We set out on Thursday morning from Roanoke in the Toaureg at about 8:00 AM. We found out pretty quickly that our gas mileage was nowhere near what we thought it was when we took our maiden voyage to Ashville with our new camper (the Casita we bought from the amazing 93 year old Frank Cash from Floyd in the fall of 2011). We’re getting close to 13 mpg which amounts to about 320 miles to a 24 gallon tank. So now we’re considering selling the Toaureg. We have to see what the 4 Runner gets.
We did make it to Little Rock arriving at 8:15 in the evening in the dark at a little RV park called Burns where we had a salad and sandwiches at the picnic table, all piled in the camper, and promptly fell asleep, Aidan stubbornly taking the floor. We got up at 6:00 AM, showered, and drove into the river district in Little Rock for breakfast at the Ottenheimer River Market. Ushi had a BLT w/egg that was really delicious.
We hit the road again by 8:00 to face another long 800 mile day. Driving, driving, driving through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, where we stopped at a rest stop overlooking the prairie, read ever so briefly some plaques describing the dust bowl, and insulted a family whose son would be going to college at liberty by Ushi saying “That’s nice. See ya,” in our rush to get into New Mexico. An earnest "Was I rude?" was met with "Mom, I can't believe you did that!
We finally watched a glorious swirly purple-red sunset with an almost full moon behind us as we closed in on Santa Fe at 9:00 in the dark listening to Neon by Chris Young and Ooh Lala covered by the Counting Crows. The kids slept in the back of the Toaureg and we collapsed in the trailer at about 11:00.
The next day started early and we made it into town around 10:00 where we shopped and looked in galleries and ended up buying some bracelets from the native American artists in the square. Devi had to take hers back because it made the skin on her wrist break out. There is so much great art here. We met a very interesting African from an area north of Ghana who travels back and forth to sell his canvas art (mostly landscapes of migrations and the (sky making love to the earth). We almost bought a small one for Devin's room but we ended up not.
I came close to buying a retouched photograph of some western settlers. The old black and white really came alive with just a few added spots of color (an ax in a log, a wash pan, some patches of leaves in some aspens, the guy on the horse given a red beard). There's so much good stuff it's hard to control the urge to buy, Ushi found a lamp that she must “have before we leave” at a gallery called Sequioa. We had a fabulous lunch at Tia Sophia’s (really tasty sopapillis and everything else Mexican cooked just right). The waiter was very friendly and a little bit too full of energy.
We made it back to the campsite after stopping at Trader Joes for some groceries at about 4:00 and the girls went out to make a run for some supplies at Target. Then we set up my 25 year old pup tent for the kids and had a nice dinner of ravioli and salad (always salad, but we love it), and sat looking on the internet for trails in Bandelier.
Now I’m getting ready for bed typing this, just like I did four years ago, with the full moon shining brilliantly down on the campground and our tacky, multi-colored lights gently adding a soft glow to our tiny little awning-covered patch of it, a very happy ending to the day after summer solstice.
Two, thirteen hour days of straight driving. We are truly nuts, but the climate is so nice. The air is dry, the sun is strong, the nights are chill and the air is clean. Now, it’s time for brushing teeth and going to bed. Tomorrow should be a good hiking day. I’ll try to post some pics in the morning.
We took the shuttle and got off at the first stop which is called Frey trial where we hiked through scrub and then down a zig-zaggy path cut out of the side of the gorgeous tan and chalky sides of the canyon.
The material there is volcanic sediment that settled after the caldera exploded millions of years ago and it's peppered with little holes that the native Americans eventually enlarged to make their cliff-dwellings. We had a nice picnic lunch in the shade of some beautiful trees. These are part of the strip of green that colors the otherwise brown and scraggly landscape naturally irrigated by the creek that runs alongside the base of the cliffs and supplied the natives with sustenance. The cliff dwellings were interesting in that there were only a few of these with respect to the other mud and wood constructed housing closer to the creek. The people living in the hill must have been the hoity-toities of the village.
We left Bandelier, to drive about 15 miles through the canyon hills to Los Alamos. This is an interesting drive with lots of research posts lining the route. The town is really strangely configured, not surprising considering it's laid out by the same people who coined the terms SNAFU and FUBAR. One has to wonder at what must have been Oppenheimer's "WTF have we done?" moment" after Trinity, not so much because of the bomb's frightful power, but because he knew into whose hands it was placed.
We visited a museum that used to be the Boys Ranch but became a club house during the Manhattan Project, where everyone got to learn and see memorabilia from that strange and stressed time. We came away feeling a little tired emotionally as well as physically.
We had dinner at a rooftop restaurant in Santa Fe just down the street from the one we really wanted to go to (Cafe Pasquael's), but had some really good New Mexican tacos and a couple of Margaritas (well I did anyway, Ursula stuck to beer).
The next day we drove up to Taos to revisit the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. The scheduling is always a little contentious but we worked it out and went there first and then visited an eco-friendly housing community where we witnessed quite a few dust devils dancing across the scrub like real-life ghosts of the tasmanian devil from the road-runner.
We headed into Taos from there and walked around the plaza and Ushi found a painting she really liked. The kids got some other cool things: Aidan bought some gifts and Devin found a real page from one of the encyclopedias of Didero.
Our timing was off when we went to eat at the predetermined Orlando's (New Mexican cuisine again) because they didn't open until five and we were half an hour early. Aidan and I wanted to improvise and eat at the Taos Outback Pizza place, but Ursula and Devin wanted to stick with Orlandos. We decided to split up to stop the bickering (paradise our vacations, while fun, are not) and everyone was satisfied. After a little more shopping around the plaza purchasing a couple of hippy sticks and chocolate, we headed back to Santa Fe to try to catch what we'd hoped would be another beautiful sunset. We didn't get to see one because of cloud cover, but we also didn't lose Devin's sunglasses (inside joke).
Tomorrow Ursula and the kids want to visit some hot springs, while I stay back at the campsite and soak up a little bit of quiet and not running around time.
