It's A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

When Kerri and I were at the spa yesterday afternoon and at dinner last night, it rained on and off, sometimes so hard it was near impossible to see when driving. And when we returned home last night after dinner, the large awning on the curb side of the Airstream (the side where the door is) had been ripped down by the thunderstorms, and one of the struts that supports the awning had been snapped in two. It was almost 9pm when we made this discovery, and it was dark and raining hard. We couldn’t even get in the door, since the awning had fallen in front of it, effectively locking us out in the rain. With some struggling and maneuvering, I was able to get the door open enough for us to squeeze inside out of the rain, but not before my arm had been slapped hard a couple of times by the broken strut, powered by the spring that makes the awning retract (when it hasn’t been broken by a storm).

I slept fitfully last night, occasionally waking and pondering how to get the awning fixed, since it had the potential of being a catch-22: we couldn’t tow the Airstream to a shop to get the awning strut repaired if we couldn’t retract it; and it needed to be repaired so that it would retract properly to be able to be towed.
Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared, when the morning sun shed some light on the situation. With some strategizing, grunting, groaning, straining, moaning, and tugging, we were able to actually get the awning retracted and secured. Now we can proceed at will down the highway again, and we’ll get it fixed when we return to Dallas. We’ll just do without that awning for the duration of the trip, and I’m very relieved we didn’t get a huge damper laid on our trip.

Might you have guessed that there would be duct tape involved in the temporary fix? Holds the world together, is what I hear.

Maybe even the universe.

Day 7: Santa Fe

So we're on day 7 of a planned 21-day trip. First stop was Lubbock, and now we’ve been in Santa Fe for several days. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be here through Sunday morning, make a one-night stop in Flagstaff on the way to Vegas, where we’ll be for four nights, then to the Grand Canyon for a couple of nights, followed by another overnight stop in Flagstaff, then back to Santa Fe / Albuquerque for a couple of nights, then an overnight stop in Amarillo, then back home.

I really like the RV park here, Rancheros de Santa Fe, because we have lots of trees, excellent privacy, and a hiking path circling the park that is an excellent place to walk Sadie. The downside of the park is that their wireless network at our spot is dicey, so I’ve been less disciplined about blogging.

Yesterday we did a tour up at Ghost Ranch, the location in northern New Mexico where Georgia O’Keefe lived and painted for many years. The guide was knowledgeable and passionate about her subject, and did a fine job. The scenery in the area is stunning, a landscape so fascinating that driving safely becomes a challenge, because the vistas are so distracting. The mountains and hills rise up in a variety of shapes, heights, colors, and layers – it’s easy to see why she chose to eventually move from Manhattan and spend most of her life painting in this area.

Our four-legged traveling companion Sadie Mae is boarding for a couple of nights while we spend long days away from the campsite. I decided that she would be more comfortable and cared for in a kennel than spending all day alone in Streamy. The place where she’s staying is constructed such that she has an indoor space, and a door to a small fenced outdoor space where she can go any time she chooses, until they close the dogs in for the night.

Today we are going to Ten Thousand Waves, a spa, where we’ll have a soak in a hot tub, followed by massages. It’s a tough life, but someone has to do it.

Just Lots Of Rain

This morning in Lubbock dawned cool and pleasant, but you wouldn't have guessed that would be the case last night. The pickup had rain drops on it when we exited Caprock Cafe after dinner, and the rain picked up a little as drove back to the RV park. It picked up even more later after we went to bed. In an Airstream, it seems like you can hear every drop that hits the roof, especially when the rain comes down hard while you're lying in bed in the dark.

It made me think of May, 1970, and the tornado that devastated Lubbock that night. My college roomie Gaines Baty and I were getting ready for dates in the dorm room, when we noticed the rain going past the big window on the end of the room was raining sideways. Not down. Not across. This concerned us somewhat, and along with the green sky, made us think we might not have dates after all. Not long after that, there was a warning via the P.A. system to get to the basement quickly, as a tornado was imminent. There weren't many of us huddled there, because school had been out for several days, and we were only there because we had to stay for a Phi Delta Theta initiation. You may have heard that a tornado passing by sounds like a freight train roaring past; that's close to accurate, but I'd say it sounds more like three or four freight trains thundering by simoultaneously. It was beyond loud in that basement, even though the tornado didn't even touch our building. We were very fortunate, because we incurred no injuries, but many in the city were not so lucky; the tornado killed 24, and did millions in damages, blowing away all buildings for many blocks, and heavily damaging numerous others.

