Santa Fe, NM

October 20, 2010

It has been quite a week! Watching the Rangers has commanded a large amount of our time, with good results! Yeah, they lost tonight, but we have high hopes for Friday. They have already done better than any previous year, so we're good!

After the game tonight we heard the weather forecast for this evening; Tijeras is in for hail tonight. Why is this important? We left this small town just east of Albuquerque yesterday. When we selected this destination, Passport America was all we knew, half price-yeah! Tijeras has more to offer, however. It is just off the Turquoise Trail, the back road to Santa Fe and the back of Sandia Peak. It seems that these mountains were once about 30,000 ft elevation with a large sea on the east side. These events created the mineral deposits so rich in this area: gold, silver, coal, and even turquoise. We also found an amazing pizza in Tijeras at the Trail Rider. We met Jerome at the Hidden Valley RV Park. Jerome is a retired veteran, along with many other interesting careers. His current occupation is to keep an outstanding library at the park. he is an excellent tour guide, and has all materials ready for you to take off and enjoy.

Another feature of Hidden Valley; no Internet! Again! This has become a real issue that we have tried to remedy. We have been with AT&T for years, but comparing their coverage to Verizon prompted more research and the decision to change carriers. Suddenly all the of Russell's efforts fell into place. We are getting much better reception for tethering to the computer, we can both connect through tethering a single phone, and the plan is much better to boot! The antenna that Russell installed really helps to support the network beautifully. So we have spent quite a bit of time getting to know our new Palm Pre phones, online tutorials and a lot of practice.

We are staying at The Trailer Ranch in Santa Fe for at least a week. The weather has been wonderful, sunny mild days, cool nights. Many trees are some shade of golden and just beautiful. We have gotten to the grocery store, the tire store -thank you Discount Tire for finding that nail-and the mall. All good places. If the weather clears tomorrow we will make our way to Old Town for the less mundane sights. We were here decades ago and look forward to revisiting the adobe buildings that are 400 years old.

For right now, we have rain and a chill to the air at 10:30, so it is time to sleep.