Big Sky On The Fourth Of July

Day Thirteen: Santa Fe NM to Pegosa Springs CO

It is with a heavy hearts that we pack our things and leave our little spot in A&A's courtyard today. Not only has Santa Fe been wonderful, and tent camping in the middle of the city an inexpensive treat, we really dig Alix and Anderson and we'll be sorry not to see them every morning. Marshall folks, don't worry, I did my very best to twist her arm to come back to Marshall (I have a black belt in arm twisting, so it should only be a matter of time).

They gave us a great send off at a local breakfast place called The Tune-Up. Definitely hit this place if you're in Santa Fe. We had a beautiful plate of pupusas with steak and green chile and a side of bright pink pickled cabbage salad, and also an order of their bananas fried in butter with crema. The best thing was their watermelon juice over ice.

After reluctant good-byes, The Pirate and I head north on 84. It takes us about an hour and a half of highway driving to reach the most astounding ride of our trip so far. Just past Espanola, the road forks and 84 narrows down to 2 lanes. The forest fires to the west are raging and filling the sky with blackish-red smoke. It looks like a volcano erupting. There are no fireworks in New Mexico tonight.

Soon we are out of sight of the fires and heading into the red canyons of Abiquiu, home of Georgia O'Keefe. I hardly have words to describe this ride. Some of the monoliths look like drip castles made of sand with smooth rounded edges, others like distinctly striped mounds of pure color, others like sharp jagged cliffs. It is all sculpture. We wind through this land that looks like Tatooine (a clever Star Wars refernece) and page out of a doctor Seuss book for about 100 miles. We crest a hill, and then, green. Green grass, green conifers, green wildflowers, green aspens- a beautiful, expansive, verdant valley. North western NM is a land all its own. There are a lot of sheep grazing up here, and we pass the HQ for Tierra Wools, which I think is the business with the best looking ads in all the fiber mags.

We have managed to travel N.M from toe to tip, and it has been absolutely amazing. I am grateful to have lingered so long in this beautiful, beloved land.

On a tangent, I thought a lot about why I was so cranky yesterday, and I realize it's because I wasn't getting to see any of my old familiar places in New Mexico. I was hoping for a reunion tour of all of my old haunts that I haven't seen in all these years; my massage school and apartment in Albuquerque, the road from there to Madrid, and Taos. I didn't get to see any of them, and the one I saw, sucked. Instead, I saw a side to Santa Fe that I'd never seen, tiny towns in the Lincoln Valley that I didn't know existed, and a drive though northwest New Mexico that has knocked my socks off. My lesson is this: while there is nothing to parallel the specific joy of revisiting what is known and familiar, there is another joy that comes with discovery and newness, and that we are vast enough to experience both without needing to displace one for the other.

We are sleeping in a campground in Pegosa Springs CO tonight. This is a touristy town surrounded real live snow capped mountains (in the summer!). We had dinner at the Pegosa Brewery. If you find yourself here, have a beer and eat somewhere else.

As I write, Pegosa Springs is putting on a pretty impressive firework display, which we can see perfectly from our quiet campsite on the pond. The light green San Juan river flows just out of sight. The waxing crescent moon has just set behind the ridge. It's been an incredible day.