FRUGAL FRIDAY

Traveling frugally. We went on a wonderful trip that did not cost us too much money except for transportation because we stayed with and were fed by great friends and relatives both in Chaco Canyon and in and near Albuquerque. I am enjoying the pool with my brother:

Below we were touring a ruin in Chaco Canyon with our host, Joe, who treated us to some exceptional experiences and wonderful food!

Waving good-bye to our friends near Albuquerque after a wonderful visit and a sample of her gourmet cooking:

We went to very few stores where we could buy things on this trip. I did buy a tote bag in the Chaco Canyon book store, plus one book. I also bought a couple of cute handmade gifts in the Cuba, NM Visitor's Center while we were there--helping out the local economy. We also ate at El Bruno's on the recommendation of our friend, Joe--Yum!

Actually, the things I bought in Cuba were nice to put up for Christmas giving but also as ideas for making gifts for Christmas. The first item was a beautiful recipe book made "scrapbook style" with local recipes inserted in the pages.

The second was a cute Indian girl angel Christmas ornament made from a dried yucca blossom pod. Hope Kara and my granddaughters can find some of the dried yucca pods and save them for me. When I come up there I will bring supplies and we can make some of these for Christmas ornaments!

All in all we had a wonderful trip and came home with lovely pictures and, best of all, lasting memories!

MORE NEW MEXICO PICTURES

After we left Chaco Canyon, we drove to our friends' wonderful villa near Santa Fe for a brief (too brief) stay. They fed us well, took us on a hike, showed us their petroglyph, treated us to some rainy weather, and took us to Santa Fe. It was a delightful visit. Here are some pictures. This first picture shows their courtyard in the front of their house. It was just gorgeous with wonderful flowers and roses everywhere.

The next picture shows their backyard as seen from their back porch. Everything there is lovely and green because they have had regular rains for several weeks.

The picture above shows the view from the porch outside our bedroom. And the next picture shows the petroglyph that they discovered in the cliffs just below their house. We had quite a hike down hills to see it.

And then we had to tell them good-bye as they waved at us from the doorway to their front courtyard.

We really hated to leave...

IN NEW MEXICO

My husband and I are having quite an adventure in New Mexico. We are staying with a Forest Ranger friend in Chaco Canyon and have spent the last couple of days exploring Indian ruins in a beautiful setting. Our friend's dinner table looks out directly on Fajada Butte and it changes with the weather and the time of day.This morning we got up and he said we were going on a little 3 1/2 mile hike. I was excited until we reached the place and he showed us the bluff we were going to climb before we began the hike. It was a sheer bluff but he said the trail was not too bad. The sign had an arrow pointing straight up!
We started climbing up a small crack in the bluff and we climbed and we climbed and finally got to the top. The view was wonderful and the descent was MUCH easier--mostly on the seat of my pants!

This afternoon we drove to a ruin that is quite a distance from the other ruins located close by. We went with a group of Sierra Club people who are here doing volunteer work in the park.
The road was little more than a cow path and we dodged afternoon showers and vivid lightning all the way out there. It was a beautiful site with a building that had been built about 900 A.D. It is a stretch of my imagination to think about people living in this vast wilderness that many centuries ago. And their buildings were quite spectacular!On the way back we even saw a herd of elk! And more adventure tomorrow!

AN ADVENTURE

My husband and I are off on an adventure in New Mexico. We will leave civilization behind for a few days. We will have no cell phone access limited computer access, and will be far away from civilization. We will be in one of the places that has the least amount of light pollution of any place in the United States. Tomorrow night we are supposed to participate in a Night Sky program which includes a presentation by an archeoastronomer and then a viewing through a 25 inch telescope!

I am not sure what our accommodations will be like but we will be staying with a forest ranger friend in his quarters. I believe he said something about shared facilities. We are taking food in for the days we will be there as the nearest grocery store is almost 4 hours away. I can hardly wait!!

Pictures and more information will follow the next time I get access to a computer!

LEAVING NEW MEXICO

Tomorrow I will leave New Mexico and return home. I will be sad to leave the mountains and the view of the sky all around. I have taken a large number of pictures with my camera, but none of them accurately capture the vastness of this land.

