On the Road Again (temporarily)

I'm sitting in our room at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, NM while Annie snoozes. Yesterday, we had a short road trip north to Trinidad, Colorado to meet Annie's sister Elizabeth her husband Tom who were traveling west for a family reunion. We met for a picnic lunch in a little park by the river. Also along with Betsy & Tom are Patrick, Liam, Bridget, and the newest addition to the family, Bridget's son Rowan. I'll post some pictures of them later, but for now, let me catch you up on the last few days.

It's hard to believe we arrived in TorC almost two weeks ago. We pulled into town with only fumes in the gas tank (note the "distance to empty" display in our van) and booked a room for a week at the Charles Hot Springs Resort and began to explore Truth or Consequences. After two weeks, we still haven't taken a bath in the Hot Springs which originally drew us to this place. With temperatures in the 90's, the idea of sitting in hot water isn't all that appealing. Within two days of our arrival, we found a house to rent (see our previous post). We found the place on Craig's List while traveling and it was the first and only place we looked at. We ended up staying at the Charles for only 5 nights before moving in and beginning the process of furnishing our new home. The only detail remaining is Phone & Internet, which should be hooked up tomorrow. Before we even moved in, Annie had scoured the local greenhouses and we began planting in the yard. There was a flagstone walkway which was difficult for Annie to negotiate in a wheelchair or with her walker, so I dug up the stones and made a small rock garden. Our house is one of three units on a small city lot right in the historic Hot Springs District. The other two units face Charles Street. Our little house (about 650 square feet) faces the alley behind. It faces south and the drive and yard are shaded until around 10 in the morning. Annie is like a little Anole lizard and likes to sit in the sun first thing in the morning to get warmed up before starting her day, so I wheel her across the street to the vacant lot filled with gravel and tumble-weeds, (behind me and to the left in the photo) where she sits and drinks her coffee. We spend several early mornings at yard sales. I do mean early mornings! Because of the mid-day heat, they generally run from 7-11am. Here's Annie outside our front door, one of our favorite shady spots to sit with a glass or iced tea. This retirement thing is not for the faint-hearted. There's so much to do: Get up and check the weather, make iced tea, move from the sun into the shade when the day starts to heat up, make more iced tea, take a nap when the day's too warm, then repeat the above.

Saturday. July 4th, was an especially busy day. We picked up a practically new sofa with built-in double recliner at a yard sale for a ridiculously cheap price. We were home by 9am and Annie reminded me that it was Farmer's Market Day. We trundled down to Ralph Edwards Park and bought fresh vegetables, local honey, roasted Pinon Nuts and local eggs, then I met a trumpet player that was playing in the park accompanied by a drummer and a bass player whose accomplishments could best be described as minimal. We got to talking and he invited me to go home and get my sax. I played with them for about 45 minutes and then he invited Annie and I to his house for drinks and to watch the fireworks. He and his wife have been in town for a little over a year and he's looking for places to play. We plan to play on the sidewalk this coming weekend for the weekly ArtWalk. To give you an idea of Real Estate prices here, they bought their house a year ago for $140,000. It's probably close to 2,000 square feet with all new tile floors, new cabinets, landscaping, beautiful stucco arches over the entry and a backyard that drops straight down to the Rio Grande and looks across at Turtleback Mountain. The Rio Grande is actually larger here than it is downstream on the Tex-Mex border. It is a beautiful green, as are many of the rivers in the area, and flows out of the Elephant Butte Reservoir, just north-east of town. The city of Elephant Butte is much more upscale than TorC, with higher priced homes, but the place itself is butt-ugly: dry and barren with a view of speedboats on the lake and miles of sandy desert. There was a picture in the paper this week of a 50 pound striped bass caught in the reservoir, so i can understand the attraction, but I'll take our little town with its cheap rents and funky shops anytime. Well, I've rambled on for long enough this morning. We have to head home and get busy resting up for whatever happens next.