As soon as you start driving into America's Outback, the vegetation gets scrubbier and scrubbier and after the sign for K-Bob's Steakhouse,you see less and less advertising signs -- because there's nothing to advertise. Just miles and miles and miles of....miles. It's just you and the tumbleweeds, watching a dust storm and a sudden rainstorm duke it out before passing on, and another time shift that gives you an extra hour to watch the sun play across the desolate landscape, with so much open space in front of you that you can see the shadows of the clouds on the ground.
Finally, you start to see the pueblo houses dot here and there, on streets with names like "Maddog Drive" and you pass a few roadhouse restaurants, and you're in Santa Fe.
Our campground is one of the most peaceful I've ever been in, but it also has the advantage of contrasting with the previous night in Amarillo, where the trains, planes, and automobiles -- not to mention a thunderstorm with 40 mph winds -- kept up a steady cacaphony all night long. There's not a peep out of civilization up here in Santa Fe, just gnarled, stunted, shredded-bark trees and dry air all around and huge billowy clouds pulled up over your head. It's gorgeous out here. We grilled bratwurst outside when we arrived and ate them on our faux-blue-gingham-plastic-tablecloth-covered picnic table,
clamped down 21st century style with those flexible clips from the camping section at Target, and it actually felt like camping. Albeit with all the comforts of home at our elbow -- including home :)
Butter, our little blond hamster, is slowing down, becoming less and less active, and less and less interested in his favorite things -- a Ritz cracker, which used to send him into paroxyms of delight and instant destruction, now sits half-nibbled next to him, and a square of plain tissue, which used to be greeted as if it was flannel bedding arrived from LLBean, sits unshredded and unmolested next to his sleeping fluffball of a body. You can still see a tiny heartbeat -- he favors "Doing the Pear" almost exclusively, shape-wise as he sleeps, to "Doing the Croissant" as if he's trying to conserve all his body heat and energy. I keep wanting to stroke his soft little forehead and let him know we want him to be OK but it is also OK for him to leave if it's his time, but I am afraid to disturb him. I look in on him from time to time and wish we could start over and pick him out again at PetSmart and bring him home. He has been such a great little dude :(
Meanwhile, in Keighley's crayon world, life consists of bunnies having a tea party underneath a rainbow.
We're at 7090 feet here in Santa Fe, and you can really tell -- the thin air just makes you want to sit around and stare blankly into space.
Went to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum in Santa Fe (very cool) and met up with my niece Sarah who is working as a camp counselor in the Canyon. Went to a steak restaurant called The Bull Ring, although I couldn't remember the name of it once we were in town because I'd left the magazine ad that had caught my eye back in the truck. So we walked around looking for the Bullfrog? The Bullpen? The Bullcrap? The Bullsh**? until we found it. Worth it though. Better steak than the Outback, and our waiter looked like Dennis Quaid.
On to the Petrified Forest in Arizona today, where we will try to find out why it's so skeered :)