Today I climbed a large hill near my brother's house and stood there looking out over the valley for as far as my eyes could see. Then I turned around and looked up at the mountain looming large behind me. Today I did not take pictures because I realize that I cannot capture the beauty of these wide open spaces except in my heart.

As I climbed down the hill I found a large river rock shaped like a heart and carried it back with me. I will take that heart-shaped rock home and put it by the pond in my backyard. It will be a reminder of this vast mountain place that is so beautiful, even on a winter afternoon.

SNOW!

When I planned to come to New Mexico I wanted to see some snow. We have very little snow where I live, but I love to see it. The weather has been beautiful the week I have been here, with cool sunny days and cold nights. However, last Friday night it snowed up in the mountains. We saw the clouds hovering low over the mountains when we got up Saturday morning.

About mid-morning my brother loaded us up in his truck and we took off for the mountains. We went to a lovely restaurant for lunch and had to step over a few snow piles to get inside. It was much colder there than in the valley, but it was lovely with snow dusting the cedar trees, the fences, and the ledges of the buildings. I was so excited! It was wonderful!

The other good news is that my sister-in-law, who had a kidney transplant just before Thanksgiving, is feeling better each day! Way to go! See how great she looks at our lunch in the mountains?

And I LOVE the sunsets here! I just run from one window to another looking at the gorgeous colors on the mountains! My brother says I am "sky deprived" because I live in a neighborhood where the trees hide much of the sky. I guess growing up in the Texas Panhandle instilled in me a love of the sky and I miss seeing the sky where I live now.

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

I am a bit lacking in technological skills and it takes me a long time to figure things out by myself. Yesterday I talked about pictures I wanted to consider painting when I return home from New Mexico but could not put the pictures on my blog once I had downloaded them to my picture file on this laptop I am using. I fiddled and fiddled with it last night and finally fell asleep in frustration. Today I decided to try a different procedure and, as you can see, it worked! It may be unconventional and my techie son may groan when I explain what I did, but the bottom line is that IT WORKED!!

The first picture is the view from my bedroom window yesterday at midday. The second is a sunset picture the first day I was here and the third is a sunrise picture the next morning.

The fourth picture is of an arrangement in the kitchen that made me think of painting a still life. The shapes and colors intrigued me.

PICTURES TO PAINT

I have been taking pictures here in New Mexico and have a few that are making me ITCH to get back to my painting! Here are a few that I have taken in the past two days. Sunset--oops! For some reason there seems to be some disconnect between the pictures I saved to my desktop (on this borrowed laptop with which I am vastly unfamiliar), the blog picture loader and my limited technological skills. So--you will just have to use your imagination that I have taken luscious ice cream pink colored clouds over the mountains in the evening, brilliant orange sherbet colored clouds over the mountains this morning and lovely powdered sugar dusted mountains drenched in winter sunlight with lots of filmy white mare's tail clouds overhead this afternoon. It is marvelous to watch the mountains change in the changing sunlight.

And I must be hungry judging from the descriptive words I used about the clouds. I am trying to imagine the paint colors that I will mix to achieve some semblance of those colors.

Meanwhile, my sister-in-law and I went downtown for lunch with my brother. She did very well considering that she just had kidney transplant surgery six weeks ago. I think she was a little frustrated at how quickly she tired, but I was amazed at how well she did!

A TRIP!

This morning I flew to New Mexico to visit my brother and his wife. She had a successful kidney transplant just before Thanksgiving and I decided to come for a visit. She and I will venture out to do some shopping, perhaps join my brother for lunch, maybe visit Santa Fe and whatever else her energy level will allow.

Meanwhile she suggested that I might need a nap. I came upstairs and was delighted to discover that my husband's laptop computer works delightfully well--many, many, many, many, many thanks to Son #1 who talked me through a massive amount of technological "jargoneese" yesterday to install a wireless card so it would work for me here.

I am sitting on the bed looking out on mountains that are bathed in sunshine and look like they have had a dusting of powdered sugar sifted down through the trees. I love the mountains; I love the snow and I really love this sun-bathed corner room that overlooks a whole mountain range!

More from New Mexico later and perhaps even a picture or two. I can hardly wait for one of their spectacular sunsets!