He told us all about the movie, his military enlistment and assignment to Missouri for basic training, and high school graduation.  He is very tall now; a grown up man with a deep voice.  Where did that cute little boy go?!

Off we went to try to catch up on our schedule.  A quick stop in Santa Fe for some gifts at one of the many Santa Fe shops, flowers and wine at Trader Joe’s, and then we rushed south to Placitas to visit with Joan Jander, in whose home we stayed for Mia’s wedding a few years ago.

Joan had a wonderful lunch of Chicken Chili for us and showed us her photo album and told us about her recent trip to Tunisia, Syria, Aman, Jordan and Damascus.  Wow!  The main objective of the trip was to see the solar eclipse, which was awesome.  She got to visit some amazing places and was quite daring to go to these Arab countries.  She said she was well-received everywhere and her group only had a bit of trouble when they were crossing into Syria because the tour operative from Syria was supposed to meet them with their visas, but he was late.

Joan, a widow for several years, has a new man in her life.  He was in Albuquerque working on his condo, but came up to Placitas and we got to meet him.  He is very interesting to talk to and familiar with the Bay Area.  We could hardly tear ourselves away, but we had to head off to our next rendezvous.