Nearing the end of the road
The drive back to Santa Fe is long and sweaty with minimal breaks - a quick pit stop for a last feed of Texas BBQ and fuel for the trip. The temperature touches 109F, and the Scandinavian designed air-con can only do so much to fight the glaring sun through the windscreen. A long straight road leads out of Archer, meanders through a couple more small towns then hits the interstate back towards New Mexico.
A famous sight marks the way – the old route 66 nose down in the dirt Cadillacs outside Amarillo with tourists like ants all over them. A brief (illegal) stop at the side of the highway and a long lens is a close enough encounter with an 11pm eta in Santa Fe in the frame.
Many more miles of featureless dry plains, occasionally marked by rocky outcrops and miniature table mountains bring the question of volcanoes to mind. Not as far as anyone can recall, but this is very old landscape. Wind to drive anyone crazy. I recall and understand tales of women driven mad on the Canadian prairies in winter. Crossing the state line into a more feature rich landscape is a relief. The sun goes down. Cooler evening air offers another level of comfort. The fall of the wind and rising altitude complete the transformation. Its 75F when the distant orange glow of Albuquerque touches the edge of the sky. Within an hour is Santa Fe and the familiar spot that TandS call home.
It’s been a long day. The bliss of sinking into a bed that’s missing the impersonal feel of a hotel or motel moves closer. Comfortable though our travels have been, there is no place like home – and for me – pretty much anyone friendly’s will do.
A spot of stress mars an otherwise calm arrival. The house has not been lived in, but looked after by passing friends and rellies. While everything looks ok, there is no sign of baby. She’s hard to spot outside in the dark with only a pale, skinny torch beam. The full search and discovery is left til morning, when she turns up in the bedroom, camouflaged by blankets, hungry but otherwise fine, having escaped from her turtle-pen by the fire.
The next few days are for chilling out, reading, writing, listening to newly acquired music, eating healthier (and less) food and taking walks.
Early summer gardens in Santa Fe are attractive to explore, a healthy population of baby salamanders populates the pond - need to look out for snakes there - and various spiky cactus plants wear glorious coloured flowers.
Items I bought on the internet arrive in good time to get packed and carried home. One such prize is yet another pair of really cool boots acquired for $10 on eBay. Postage brought that up to $22. More books – as if I need them – that will be hard to find in NZ shipped here for free.
Stacy and I do yet more shopping – op shops (thrift stores) are fun anywhere. The novelty and quality of what’s on offer here is hard to match. Time for a clear out when I get home!
Home is clear on the horizon now, the prospect both welcome and not - more air miles, more transitions, more of the same but different. Going home is always something of a new beginning and a parking of cases til next time, the time after that and the time after that. There may be more movinglikethesea tales from Wellington, Christchurch, UK and Australia before the year is out. The handbag sized wireless enabled eeePC improves the chances considerably. Dunedin preceded this trip by only a couple of weeks, and theer are a few outstanding from last year - arriving back to London from Ethiopia, Singapore and Scotland in December. So the name really does make sense.
A famous sight marks the way – the old route 66 nose down in the dirt Cadillacs outside Amarillo with tourists like ants all over them. A brief (illegal) stop at the side of the highway and a long lens is a close enough encounter with an 11pm eta in Santa Fe in the frame.
Many more miles of featureless dry plains, occasionally marked by rocky outcrops and miniature table mountains bring the question of volcanoes to mind. Not as far as anyone can recall, but this is very old landscape. Wind to drive anyone crazy. I recall and understand tales of women driven mad on the Canadian prairies in winter. Crossing the state line into a more feature rich landscape is a relief. The sun goes down. Cooler evening air offers another level of comfort. The fall of the wind and rising altitude complete the transformation. Its 75F when the distant orange glow of Albuquerque touches the edge of the sky. Within an hour is Santa Fe and the familiar spot that TandS call home.
It’s been a long day. The bliss of sinking into a bed that’s missing the impersonal feel of a hotel or motel moves closer. Comfortable though our travels have been, there is no place like home – and for me – pretty much anyone friendly’s will do.
A spot of stress mars an otherwise calm arrival. The house has not been lived in, but looked after by passing friends and rellies. While everything looks ok, there is no sign of baby. She’s hard to spot outside in the dark with only a pale, skinny torch beam. The full search and discovery is left til morning, when she turns up in the bedroom, camouflaged by blankets, hungry but otherwise fine, having escaped from her turtle-pen by the fire.
The next few days are for chilling out, reading, writing, listening to newly acquired music, eating healthier (and less) food and taking walks.
Early summer gardens in Santa Fe are attractive to explore, a healthy population of baby salamanders populates the pond - need to look out for snakes there - and various spiky cactus plants wear glorious coloured flowers.
Items I bought on the internet arrive in good time to get packed and carried home. One such prize is yet another pair of really cool boots acquired for $10 on eBay. Postage brought that up to $22. More books – as if I need them – that will be hard to find in NZ shipped here for free.
Stacy and I do yet more shopping – op shops (thrift stores) are fun anywhere. The novelty and quality of what’s on offer here is hard to match. Time for a clear out when I get home!
Home is clear on the horizon now, the prospect both welcome and not - more air miles, more transitions, more of the same but different. Going home is always something of a new beginning and a parking of cases til next time, the time after that and the time after that. There may be more movinglikethesea tales from Wellington, Christchurch, UK and Australia before the year is out. The handbag sized wireless enabled eeePC improves the chances considerably. Dunedin preceded this trip by only a couple of weeks, and theer are a few outstanding from last year - arriving back to London from Ethiopia, Singapore and Scotland in December. So the name really does make sense.
posted by Cathy Gunn at
June 15, 2008
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