But last night, it was just lots of rain. Technology can be so reassuring. We hadn't hooked up the cable to the Airstream last night, so we had no TV. Instead, I just picked up my iPhone, loaded the Weather Channel app, and saw that there were no severe weather warnings of any kind for Lubbock, just rain.

So I went to sleep to the sound of rain on the roof, inhaling the sweet scent of the breeze streaming through the open windows.

Sadie doesn't believe in sleeping in

Our dog Sadie believes in getting up when it gets light. If that's 5:30am, then it's time to rise. If it happens to be 7:15am, that works for her too. Like most dogs, for her clocks are irrelevant. If her friends (us) stayed up late socializing, that's beside the point; when she sees light beginning to show at Streamy's windows, she is going to come to my bedside, to ask me if I too have noticed the light. If I pretend that I didn't hear her toenails clicking the floor as she came down the hall, she will insist that I open my eyes by emitting very high-pitched rapid whines, audible even to someone like me with some hearing loss in the high ranges. So I go ahead and open my eyes, and rub her head, and listen to her tail rhythmically tapping the wall.

At home, often none of this matters, because she sleeps in her crate, and she doesn't get out until I come downstairs in the morning, and release her. But the rules change when we're travelling in Streamy.

Conversely, she believes in going to bed when it gets dark. Never mind if she spent most of the day napping. When it gets dark, it's time to sleep, even if her peeps are still talking, and up and about.

The morning routine at home is simpler, because there is a fenced back yard, so it's as easy as opening the back door to let her out to take care of business. On the road, I have to be dressed, and have my shoes on, since she has to be leashed and walked; she's nowhere near trustworthy enough to just be let out of Streamy to fend for herself. I would rather get dressed and walk her, than to hunt for a lost dog a thousand miles from home.

Most of the time I don't mind when she wakes me up early (except on the mornings after several glasses of wine). Much of the time I would be rising early anyway. It's just that when one is camping, and sleeping with the windows open in 47 degree weather, that down comforter feels really nice in the morning, and it's not easy to crawl out from under it.

Maybe Sadie needs her own down comforter.

In 1610, I'm thinking the tourists probably didn't wear Bermuda shorts

Santa Fe is celebrating its 400th birthday this year. I feel kind of bad that we didn't bring a cake or a present. On the other hand, we will spend some money here at restaurants and such, and in a town that relies heavily on tourism, cash probably is truly the best gift.

It's true that Santa Fe has become commercialized in recent years; we are far from being the only toursits that crowd the sidewalks around the plaza. But I still enjoy visiting here. There is plenty of good art to peruse here, a plethora of excellent restaurants, and the people watching is world class. Plus, the locals aren't intimidated in the least by the swarms of tourists, as evidenced last night by the lowriders cruising the plaza, while high school kids practiced skateboarding while dodging tourists.

Do you ever use Trip Advisor (tripadvisor.com) ? I find it can be helpful to learn about a hotel, restaurant, or other destination one might encounter while travelling; it provides reviews written by travellers. So I was interested when I saw that a new restaurant in Santa Fe had 21 reviews posted, and ALL of them gave the place a full 5 stars! I had never seen a restaurant score 100% before with more than 20 reviews. I was getting hungry just reading the reviews that gushed about how fabulous this place is. So when we showed up at 8pm on a Friday night, why was there only one couple there? Seriously. Just one. And the rest of the place was completely empty. This was puzzling, and somewhat shocking. Normally during tourist season you have to fight your way into a good restaurant on a weekend night. The weather was perfect to dine alfresco, but they didn't have any outside dining, and it was a bit warm inside, so we opted to move on to another place down the street that had a nice patio. I'm still scratching my head over how a place can get such great reviews, and be empty on a weekend night. Maybe the proprieter has lots of friends that wrote the reviews.

My favorite meal in Albuquerque was at El Patio

It's an unassuming place, just an old house on Harvard, but the food was excellent, as was the service. Very casual, with reasonable prices. We were there for a late lunch on a Thursday so it wasn't crowded. I had the chicken and green chile enchiladas, and Kerri had the chile relleno. Both were really good, and they bring you sopapillas and honey for dessert as part of your meal, at no extra charge, and the sopapillas are a work of art, puffed and delicious.

I have a couple of favorite restaurants in Santa Fe (is it obvious that I think about food a lot?), but now there is a place I've never been that I want to try: Santa Luna. Real Mexican food, not Tex-Mex, not New Mexican food, but more like something you might get in Mexico City. Or so they say. Now we have to decide between first going to Santa Luna, or first returning to old favs like Tia Sophia's, The Shed, or Cafe Pascuals. Decisions, decisions.