Bandelier cliff dwellings. Roswell. Los Alamos. Georgia O'Keefe. Santa Fe. Taos. Every day brings new impressions, history lessons, museums, scenic vistas and always more miles. Also every day I'm learning new things, I'm very interested, and then retain maybe 2%. It's all grist for the mill.
I had a sad, nostalgic first night in Santa Fe. I was remembering our young family; Julian was two and Sharon was just pregnant with Eva. We had planned to go skiing in Switzerland, but I insisted on a safer vacation. Sharon said, “We've seen a lot of both coasts, let's go to the middle!” The memories were swirling as I sat in the Plaza. There, I was playing my new Native flute and Julian lifted the end up and Sharon got the picture. Getting our food to go at restaurants even while dining in so we could make a fast exit if Julian had a meltdown. Julian learning to say, "Hot Chili!" Taking a horseback ride (no liability wavers out there) and my horse jumped over a gully while I held on to Julian for dear life, and months afterwards he'd look serious and say, “Horse jump!” Going to Ojo Caliente Hot Springs and poor Sharon being told not to go in most of them because of her condition. Julian just wanting to throw rocks, all the time. People passing me by just saw someone relaxing on a bench. So much is different thirty four years later.
I was also still feeling queasy from passing the Trinity Site, seeing replicas of Little Boy and Fat Man at the science museum in Los Alamos, watching the videos describing the great innovations (with inspirational music) for our National Security, and then This Day in History.com reminds me; Truman is briefed on the Manhattan Project 4/25/45 and 4/26/86 was the Chernobyl disaster. Plus, I'm reading The Overstory by Richard Powers, which describes the clear-cutting of the precious old growth forest of the Pacific Northwest, and I've seen firsthand the wide swaths of devastation myself. Add to that the current news, and you get the idea. But emotions are like tumbleweeds, they go hither and yon and don't stay in one place for long.
My spirits were lifted by joining up with Lee and Tim, who came out to help their son Jonah get a garden started at his new house. We strolled Santa Fe, and we met again at Ojo Caliente. It looked the same!
I still journal every morning before looking at my phone, and reached the end of my third pen. Wrote a little ode:
I passed Echo Canyon and had to test it out:
Next I head to southern Colorado and into Utah for the month of May.